Some responses to Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens has recently been in Sydney, appearing on the ABC's Q&A program, and being interviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald, as well as being a speaker in the recent Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

I have responded mainly to the interview in the Herald, addressing some of Hitchens' errors and those of his followers:

ILLOGIC

First, Hitchens argues from particular wrongs committed by some religious people to a general blanket condemnation of religion. This is a breach of simple logic. It is in the same class as the false syllogism, "My dog is black, therefore all dogs are black."

Yes, some religious people do evil. And some doctors are paedophiles. Is medicine evil? Religion is a framework: how people use it varies. Paedophile doctors can use the internet as a framework for a paedophile circle. Is the fault in the framework, or in how people use it?

There is probably some truth in the idea that some religions are more prone to harbouring a particular kind of evil than others are. Catholicism's tendency to attract paedophiles possibly indicates that a celibate priesthood provides a good disguise for such people, while Islam's early spread through military campaigns almost certainly fuels the terrorists who hide within that religion. Some forms of Protestantism are influenced by the belligerence of people like John Knox and are prone to intransigence and argumentativeness. But even these concessions do not demonstrate that all religious people are like that, in fact they weaken Hitchens' arguments even further.

IS ATHEISM A RELIGION?

In the various discussions of Hitchens, debate arises over whether atheism is a religion or not.

As a teenager, I was a theist in that I believed it most probable that God exists, but it had no consequences for how I should relate to him, to other people, or to the environment. Therefore I was a non-religious theist.

So it is true, but disingenuous, to claim that atheism is not a religion, because "Hitchkinsism" - and most modern atheism - is a far more worked-out philosophy than the mere atheist statement, "God does not exist." This is clear from the writings of people like Hitchens and Dawkins (hence "Hitchkinsism"). They believe that atheism is at the heart of saving the world, socially, environmentally, intellectually... They believe that atheism must conquer all other worldviews. They believe that their brand of atheism is the key to unlock world peace, and that believers must be removed in order for this to happen.

LEGITIMATION OF PERSECUTION

It troubles me that followers of Hitchens, Dawkins and other radical atheists push these negative descriptions of believers so fervently. And their leaders don't ever seem to correct their calls for the removal of belief with any kind of appeal for toleration of the kind I regularly see from, say, Christians, when talking of atheists.

I hasten to add that most atheists I know are unlikely to murder believers in their beds. They are, like most believers, moral people. In fact, it is mainly those of a Hitchensesque bent -- strident atheists -- who use against religious people, particularly Christians, similar arguments to those used against Jews 70 years ago. It may seem mere intellectual debate to describe believers as war-mongerers, unintelligent, paedophiles, suicide bombers, circumcisers of females and so on. But it is actually far more sinister.

From a sociological viewpoint, what they are doing is isolating a group or groups in order to define them as non-persons. And history demonstrates that this is often the prelude to violence against the isolated group. Good people will deplore the violence, but, "...after all, these people sort of bring it on themselves." Aggression towards believers is legitimated by this use of language.

The movie, The Fisher King, demonstrates how legitimation works. Geoff Bridges' shock jock character didn't pull the trigger, he just made it possible for a deranged shooter to justify his own actions.

We all must take responsibility for our words and accusations, the more particularly if we have a wide audience.

RELIGION AND ETHICS

Hitchens claims that religious people believe that religion is the sole key to knowing right from wrong.

Contrary to Hitchens, this is actually (from an evangelical Protestant point of view) a mark of false religion and erroneous thinking, St Paul specifically addresses it in his letter to the Romans. Some Jewish Christians in that church considered themselves superior to Gentile Christians because Jews have the law. Paul points out that the law does no more than make us aware of our failure.

Let's think about this false view. If God, the creator of all, is the source of morality, then human beings should have an innate moral capacity. It is part of our human nature quite apart from whether or not a person believes in God. Empirically, we can see that unbelievers mostly act ethically, and so do believers. The reason is that it is built into us. In addition, we know that society goes better if we do right rather than wrong.

So it is in our own interest to act ethically. Doing good is good for ourselves and those close to us, at the very least. And how can self-interested action gain us heavenly rewards? That idea treats God as a celestial whore, dispensing favours to the one who does most good, to the one who is the best payer. Trying to gain heaven through doing good is just plain unethical!

Hitchens should admit, though, that religious thinkers have often been at the forefront of ethical thinking. Jesus, for example, corrected his Pharisaic co-religionists by pointing out that the mere fact of refraining from an evil deed when one really wants to do it does not make a person truly holy. Christianity was moving towards an anti-slavery position even before Lanfranc (Bishop of Canterbury) tried to repress it in around 1100AD, or the Quakers (about 1650) decided to disfellowship any member holding slaves.

But the bottom line is that Christianity is not about doing right to gain points with God. It is about how a loving God has stepped in to rescue from despair, failure and destruction all who, acknowledging their sin and failure, repent and trust in Jesus Christ's finished saving work.

CHURCH, STATE AND ATHEISM

Hitchens is reported in the Herald article as arguing that Church and State must be separated. The link between the Church of England and the English Government is certainly a lot closer than the links between any church and the Australian Government, nevertheless, I mainly agree with him.

I hasten to add that total separation is neither possible nor practical. Believers live within and participate in their States.

To remove their voting rights or to prevent their holding Government positions or being elected to Parliament would be undemocratic and probably lead to civil war.

To prevent religious people from commenting on social and political issues would rob the State of vital information for the running of Government, just because churches, synagogues and mosques are in touch with what people think, what is happening in their communities, what the vital issues are.

To force religions out of welfare, education, health care, and half a dozen other fields would cause the collapse of the institutions in these fields, many of which are run by religious bodies.

However, I point out that the Anabaptists, from their beginnings in 1525, tried to live out radical separation of church and state. In England, the Baptists, in 1612, began campaigning, through pamphlets, preaching, and other methods, while the Quakers (1640s) followed the Anabaptists. That great scholar of The Enlightenment, John Locke, in his post Glorious Revolution (1688) writings perhaps did little more than copy his religious antecedents.

An unwelcome Turning Point

An inquest is just finishing in Sydney into the death of Rebekah Lawrence, who became highly distressed after attending a four day seminar run by a group known as Turning Point. During and for several days after her course, she displayed symptoms of psychosis. On her final day alive, she became abusive towards fellow workers, took off her clothes, and plunged to her death from an upper floor of her workplace.

Psychologists and psychiatrists in evidence before the inquest have been very critical of the techniques used by Turning Point, particularly when staff lacked training to deal with extreme reactions to the experience. It has also emerged that Mrs Lawrence is not the only person to have suffered an extreme reaction after a Turning Point seminar and end her life.

Adele Horin's article in the Sydney Morning Herald, You can't change habits of a lifetime in a weekend of self-help classes (22 August) contains a lot of wisdom about "self help" groups like Turning Point, but misses some important issues.

As T.S. Kuhn and several others have pointed out, most change does come through a crisis, often described in terms of conversion or paradigm shift; there is a period of confrontation with and resistance to the new, followed by a stage of brokenness where a person undergoes re-orientation, and then the person enters the new understanding and altered behaviour patterns.

As a born-again Christian (Goulburn Street Open Air Campaigners, 1962) I am well aware of how this works. Conversion may alter one's orientation in a flash, but the transformation may take a little longer. I suppose that the scientists who, in a crisis-type paradigm shift, abandoned the phlogiston theory of heat in favour of modern molecular energy theories still had to do a lot of work on what that actually means in practical terms.

Adele mentions the transformations which born-again Christians go through.

She writes, "To experience ''a permanent shift in the quality of your life'' as Landmark promises is theoretically possible after a single mind-blowing weekend, I suppose. After all, born-again Christians are transformed after an even briefer encounter session with Jesus. But real transformation, say from being an angry person into a calm and considered one, mostly takes years of committed effort, the acquisition of specific skills and self-understanding - and even then success is not assured."

What she does not pick up on is that, while groups like Turning Point have adopted many of the practices of American evangelism -- and it is clear that she is not attempting to draw comparisons here -- there are some very basic differences.

Most evangelical churches today have been influenced by psycholgical and sociological theories and have modified their practices accordingly. So I find it useful to think back to how things were around the time I was converted, when most every day, garden-variety Christians still saw psychology as anti-Christian mumbo-jumbo and hadn't even heard of sociology.

The little Baptist church which I began attending around the time I was converted did not have members with a highly analytical mindset. But we had some rough theories about conversion.

First, we were a little suspicious of the sudden convert. After all, Jesus said that the seed which springs up rapidly is most likely to die off rapidly, because it has no depth of soil. Yes, there were out-of-the-blue conversions which lasted, but they were rare.

On the other hand, we did expect fairly significant changes in a convert. If you were converted, then things must necessarily change. We relied on a mistranslated verse: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the former things have passed away: everything has become new. A new convert was not just someone who had repented and believed, but was transformed into a new mode of existence. That had to show!

The reality is that this verse, accurately translated says something like, If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation... that is, it is not so much that I have changed my kind, but that I have begun living in a new realm, with all the attendant difficulties and adjustments which face anyone who moves to unfamiliar territory. Once again, a process.

We were also adept at noticing people "under conviction" -- going through a struggle about whether or not to commit to Christ. That is, we knew that the conversion experience was the culmination of a process.

The second thing is that we knew that even the dramatic, life changing conversion needed support. That support was not an endless round of evangelistic services, though the Sunday when someone did not come to a personal faith was rare. But much of church life revolved around getting together for a social night or the monthly fellowship tea, being part of the choir or spending Saturday in a working bee at the Protestant Homes. A changed lifestyle, a changed community and encouragement to look outward as well as self-assess all remain part of the healing process.

Also, we knew the value of one-on-one support. A weakness was an unwillingness to refer people to counselling outside the church (not that much was available); a strength was that we recognised that everyone struggles and needs a friend from time to time. Knowing that you are being prayed for and will probably be asked next week, "How are you going?" is a powerful incentive to keep on the path!

Sadly it seems that too many of these self-help groups lack the broader insights that have informed churches for centuries. And the result is too many Rebekah Lawrences.

Church planting in Waterloo

I don't think of myself in church planting terms. Someone described me this morning as "...kind, patient and understanding... filled with useless facts." I'm a resource person and more inclined to encourage someone to do what he or she has already felt called to do than to direct a person into a project.

I like the Quaker idea of the "bundle of responsibility." We all have a duty to find and fulfil that responsibility in life. If I can help you find that, well and good; but I am unlikely to try to tell anyone what it is.

And, last night, I was involved in the first night of what, I pray, might be the launch of a Christian fellowship, maybe even a Baptist fellowship, at Waterloo, a southern inner suburb of Sydney.

In 1998, the denomination considered encouraging our little church at Marrickville to close down so that the money could be used to plant churches on the expanding periphery of Sydney.

I considered that a crazy idea, and my opinions were justified when I plotted the "reach" of existing churches onto a map and found a large wedge south of Sydney where there was little evangelical and no Baptist work. It also happened to cover the Green Square urban renewal project. I argued that opening gaps in inner city work to expand on the periphery was counter productive.

I approached this as a Town Planner (my former profession), not as a church planter.

After many discussions with different people, I concluded that it was unlikely that any outreach would commence here in a hurry. But I was pleased when a couple with church planting skills tried to start something, and saddened when it failed.

But I can see a glimmer of hope. It is a team effort. Jan, who moved into Waterloo, is a true evangelist, able to say, "I was lost, but now am found." She brings her neighbours and friends to church, and she saw the needs and found some on-the-ground opportunitites in Waterloo. She also arranged for us to use the Department of Housing meeting room, and organised refreshments.

Jay and Mouy picked up my suggestion that we take fellowship out to our people instead of expecting them to come in to us, and interpreted that in terms of a roster to go to different locations.

I put together a program; Nick suggested that this might be the time to roll it out.

So we got there, the same people who have met for over a year in Marrickville, but it's a start. We met some people and told them what our plans were. We waved to one or two who looked in but didn't come in. We smiled at the chap who ducked in for a biscuit and dashed off again.
It's all relationship-building.

Maybe we will eventually need a real church-planter. Meanwhile, we trust God and depend on your prayers!