10.25.09
The Unattended Children’s Cookbook
Seen yesterday at the Texas Renaissance Faire:
It was sitting on top of this:
10.23.09
Questions for Atheists: Church, State and Social Justice
Mike Clawson here…
So some of you know that I am currently back in graduate school working towards a PhD in Religious History. This affords me lots of opportunity to read fascinating books and contemplate interesting ideas, unfortunately it doesn’t often afford me much time to actually write about any of them, either here or at my own blog. However, the other day I was reading about the history of Methodism in America and came across an interesting paragraph that made me wonder about a few things that I really wanted to run by you all here. Speaking of the struggles over slavery among Methodists in the mid-nineteenth century, Frederick Norwood writes:
“In slavery we have a clear case of the unavoidable mingling of church history and economic history. Try as they would to stay out of secular affairs, churchmen were caught up in events. Slavery, slave revolts, and the underground railroad pressed in upon the church as powerfully as upon business and finance. Churchmen might claim to stay out of politics – but they could not.”
Let me first just say that I very much support the separation of church and state. I don’t want any government dictating to people what they have to believe, nor do I want any religious groups trying to legislate their own morality on others. I am especially angered and embarrassed by the political agenda and actions of the Religious Right who are explicit about their desire to “take back America for God.” On this issue, I stand united with the atheists here for the continued separation of church and state.
However, Norwood’s account of the abolitionist movement among Methodists 150+ years ago reminded me once again that sometimes things are not quite so cut and dried. You see, while I support the separation of church and state, I also strongly support numerous other social justice causes – e.g. racial reconciliation, the abolition of modern slavery, fair wages and fair trade, environmental protection, active international peacemaking, Third World debt reduction, immigration rights, women’s rights, GLBT rights, etc. – and actively encourage other Christians and churches to do the same, not just as an add-on to their faith, but as an essential component of it. According to my own personal understanding of Christianity, these sorts of things are inseparable from the meaning of the gospel. However, these issues are also inherently “political”. I can’t get involved in these issues without stepping onto the turf of “the State”.
Now of course I can do this as an individual citizen with no problem, but what about as a pastor? (I no longer lead a church community, but I did for three years, and often faced this dilemma.) Am I crossing a line by encouraging my members to actively engage with these issues? Should a church community take up a social cause, abolishing modern slavery or supporting GLBT rights for example, that directly involves influencing the legislative process? Is that blurring the line between church and state too much?
Also, does it make a difference to you that my faith leads me to support “liberal” or “progressive” social causes, versus “conservative” ones? I mean, I’m still attempting to “impose my own religious morality” on society – it just so happens that my particular religious morality leads me, for instance, to support rights for GLBT folks rather than restrict them. But should that make a difference? Does the “wall of separation” only protect us from religious opinions we don’t happen to like?
And before any of you answer too quickly in favor of the church staying completely out of politics regardless of the issue, stop and consider the historical examples. Do we tend to applaud and affirm the numerous churches who just stood on the sidelines of the slavery issue and refused to take a stand way back then? Or fast-forward to the Civil Rights era – would most of us have preferred that Martin Luther King Jr. had just kept his mouth shut, since, after all, he was speaking and acting as a religious leader out of a religious motivation (don’t forget that the organization he founded was called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference)? Do we tend to look favorably on the many, many other church leaders who just stood by in that fight and refused to stand with MLK because he was just “too political”? Was it okay for them to avoid speaking out for justice by hiding behind “separation of church and state”?
Or to take an even more extreme example, what about Nazi Germany? I am currently taking a class on the life and theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who was among a handful of clergymen that actively took a stand against the Third Reich, and who eventually ended up being executed in a prison camp for participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Do we say that Bonhoeffer did the right thing by getting involved in “politics”, or should he have just stayed out of it, as so many other churchmen did back then? Don’t we typically condemn the church (Lutheran, Catholic, whatever) for not having the courage to speak out against Hitler and his genocide against the Jews when they had the chance? But of course, for them to do so, as Bonhoeffer did, would have required a suspension of any kind of separation of church and state.
So I guess that’s my question – in your opinion, is the separation of church and state an absolute principle, or do exceptions apply for matters of social justice? And if the latter, then where do we draw the line? How much involvement is too much, and when is it not yet nearly enough?
Again, when I was a pastor this was a question I had to deal with on a regular basis. I have my own thoughts on it, but my mind is in no way settled on the issue, so I would be very much interested to hear yours as well.
Peace…
10.21.09
Science or Sexism?
Mike Clawson here… I just wanted to call your attention to an interesting set of articles I recently encountered.
This one by Lauren Sandler cites a few scientific studies (including one highlighted by Richard Dawkins, and another conducted by Michael Shermer) to suggest that women are more religious than men because they are evolutionarily, biologically, or psychologically conditioned to be more emotional or social and therefore less rational than men.
This response by Jessica Glaser at Emerging Women, on the other hand, points out that this hypothesis is exceptionally condescending and not really that much different than the same old sexist arguments that have been used to denigrate and restrict women for centuries. She challenges the notion that women are less rational than men, or that the greater religiosity of women over men is evidence of or explained by such a hypothesis.
What say you?
09.21.09
The Rapture (revised version)
Mike Clawson here again…
I’m sure many of you are familiar with those horrendous/disturbing/hilarious “Chick Tracts” – those, little cartoon tracts that express some of the most extreme Fundamentalist theology out there; e.g. Catholics aren’t really Christians and the Pope is the Anti-Christ, role-playing games are a recruiting tool for full blown witchcraft and Satan worship, “Christian” rock musicians have sold their soul to Lucifer, STDs are God’s punishment for having sex outside of marriage, etc. Even as a Christian it is usually pretty annoying/disturbing to read one, so I can only imagine how they must come across to atheists.
Maybe you’ve seen this one that deals with the End Times and the Rapture:
Well, an acquaintance of mine, the Irish postmodern writer/philosopher Pete Rollins just recently took this whole theme and created a parody version of a Chick Tract, but with a very different message.
Unfortunately the whole tract is not up online yet (though you can see a few panels here), and currently the only way to get a copy is in person from Pete (which my wife managed to do this past weekend at a conference they were both speaking at). However Pete did post the basic text of it online and I’ve copied it below. Read it all the way through to get to the twist at the end.
The Rapture
by Peter Rollins
Just as it was written by those prophets of old, the last days of the Earth overflowed with suffering and pain. In those dark days a huge pale horse rode through the Earth with Death upon its back and Hell in its wake. During this great tribulation the Earth was scorched with the fires of war, rivers ran red with blood, the soil withheld its fruit and disease descended like a mist. One by one all the nations of the Earth were brought to their knees.
Far from all the suffering, high up in the heavenly realm, God watched the events unfold with a heavy heart. An ominous silence had descended upon heaven as the angels witnessed the Earth being plunged into darkness and despair. But this could only continue for so long for, at the designated time, God stood upright, breathed deeply and addressed the angels,
“The time has now come for me to separate the sheep from the goats, the healthy wheat from the inedible chaff”
Having spoken these words God slowly turned to face the world and called forth to the church with a booming voice,
“Rise up and ascend to heaven all of you who have who have sought to escape the horrors of this world by sheltering beneath my wing. Come to me all who have turned from this suffering world by calling out ‘Lord, Lord’”.
In an instant millions where caught up in the clouds and ascended into the heavenly realm. Leaving the suffering world behind them.
Once this great rapture had taken place God paused for a moment and then addressed the angels, saying,
“It is done, I have separated the people born of my spirit from those who have turned from me. It is time now for us leave this place and take up residence in the Earth, for it is there that we shall find our people. The ones who would forsake heaven in order to embrace the earth. The few who would turn away from eternity itself to serve at the feet of a fragile, broken life that passes from existence in but an instant.”
And so it was that God and the heavenly host left that place to dwell among those who had rooted themselves upon the earth. Quietly supporting the ones who had forsaken God for the world and thus who bore the mark God. The few who had discovered heaven in the very act of forsaking it.
Just speaking personally, I love Pete’s twist on this traditional Fundamentalist doctrine, and the way he subtly points out how self-serving and uncompassionate it truly is. And I love the message that it is those who care more about the suffering and injustice in this world than they do about escaping it to be with God that are actually closest to God’s own heart (I, and I think Pete too, would say, in spite of whether one believes in that God or not). That reflects my own belief and what it means to me to still call myself a Christian.
Of course, I know that for the atheists here, Pete’s theology is probably still irrelevant to you (not believing in God in the first place and all 
). However, I wanted to share this with you guys if only because I thought you might take encouragement from seeing at least one more progressive Christian standing up to and subverting the repulsive theology of the Fundamentalists in his own way (as I know many of you are often prodding more of us to do).
I also thought it might serve as inspiration for some of your own acts of subversion and resistance. How cool would an atheist Chick Tract be?! What might it be like? What would you include? And more importantly, would you be willing to pass it out on street corners or leave in lieu of tips at restaurants in order to spread the good news of atheism?
(UPDATE: After I wrote that, I did a quick google search just to see if there were any atheist Chick tracts out there. I found this one.)
P.S. Speaking of the Rapture, apparently it was supposed to happen today. I guess I missed it. Can’t say I’m exactly surprised. 
09.20.09
Mr. Deity & the Skeptic
Hey, Mike Clawson here again. Sorry I’ve been scarce around here this past year. Between going back to graduate school (working towards a PhD in Religion/History), and taking care of the kiddos so my wife could work on her book (Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices, now available on Amazon!) and travel for speaking gigs, I haven’t had much time to keep up with all the interesting conversations going on here at Friendly Atheist, much less post anything myself. However, I was surfing the web the other day and came across this hilarious video that I knew y’all would get a kick out of.
Basic premise: Michael Shermer dies and has to talk his way into heaven with Mr. Deity and “the Boy”.
Best Line: Mr. Deity – “Is your integrity worth an eternity of hell-fire? I don’t think so.”
Best Subtle Visual: Mr. Deity munching on a banana in the post-clip sponsor commercial.
Enjoy!
03.24.09
God’s Politics on the Atheist Bus Ads
Mike Clawson here again…
Eugene Cho, an emerging church pastor from Seattle, has commented on the atheist bus ads soon to come to his city over at Sojourners’ God’s Politics blog. In this post, as well as two others at his own blog, he rolls his eyes at fellow Christians who get all reactive and bent out of shape over these ads, and then lists three reasons why he sees these bus ads as good things:
1. Christians shouldn’t feel entitled to anything. We live in a larger marketplace — if you will — and we need to compete to have our voice expressed and heard. Maybe it’s my upbringing in San Francisco and living the past 12 years in Seattle, but while at times it’s tiresome, I enjoy living in a culture and context where the culture isn’t dominated by the christianese subculture. Being a follower of Christ isn’t part of the cultural expectation but a choice that one must live out.
2. I find it funny that “atheists” are identified by an opposition to the belief of God. It’s a reactive belief system. To atheists: What is your purpose?
3. Conversation. They’ve invested tons of money in these advertisements and, frankly, it’s probably been the greatest recent catalyst for conversation about God for many people and churches. It’s like free advertisement for theists and Christians.
I also like his suggestion that as soon as some Christians in Seattle fund their own set of ads in response, he’s going to launch his own campaign and website:
http://can’twefindbetterthingstoinvestourmoneyinlikehomelesspovertywatereducationmalariaetc.com
I’d be all about that campaign.
03.19.09
Impeaching the Pope?
Mike Clawson here…
My wife has a new post up at the God’s Politics Blog (Jim Wallis’ organization) on a recent Washington Post editorial by Robert McElvaine suggesting that there ought to be a way for Catholics to impeach the Pope. She uses it as a springboard to talk about whether and how more progressive Christians should stand up to the extremist voices in our own religion that are giving all of us a bad name. She gives a shout out to y’all here at Friendly Atheist, noting that the bad behavior of fundamentalists and other loud and extreme Christian voices tend to drown out those of us who are trying to do some good through our religion, to the point where some of you guys have a hard time believing non-fundamentalist Christians are even out there. Anyhow, her main point is in agreement with what I’ve often heard many of you say here: that liberal and progressive Christians really need to start stepping up and stop letting the extremists hijack our religion.
Of course, given that the God’s Politics blog tends to act as a lightning rod for all the fundies who hate the idea of “progressive evangelicalism” in the first place, there’s been a lot of outrage directed at my wife’s post in the comments. I thought some of you here might be interested in checking it out and even possibly weighing in with an atheist perspective on the whole issue. I think it might help some of them to see how much even outsiders to Christianity also want to see liberal Christians standing up to the Right wing of our faith and not letting them get away with so much shit.
02.20.09
“Talk Amongst Yourselves”: Bertrand Russell Quote
Mike Clawson here…
I’m going to try something new. In addition to the typical posts I usually put up, I’m going to start occasionally just throwing out a quotation from something I’m reading or have encountered, sans commentary, and just invite any and all of you to comment, critique or reflect on it as you so desire. No agenda on my part, just stuff that I thought would be interesting to hear others’ thoughts on.
So here’s a Betrand Russell quote I encountered this morning. This is from his essay “A Free Man’s Worship”. To give the context, Russell has just quoted the Mephistophelian account of creation as the performance of a quite heartless and capricious being, and then he proceeds:
Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
How, in such an alien and inhuman world, can so powerless a creature as Man preserve his aspirations untarnished? A strange mystery it is that Nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular hurryings through the abysses of space, has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power, but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking Mother. In spite of Death, the mark and seal of the parental control, Man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine, to criticize, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs; and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his outward life…
Brief and powerless is Man’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.
Do you resonate with Russell’s words? Do you resist them? Find them inadequate? What do you think of his main point? (In my best Mike Meyer’s impression) “Talk amongst yourselves…”
02.19.09
The Christians Beat You To It
Mike Clawson here…
Atheists may think they have the corner on baby-eating, but I was just recently reading a Christian text from the early third century that addresses some of the many accusations that Romans tended to make against Christians, and I noticed this:
The notoriety of the stories told of the initiation of new recruits [to Christianity] is matched by their ghastly horror. A young baby is covered over with flour, the object being to deceive the unwary. It is then served before the person to be admitted into their rites. The recruit is urged to inflict blows onto it – they appear to be harmless because of the covering of flour. Thus the baby is killed with wounds that remain unseen and concealed. It is the blood of this infant – I shudder to mention it – it is this blood that they lick with thirsty lips; these are the limbs they distribute eagerly; this is the victim by which they seal their covenant; it is by complicity in this crime that they are pledged to mutual silence; these are their rites, more foul than all sacrileges combined.
Seems we Christians were eating babies long before atheists came on the scene.
And the passage continues:
We all know, too, about their banquets… On a special day they gather for a feast with all their children, sisters, mothers – all sexes and all ages. There, flushed with the banquet after such feasting and drinking, they begin to burn with incestuous passions. They provoke a dog tied to the lampstand to leap and bound towards a scrap of food which they have tossed outside the reach of his chain. By this means the light is overturned and extinquished, and with it common knowledge of their actions; in the shameless dark with unspeakable lust they copulate in random unions, all equally being guilty of incest, some by deed, but everyone by complicity. For whatever may happen in individual cases is the general aspiration and desire of them all.
Baby eating and incestuous sex orgies! Now how are you going to compete with that?
02.08.09
Book Review: Nature’s Witness
Mike Clawson (NOT Hemant) here…
Last month I promised a review of Daniel Harrell’s new book, Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith. This is a book written by a Christian pastor for other Christians, but on a topic that I know many of you have an interest in: the intersection of Christian faith and evolutionary science. I have written a more detailed review of the book from my own Christian perspective on my blog. However, there are a number of reasons I think some of you here may also appreciate this book. (And I do stress “some”. I realize that others of you here have nothing but contempt for any attempt by Christians to integrate their faith with scientific discoveries, and the only thing I can say is that if that’s the case, then this review is not for you and you may just want to skip over it.)
- This book takes the discussion well past the basic question of “Is it possible to reconcile Genesis 1 with evolution?” Since I answered that question for myself in the affirmative way back in high school, I’m a bit weary of books that rehash this discussion over and over again. Harrell thankfully spends little time on this. Instead he takes the discussion to the next level and asks “If we assume that evolutionary theory is true, what impact does it have on our conception of God?” As I mentioned in my previous post, Harrell points out that if God exists and is the creator of all things, then evolution is itself a creation of God, and therefore should be able to tell us something about God’s character and nature. In other words, he sees science as a positive source for his theology, not just a challenge to it. Throughout the book Harrell is engaged with the latest discoveries of biology, physics and cosmology, and often allows the science to inform and/or modify his beliefs about God.
- Harrell is brutally honest about the doubts and questions he has about his own faith, and about the difficulties evolution poses for his previous Christian beliefs. He doesn’t whitewash anything or pose any easy or overly simplistic answers. In fact, the bulk of the book is spent simply raising difficult questions. Indeed, he kept digging himself in so deep, there were times when I was almost convinced that Harrell would have no choice but give up his faith in the end (spoiler alert: he doesn’t). I really appreciate an author who writes with more humility than certainty, and who is willing to say “I’m not sure how this all works out, but here’s some possibilities.” It’s refreshing given the large number of books out there these days (on both sides) that take a more absolutist tone.
- He is thoroughly opposed to any kind of “God of the gaps” reasoning. Though the book itself only tangentially deals with reasons to believe in God (it’s not really an apologetics book after all, which will likely frustrate some atheist readers), when it does touch on the relation of God and science, Harrell is adamant that we not try to locate God merely in those areas where science does not yet have an answer. Instead he is clear that the Christian God is the God of nature, not in spite of it. As Harrell points out, “A natural explanation is not a godless explanation because God made nature. The natural world is evidence of his mind-blowing skill.” (70) Thus a “God of the gaps” approach simply misses the point.
At any rate, I would recommend this book either for atheists who have been of the persuasion that evolution is irreconcilably opposed to Christian belief and would be interested in hearing a differing viewpoint, or for ones who may find it useful to give to Christian friends or family to dissuade them from their hostility toward evolutionary science. I’d also recommend it for anyone who needs to be encouraged by the fact that not all people of faith have closed their minds to scientific truth. If any of these describe you, check it out.
