Faith

I thought this was interesting from Gregg Easterbrook's review of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" on beliefnet:

Let me offer a point on which The God Delusion hits the bull's-eye, then close with two on which the book seems to land well wide of the mark. I agree with the chapter about the way religion is taught to the young. Adults who are themselves full of doubt regarding the claims of faith routinely teach biblical stories and ideas to children as facts. The God Delusion is right to denounce this. Children are "natural teleologians," Dawkins says, wanting everything to have a purpose--wanting to believe that clouds exist so flowers will get rain. Teaching them religion as if its claims about the past were undisputed exploits the child's unformed power of critical thinking, and lessens the value of any future spiritual beliefs. It's ridiculous to teach children the story of the Loaves and Fishes, or any such item, as history, though it might be. Children should be taught, "This is what scripture says about our past, and whether this true is one of the big questions of life. You must decide for yourself whether you will believe these claims."

I've heard other non-believers (like Bill Maher) make this point: that children are basically brain-washed into religion. And it's true, we do indoctrinate our children...train them from a young age and that's a good thing. And of course, there are also plenty of Christians who came to Christ as adults without the benefit of having their impressionable young minds molded. But I'm intrigued by the suggestion that, at some point, there's room for a more honest and mature conversation between parent and child where we can admit that we do have doubts...that we believe and want God to help our unbelief.

It was reported recently that the nation's largest church of Christ (Richland Hills in TX, 6400 members) has decided to add an instrumental service with communion on Saturday nights. By definition, churches of Christ don't use musical instruments in worship, right? I first heard about Richland Hill's decision via Mike Cope's blog where he re-posted an essay by Leroy Garrett. It has since been covered in The Christian Chronicle. Rick Atchley was quoted in the Chronicle saying he "...told the congregation the decision should help ease crowding at Richland Hills' two Sunday morning services. Moreover, he said, it will allow the congregation to "reach more people who need Christ." Frankly, the use instrumental music isn't fundamentally a big issue to me. We don't find a detailed game plan for worship in the NT like we do in the OT for a reason, I think, and arguments of exclusion don't seem adequate to me given the whole of scripture. On the other hand, about a decade or so ago, when we lived in Knoxville, a friend of ours had the habit of attending the Evangelical Free service on Sunday afternoon after attending the c of C assembly Sunday morning. We went with him once, and my observation was that I was distracted/bothered by my dislike for the style of music that accompanied the singing. Of course, acapella singing is also not a style of music for which I have an affinity, but regardless I've become accustomed to it via three and half decades of experience. So, as a matter of taste but not faith, I suspect I'd have a struggle (initially at least) with instrumental worship. And that's not to say that I have no appreciation for acapella music and the value of that tradition. In fact, I do wonder a little about the rational of adding instruments as a means to reach more people, as a missional tactic. There is probably some validity to that, but on the surface it seems like a close call as to whether becoming more like most of all the other Christian groups would lead to a wider or narrower catch in the end.

Via the Huffington Post, from an interview of Joel Hunter by David Roberts on grist.org:

Q: Some people might say the reason there's such enthusiasm around social issues like gay marriage and abortion and pornography is that people in the evangelical church are primarily called on to condemn other people. Once you bring in issues like poverty and global warming -- and more broadly, compassion for the least among you -- obligations turn on them. There's a little guilt. Is that too cynical? A: Not at all. Let's develop this conversation at a little deeper level. In Foreign Affairs, Walter Mead talked about the difference between fundamentalists and evangelicals. We make these differentiations in our own family of believers. Fundamentalists are always mad. They don't play well with others, and they feel tainted by any view other than the one they have. That is a pretty narrow segment, but a pretty attention-getting segment of Christianity. In terms of stereotype, that's what most people focus on when they see conservative Christianity. By the way, I don't say fundamentalists in the pejorative sense. I believe there is a legitimate reaction to what we would see as declining moral integrity in culture. But another reason it has been so popular is that anger is the greatest and most immediate way, not only to invoke a response and build an audience, but to raise money. We'll both be cynical here for a minute: One of the things fundamentalist churches have learned, have practiced, and continue to practice, is the best way to grow in influence and fundraising is to make people mad. And the best way to do that is to create an enemy. So from that standpoint you're right. But from another standpoint, a much larger portion of the church really does want to be more like Jesus. And that wasn't Jesus. Jesus didn't spend his time walking around yelling at people. His concern was for the vulnerable. As I often say, unless we start to care as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as we care for the vulnerable inside the womb, we won't have a picture of who Jesus was. There's a growing number of people who want to emphasize this. They're just not the people with a lot of money, or time to be self-righteous -- there are millions of us.

A month or so ago, I got engaged in a conversation on Scott Freeman's site about nonviolence. One of the commenters (an apparently otherwise reasonable, dedicated Christian fellow) said (apparently yelling at the time)"

"I BELIEVE WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING AS CHRISTIANS ABOUT ISLAM AND THE MUSLIMS.THEIR KORAN TELLS THEM THAT THOSE WHO DO NOT AGREE WITH THEM THEN THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL THEM.TODAY THERE ARE MORE THAN 6 MILLION NOW IN THE US AND OVER 2000 MOSQUE. SURAH 9:29 STATES "FIGHT THOSE WHO BELIEVE NOT IN ALLAH NOR THE LAST DAY. THEY TEACH JESUS'APOSTLES BECAME MUSLIMS. THEIR INTENT IS TO DESTROY CHRISTIANS AND IF YOU REALLY READ THE KORAN THIS IS MOST EVIDENT."

This got me kind of riled up - that the number muslims and mosques in the US is somehow evidence of an increasing threat. That in one fell swoop, the commenter lumped into one group the millions of law-abiding Muslim citizens of the US into the same category as that tiny, tiny number (remember, we're talking about people currently living in the US) of mentally-deranged jihadists who are poised to harm Christians and the population of the US in general. I wrote in response:

jihadists/Islamists are a minority of Muslims (a tiny or effectively non-existent minority in the US). It is unfair, bigoted, and counter-productive to lump all Muslims in the U.S. into the category of suspicion and threat that jihadists deserve - in the same way that it would be unfair, bigoted, and counter-productive to lump all Christians in the U.S. into the same category of danger that includes racist white-supremacist "Christians", the Olympic-park bomber Eric Rudolph associated with the Christian Identity movement, the militant Christian terrorists in Northern Ireland, etc. Lumping the 2 to 7 million Muslims living in the U.S. into the threat category harms the vast, vast majority of them who are no threat and does not help us identify the tiny, tiny minority who are.

I'm reminded of other xenophobia in the news lately like attaching significance to similarities between Obama's name and other infamous world figures or their Islamic origin (link), CNN's Glenn Beck asking a Muslim politician to prove to him that he isn't working with our enemies, and Virginia representative Virgil Goode's anti-Muslim letter to his constituents (Cenk Uygur make a good point about Goode's statement here). This came back into my mind when I listened to last weekend's installment of This American Life (episode 322, Shouting Across the Divide) (available for free as real audio on the show's web site, for free as a podcast in iTunes).

A Muslim woman persuades her husband that their family would be happier if they left the West Bank and moved to America. They do, and things are good, until September 11. After that, the elementary school their daughter goes to begins using a textbook that says Muslims want to kill Christians. This and other stories of what happens when Muslims and non-Muslims try to communicate, and misfire.

Give it a listen. The story of what happened to Serry's daughter is really disturbing and is the kind of thing that naturally arises from blanket demonization of muslims. If you are either or both of these: a) a patriot dedicated to the ideals of religious freedoms and personal rights that are foundational to our democratic republic or b) a disciple of Jesus who, therefore, values compassion and mercy and treating others with love as you would have yourself treated then surely you'll want to be careful not to do anything to contribute the kind of suffering experienced by Serry's daughter.

Updated: 2006-12-26 See Ellison's response to Goode's comments here. Aziz Huq posted a nice historical summary of muslims in America here

Updated: 2006-12-28 I'll provide more precise targets by briefly summarizing what I'm trying to say here, and anyone can specify exactly what is disagreeable and why.

1.a. There are dangerous, violent, radical muslims in the world. Some of them may be in the U.S.

1.b. There are dangerous, violent, radical Christians in the world. Some of them are in the U.S. (for example, Christian Identity movement and white supremacists)

2.a. Radical muslims have attacked us in recent years (for example, World Trade Center attack) and will remain a danger for the foreseeable future.

2.b. Radical Christians have attacked us in recent years (Olympic park bombing, bombing and shooting of abortion providers, maybe even the Oklahoma City bombing though I don't think McVeigh considered himself a Christian) and will remain a danger for the foreseeable future.

3.a. The vast majority of muslims in the U.S. are not violent radicals, but are law-abiding, nonviolent, are not a danger, and are not guilty by association with radical muslims whose actions they repudiate.

3.b. The vast majority of Christians in the U.S. are not violent radicals, but are law-abiding, nonviolent, are not a danger, and are not guilty by association with radical Christians whose actions they repudiate.

4.a. The number of mosques and muslims in the U.S. is not a rational measure of the threat posed by violent radical muslims.

4.b. The number of church buildings and Christians in the U.S. is not a rational measure of the threat posed by violent radical Christians.

5.a. Muslim school children should not be ridiculed and ostracized at school because of their religion (TAL 322).

5.b. Christian school children should not be ridiculed and ostracized at school because of their religion.

6.a. Muslim school children should not be proselytized for Christianity in public schools in the U.S. (TAL 322)

6.b. Christian school children should not be proselytized for Islam in public schools in the U.S.

While we're on the subject of religion on TV: I've watched the first couple episodes (out of six total) of "One Punk, Under God" (trailer), a documentary/reality series about Jay Bakker (son of Jim and Tammy Faye) on the Sundance Channel. The show follows Jay and (from the World of Wonder Productions web site):

his Revolution ministry in Atlanta, as he faces the struggles of putting together a new generation of Christian punk rockers.

The 6 episodes will structure around a story arc where Jay examines and tests out a chosen Biblical scripture to discuss in his weekly sermon. We follow as he wrestles with the interpretations in his daily life, and finish the episode with his final sermon, as he preaches to his church members.

The first episode introduced us to Jay and his ministry (the Revolution church meets in a bar/music venue-The Masquerade-in Atlanta) and focused on him coming to terms with his family's history. In the second episode, he struggles with the dilemma that if he speaks out regarding his convictions about homosexuality (he seems to have concluded that homosexuality is probably acceptable and, regardless, that the way the church engages the homosexual community is wrong) his ministry risks losing the significant funding it receives from more traditional/conservative religious groups. In the end, he speaks his mind, and the second episode leaves the viewer wondering what the fall-out will be…both for Revolution and for Jay's (non-existent) relationship with his father which he's trying to rekindle. So far I've enjoyed it. Lke God or the Girl (on A&E, I wrote a paragraph about it here) before it, it makes for entertaining viewing and is encouraging…young, interesting people earnestly trying to make a difference for Jesus…and finding a temporary home on secular TV. There's a nice review on Slate.