President Obama: Bad News For the New Atheists and Other Fundamentalists
The Obama presidency is great news for almost everyone. It's bad news for some odd ideological bedfellows: the Religious Right and the so-called New Atheists.
Into the all or nothing culture wars, and the all or nothing wars between the so-called New Atheists and religion the election of President elect Obama reintroduces nuance. President elect Obama's ability to believe in Jesus, yet question, is going to rescue American religion in general and Christianity in particular, from the extremes.
There is no way to understand President elect Obama's victory as anything less than the start of not just a monumental political change but a spiritual revolution as well.
Full disclosure: I was raised by American missionaries -- Francis and Edith Schaeffer -- who became leaders within the American Evangelical subculture. When I was in my twenties I was their sidekick. We Schaeffers had a lot to do with the formation of the Religious Right. (Sorry!) In the mid 1980s I escaped my tribe's literal-minded religion and currently go to a Greek Orthodox Church. I've also been one of President elect Obama's most vocal and prolific -- judging by the amount I've written -- supporters.
The pro and anti God industry churns. I know. I've worked this turf for years. But there is a new sheriff on the religion beat. He's smart! President elect Obama is a knowledgeable fan of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, has lectured seriously on his faith and the relationship of church and state, and is not a nominal Christian for political purposes, but someone who actually prays, believes and lives his faith.
To the New Atheists who think that with the resounding defeat of the Religious Right, we are entering a secular age, think again. Obama will block your path. He'll do it for the same reason he'll make the Religious Right's paranoid fantasies about him soon seem shamefully ridiculous. That's because President elect Obama is that rarest of all rare people: a thoughtful, compassionate and likable statesman who also is a thoughtful, compassionate and likable religious believer.
In the last few years there has been a spate of best selling books published that are for or against religion. All of them are by literalists who speak in fundamentalist tones. On the pro-religion side we find A Purpose Driven Life and the Left Behind series extolling a Jesus-solves-everything one note evangelical born-again message. On the flip side are the equally evangelistic one note New Atheist books including Sam Harris's The End of Faith, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great.
The New Atheists' books provided a context for Bill Maher's movie Religulous, the most blunt instrument imaginable. Maher's documentary expands what Harris started in his book The End of Faith. Harris begins his book with a scene of a young Islamic terrorist in Jerusalem smiling as he commits suicide while blowing up a bus full of innocent people. In Religulous, Maher gleefully includes many more images of look-how-crazy-God-makes-everyone, religion-inspired violence. The Harris/Maher message is as clear: the world would be better off without religion.
There is another message in the Maher/New Atheist oeuvre: everyone must think in categories stripped of allegory. Forget the idea that perhaps one may hold two contradictory ideas at the same time, say that none of the stories in the Bible happened as written, but that they are true in more subtle ways than mere historicity, or that we're nothing but jumped up chimps, but are also connecting to a deeper reality when we say, "the Lord is my shepherd" and hope that he is.
The New Atheists don't seem to "get" grown up allegory any more than the fundamentalists of the Religious Right do, let alone literary imagination. And both the Religious right and the New Atheists also seems oblivious to serious religious thinkers from Confucius to the Sufi poets, from Reinhold Niebur to one of Reinhold Niebuhr's biggest fans; President elect Obama.
Maher's world contains no Pastor Deitrick Bonhoffer (martyred for trying to assassinate Hitler, and who defined the intellectual and theological terms for resistance to state tyranny based on Christian ethics), or the intellectual man of letters and convert from atheism to the Roman Catholic Church, Malcolm Muggeridge, let alone an awareness of the prayers written by the "atheist" W.E.B. Du Bois for his students, a poignant demonstration that faith is not so easily abandoned.
But President elect Obama has spoken of the need to meld religious ethics with the philosophical underpinnings of statecraft, when for instance he says that the Democrats have been mistaken in not understanding that the abortion issue is first and foremost a moral issue.
On June 28, 2006, Senator Obama spoke at the Call to Renewal Conference sponsored by Sojourners. President elect Obama said:
"For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines... Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap... Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait... At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word 'Christian' describes one's political opponents, not people of faith..."I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.
"And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people... This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers... I speak with some experience on this matter.
"You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away -- because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey."It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.
"That's a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans -- evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values."
Pre the Religious Right take over the traditional focus of the Republican Party had been on foreign policy issues, the economy, military preparedness and a generally libertarian laissez-faire view of the world-things William F. Buckley, and Barry Goldwater would have recognized. This was replaced by the "religious ethics" of what I imagine as the Saturday Night Live Church Lady's older, stricter, uglier, dumber and terminally self-righteous big sister. This humorless desiccated hag remade the Republican image as the anti-everything party. And in doing so this hag also took down all religious people through guilt by association. And that is the context in which the evangelistic New Atheists emerged.
Okay, so a lot of religious people are nuts, or worse, intolerant. That still doesn't address the baby swirling down the Maher/New Atheist anti-religion drain along with the right wing bathwater they're flushing.
President-elect Obama brings another perspective to faith . It goes something like this:
How do cultures define themselves if not through ritual? In the "big moments" of life; birth, marriage, sickness, death "who" -- in the inimitable words of Ghost Busters -- "you gonna call?" As President elect Obama has said, and I paraphrase: Strip the human race of our spiritual language and what do we tell each other about hope?
As President elect Obama has pointed out, a world of all math but no poetry is not fit for human habitation. If everything feels flat and dull, stripped of mystery and meaning who will bother to do the science? Why bother, if all we're doing is serving those selfish genes for another round of meaningless propagation?
So does this faith always make "sense?" No. Because our perspective is from the inside, something like paint contemplating the painting of which it's a part. We're all in the same boat, all stuck on the same "canvas."
So let's admit we all share the problem that was best articulated by Darwin in his dairy: "Can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?"
As our new president recognizes, self-awareness and mortality are already such a mutually exclusive (and terrifying) contradiction that accepting a few more contradictions is par for the course! And President elect Obama has a generous enough spirit and a large enough intellect so that he can do with his spiritual life, what the Religious Right and the New Atheists have not done: understand that there is no shame in embracing paradox.
President Obama is about to make reasoned faith fashionable again. It's about time.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back. Now in paperback.
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
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Yesterday, a majority of Californians restricted the right to personal happiness of a very sizeable minority of their fellow citizens. The only reason I can think of is that they were more concerned about the feelings of the fictitious supernatural being they pray to, than about the feelings of many of the people they share their state with.
Applying religious rules to society makes as much sense as to apply sports rules: there are just too many variants and soon it will end up in a squabble. Do we apply the rules of baseball, football, tennis or figure skating? Just keep religion as a hobby and out of the public sector. As an example, trying to put into law the superiority of white socks would obviously be deeply offensive to those of the red footwear persuasion. However, what is happening now is the equivalent of red socks being banned because of some folks claiming that their holy book states that feet are meant to be covered in white garment and that red socks are an abomination.
Check out this video on Obama's views
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It would seem that Frank Schaeffer has never heard of PZ Myers little blog essay, "The Courtier's Reply."
PZ is amazing.
If you are an athiest, you see the world in one way. If you aren't, and are religious, you see the world in a different way. But does anyone really see the truth? I don't think so. Maybe both religious and non religious are right, or maybe both are wrong. Maybe god exists and doesn't at the same time. Preposterous? Not really. Quantum computers will soon harnass these concepts in a concrete way to perform their calculations (particles that exist yet don't at the same time), maybe for the masses.
Hmm, it looks like they still just don't get it. I can't speak for
all atheists, but I'm not bothered by Obama being a Christian. I'd
rather have an atheist in office, but he seems like a fair person.
This author seems to fall under the misconception that the "New
Atheists" are as anti-Christian as the Religious Right is
anti-atheist. Sorry, but unlike the Religious Right, we are only
really anti-government leveraged religion. We're not promoting
government leveraged atheism.
From what I've heard from Obama's speeches, he's not all about
entrenching religion in the White House. He seems to understand that
while this is a Christian nation, it is also a Jewish nation, a Muslim
nation, a Hindu nation, a Wiccan nation, an atheist nation and a
nation for all others, too. I do think he's a man of reason and
faith, but I think he has enough sense to hold his personal faith
while reasoning with others.
Sorry, but atheists differ from the evangelicals in that we don't just
lean on "God said so" as an excuse. We actually discuss issues and
try to reach common ground. Although this author likes to portray us
as an equal extremism to the Religious RIght, we really aren't. We're
just a minority who is tired of being left out of the discussion.
Here, here! Welll said!
I think the other thign religious believers [especially of the extreme variety] don't get is that we reason from evidence. They thin that since they cherry-pick evidence that fits their believes & ignore the rest, that we all do the same. The idea that we would not make up our minds until we look at all the evidence doesn't seem to occur to them.
Another hear hear! I think Obama really gets it. What is it? Reality.
Excellent post. I was offended being compared to the Religious Right.
Are you a good Christian or a bad Christian ? That's the only question an atheist cares about. Are you content to pursue your delusions without forcing others to, or must you have validation in the form of public oaths, pomp and ceremony ? Being an atheist is a lot like being gay - your success depends largely in how well you hide what you are from the religious majority. We now have a black President of the United States. When do you think we will have an atheist President ? I can tell you - never.
Hmm, I think you need to qualify this statement. We don't know if we've had one already or not. And, absolutes should be used sparingly.
The oppression of atheists by the religious will continue as it always has, we know that. I believe Obama is a religious man, and it bothers me a lot. The religious get what they want in spades, but it is never enough, there is a church or synagogue on every corner in America but still the religious whine that they can't do this, they can't do that. The horror of the ad Senator Dole released was that she INCORRECTLY labeled her Democratic opponent NON-CHRISTIAN !!! No one complained that religion and federal office are supposed to be SEPARATE, that religiosity is NOT a qualification for public office - no, everyone knows that atheists are the godless enemy !
Well, if you can believe in God with the complete absence of any emprical evidence, you can believe anything. That bothers me. When I find out someone is religious, my opinion of them drops, sorry, it just does. It tells me that they are not capable of logic, of understanding cause and effect, and that I am certain to get in trouble with them, it is only a matter of time. I will have to do all the bending.
Mr. Schaeffer, you have come a long way from the very far right fundamentalism of your youth, but you haven't gone far enough. I do not agree with you that "...Presid
Neither is President Obama "...about to make reasoned faith fashionable again." We have just endured eight years of Christian fascism, which was responsible for the election of George W. Bush and the subsequent destruction of our economy, our Constitution, and our international reputation. Christianity was directly responsible for that--- it was the direct ally of Bush in the same way that it was the direct ally of Hitler.
Christianity always "gets rescued". It "got rescued" after the Albigensian Crusade (nine million dead), after the Holocaust (six million dead), and even after millions of little boys were sexually molested by priests. Personally, I hope it doesn't "get rescued" this time.
Maybe if "religious" institutions weren't allowed to accumulate so much money, they wouldn't get to be so powerful..
It's too bad the rest of your statements are called into question by the fallacy of the "Albigensian Crusade (nine million dead)" one. Yes, thousands were killed but I doubt that France at the time had a population of nine million total. What one should remember about them (also known as Cathars) is that they were a peaceable people and it was as much the greed of the French king and his nobles as the work of the church--although the church (RCC) is as complicit as the state.
I also fail to see how Christianity was 'rescued' ("the Holocaust (etc) as christians (and some notable ones) suffered as well. I also have not seen records to show that 'millions of little boys were ...etc'. The facts are there, to inflate the numbers or distort the actual facts does not help your case against organized religions.
I am not defending ANY church or religion (I have a great attachment to the Cathars and would identify with them, if with any) and would strongly support any measure which would remove the tax exempt status for such organizations but if someone wants to qualify the moral basis for their beliefs and actions with a name (religious or church orientation) then that is their right and privilege.
And this "baby" that we are flushing down the toilet is what? Hope? Imagination? Morality? Spirituality? The meaning of life? These things have nothing to do with religion, and conflating them is the cause of the evil that religion causes. If these things depend on the existence of a first century itinerant Jew who was conceived by the action of an all-powerful entity, OR the communication of a sixth century Arabic merchant with said all-powerful entity, THEN violent idiocy ensues (especially since neither of these are actually true). Spirituality, morality, hope, and the things that *really* matter in life don't depend on these things and they don't depend on an eternal, paternalistic, external God-figure. If you think they do, you are part of the problem. Because obviously people who reject the existence of said God are dull, flat, meaningless math-zombies?
In conclusion, we can use are reason to explain what we can of reality (granted, this is an endless and impossible task), but don't have to project our INTERNAL quest for meaning, purpose, hope, and love onto the universe in the form of an EXTERNAL infinitely powerful, loving, and nebulously defined entity (for which there is no evidence or good justification for its existence in objective reality). There is no love, hope, or morality encoded into the physics of our universe, unfortunately, and by trying to find them there you are looking in the wrong place.
Very well put. Thank you.
I am an "atheist" although that term has no real meaning to me--it is simply a term someone with a different conceptual space has used to define me but which in no way truly does.
And so what really bothers me is claiming that atheists have no "literary imagination" and everything is "flat and dull, stripped of mystery and meaning". Which just makes me think you have not really bothered to actually learn what "atheists" (a term I find loathe to use because, again, it is meaningless) actually feel. Ironically, these are the reasons why I have never believed in any religion. It is so dry, flat, and meaningless. Mainstream religions give you meaningless answers to replace the mystery of reality. I hardly consider myself living in a "world of math"--I enjoy art, literature, and mythology immensely. Religious belief imposes boundaries and presumptions (regardless of how liberal you are in interpretation). It does not expand your imagination or open your mind; it limits them.
Also, how can atheists not "get" grown up allegory (perhaps because atheists have the intellects of children? Very subtle...) when atheists see all religion as allegory. Moral fables. Ideas. And they are judged accordingly. The Bible is a large book written by many people so many things it says may be true or right, but many things are also wrong and evil. The historicity of the events it describes is questionable and so are its moral teachings.
I am an atheist. My grandfater, who was born in the 1880's, was an atheist. I don't disrespect anyone's beliefs. When my friends of faith find joy and help from their faith, I am happy.
I have nothing against anyone's faith.
It does scare me when a people's faith entwines them with a religious belief that can condone a 13 year old rape victim being stoned to death for adultery. Or a belief that their religious views should be made into laws that affect my rights and my body such as the "right to life" movement.
During a pro-choice march years ago we had a chant for the few protesters we got. It goes like this:
"Right to life, that's a lie; you don't care if women die"
Anyway, I am an atheist that was raised with one central idea: do unto others, as you would have done unto you. Morals are not dependent on having faith in any god, they come from within.
Ramen :)
Are you suggesting that Senator Obama's election somehow provides the sort of evidence for your God's existence that atheists like myself have found wanting? I didn't think so. While I agree that the Senator is an intelligent, articulate, and even inspirational figure, I can't imagine his faith swaying anyone. Atheists just don't think that way. We accept evidence and scoff at appeals to authority. I, personally, could not care less what you, Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr or anyone else might believe unless that belief is backed by solid proof.
Take a look at Europe (especially Scandinavia), where atheism thrives without goading from mouth-breathing fundamentalists. It's all about asking questions, probing the validity of our received wisdom, and rejecting what doesn't pass the test. The same process is going on here; we're just a decade or two behind our more enlightened brethren.
I just want to add I accept that religion or transcendent experience is part of the human story, and we'll never be rid of it. It's a product of our evolution and a main cog in human culture; but, critiquing it is ok with me, because it will always be used by those in power to control others, and it needs to have holes.
If transcendant experience is part of the human story, then why is it that it is from religious people, not atheists, that our society gets the impetus for banning mind-altering drugs? [Hint, here's the answer: religion says drugs are bad because someone can feel blissful without haing "earned" the bliss thru suffering and/or matyrdom. Another motive for religion to oppose recreational drug use -that they'd never admit, or even believe to be their motivation - is that if one can feel connected to all of creation, see things change in magical ways, & reliably trigger artistic inspiration, they might conclude that the experience of "god" is merely a particular chemical state in the brian, which would deprive churches of their self-justification for telling people what to do]
I agree. Drug induced altered states have long been used by shamans and medicine men for a reason.
Also re: "- is that if one can feel connected to all of creation, "
Not just drugs; Meditation has long been used for that purpose..w
http://www
As an atheist, former Catholic, I'd just like to point out, as I think you allude to here, that if not for the fundies, there would be no "new atheist" books. Dawkins would just be a biologist and Hitchens an author and pundit.
Atheists have been around since the birth of religion. Unfortunately it seems religious language is the only vehicle available for most to describe transcendent experiences, the numinous as Karen Armstrong calls it, and I know humans have those things, but it doesn't mean we all have accept that religion is the only glue that holds civilization together, or that it is the origin of morality.
I personally don't care if people believe in a creator or afterlife, as long as they leave me alone and don't use religion to discriminate, start wars, or justify other crimes, or pass laws that essentially require us all to accept Platonic metaphysic
As I understand Niebuhr, he believed that the ruling elites in society could rule with reason sans myth, but that the masses needed to rely on faith. I believe we've had many atheist or agnostic presidents, but it's easy to understand why they would put on a front.
I agree that we're all part of the same canvas--what a wonderful description. I recognize that we only have each other and it makes each life all the more precious, because we're
each done after this. We're all just tiny candles in the wind.
As expected, you have written yet another thoughtful discourse. Interestingly, reading this piece, I thought it was to be the first of your writings with which I would take exception.
Discussing Maher's "Religulous," you were losing my usually enthusiastic assent with your criticism that his message was "the world would be better off without religion." I think Maher's rupulsion is toward blind devotion to any hypocritical organizati
Referring to Obama's statement, "the Democrats.
Then, you led me back to someplace joyful: We now have a wonderfully spiritual man to lead our country and a role-model we can all aspire to emulate in our struggle back to a state of grace.
Great article as usual Mr. Schaeffer.
You popped into my head last night as I was wading through all the commentary on the election (when I was taking a break from jumping up and down for joy!) and there was a comment that in one area of the country, Obama had actually carried a majority of the evangelical vote (but not what are called the Southern Christianist). I forget where I saw this, but it struck me and I thought of you and of all the articles you've written about how the zealots have taken reason out of faith when they took it into politics.
Thank you for all you wrote during this election year. I've often finished one of your articles feeling a little sad because one senses that you carry a kind of guilt over the whole Religious Right movement and I always want to tell you to put it down. You've done well doing what you can to re-educate and used your insider perspective to help people learn to do it better. Judging from the lack of impact the zealot Palin had on the vote - I wouldn't be surprised if more conservatives read Huffington Post that we know. :-)
Here's to President Obama.
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