Crypto-Christians

No, this is not part of the plot line of the next Dan Brown novel. It refers to a world-wide phenomenon of people who embrace the Christian faith, but, because of the threat of persecution, remain hidden among the general population.

Historically, adherents of various faiths, including Christians, have had to resort to extreme tactics to guarantee their safety. One needs only to think of the Jewish population in Spain in the 14th century or Christians in Japan in the 17th century to recognize that it has not always been safe to be a member of a particular religious group.

In a July 14, 2009 article in the Christian Century, Philip Jenkins writes:
The phenomenon of crypto-Christianity is likely to become much more common in the coming decades. Defensive tactics are scarcely needed when the vast majority of Christians live in self-defined Christian nations, but they become acutely relevant when millions of believers live in deeply hostile environments, in societies that are (for instance) predominately Muslim or Hindu.

The numbers of such clandestine Christians are not precisely defined, as you would imagine. Estimates put the size of this bloc of Christian belivers at 120 million. If this is true, writes Jenkins, crypto-Christians would constitute one of the world's largest religious groups.

It is extremely interesting to me that these groups of hidden Christians exist in an age when active, practicing Christians are almost extinct in Europe and are on the decline in America, the last bastion of religious adherence in the West. What does their existence say about the religious tendencies of human beings? What does their persistence in the face of persecution say about the nature and character of the religious enterprise in the West? Do they speak for the need of greater religious acceptance in all countries? Would they be as faithful if they were allowed to worship openly?

It's just the wrong thing to do.

I saw that a church in Dayton Tennessee has on its church sign the following message: Eric Berry for Heisman. For those who do not know, Eric Berry is the starting strong safety for the University of Tennessee Volunteers football team. He was named an All-American last year and will probably be an All-American this year. He is also among the semi-finalists for two other prestigious college football awards. By all accounts, he is as good a person as he is a good football player.

BUT, I do not think that using a church sign to support his chances to win the Heisman Award is the right thing to do.

Disclaimers are in order: I am a graduate of the University of Tennessee; I am a college football fan; I am a fan of UT football in particular; I do realize the truth that, for many Southerners, college football is the one true religion. That said, I still do not think a church sign is the proper medium to show support for a particular player or a particular team. Shouldn't the church use that space to promote something else of greater importance - like justice or equality or caring for people?

Finale for Armstrong's "Think Again about God"

The final two points that Karen Armstrong deals with science and politics. The statements she considered are simple: "God is the Enemy of Science" and "God is Incompatible with Democracy". The answers are equally simple: "He doesn't have to be." and "No".

Armstrong's comments on each topic are interesting. Looking at science, she wrote, The conflict with science is symptomatic of a reductive idea of God in the modern West. Ironically, it was the empirical emphasis of modern science that encouraged many to regard God and religious language as fact rather than symbol, thus forcing religion into an overly rational, dogmatic, and alien literalism.

And, in considering the relationship between religion and democracies, she centered on what many see as an inherent conflict between Islam and western style democrcy. She asserted: The 2007 Gallup poll shows that support for democratic freedoms and women's rights is widespread in the Muslim world, and many governments are responding -- albeit haltingly -- to pressures for more political participation. There is, however, resistance to a wholesale adoption of the Western secular model. Many want to see God reflected more clearly in public life, just as a 2006 Gallup poll revealed that 46 percent of Americans believe that God should be the source of legislation.

As a professional in the field of religion, I admit to a level of bias, but I think her concluding paragraphs are spot on:
Religion may not be the cause of the world’s political problems, but we still need to understand it if we are to solve them. "Whoever took religion seriously!” exclaimed an exasperated U.S. government official after the Iranian Revolution. Had policymakers bothered to research contemporary Shiism, the United States could have avoided serious blunders during that crisis. Religion should be studied with the same academic impartiality and accuracy as the economy, politics, and social customs of a region, so that we learn how religion interacts with political tension, what is counterproductive, and how to avoid giving unnecessary offense.

And study it we'd better, for God is back. And if "he" is perceived in an idolatrous, literal-minded way, we can only expect more dogmatism, rigidity, and religiously articulated violence in the decades ahead.

Thus, I agree that no one should buy into the argument that the things of God are passe in our society. This speaks to my belief that all people ought to become more informed of religious beliefs.

Parts IV & V

"God is for the poor and ignorant" and "God is bad for women" are the next two characterizations of religion that Armstrong considered. Her answers are "No" and "Yes."

Certainly, the example of America, even with an increasing number of people who claim to be an atheist or to disdain organized religion, is enough to dispute the first statement. The USA is both the richest country in the world and the most religious.

Looking deeper, the major world religions all "developed initially in a nascent market economy" to quote Armstrong. Max Weber's classic "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" linked the religious fervor of protestantism and the development of modern capitalism.

That is not to say that religions embrace the unbridled and self-centered greed that is a core driving force for many in business. As Armstrong notes, To recover from the ill effects of the last year, we may need exactly that conquest of egotism that has always been essential in the quest for the transcendence we call “God.” Religion is not simply a matter of subscribing to a set of obligatory beliefs; it is hard work, requiring a ceaseless effort to get beyond the selfishness that prevents us from achieving a more humane humanity.

As for religion and women, Armstrong notes, Even when a tradition began positively for women (as in Christianity and Islam), within a few generations men dragged it back to the old patriarchy. This leads to her affirmation of the initial statement.

Here, I would wonder whether it is the religion or the male's use of religion that is to blame. Just as human beings have been adept at using religion to justify their violent responses against others, so too, it seems, males have been adept to use religious rules of their own making to subjugate the female.

So, what do you think?

Thinking Again - Part III

God Breeds Violence and Intolerance . . . is the third point which Armstrong thinks has been too readily accepted.

Certainly, it is easy to go through the recitation of wars and acts of atrocity that have been laid at the feet of religion - think Crusades, 9/11, religious suicide bombers, Muslim-Hindu violence in India, Protestant-Catholic violence in Ireland, the Inquisition, et al - and conclude that to be religious leads to violent acts. But, as Karen Armstrong puts it:
No, humans do. For Hitchens in God Is Not Great, religion is inherently “violent … intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism and bigotry”; even so-called moderates are guilty by association. Yet it is not God or religion but violence itself -- inherent in human nature -- that breeds violence. As a species, we survived by killing and eating other animals; we also murder our own kind. So pervasive is this violence that it leaks into most scriptures, though these aggressive passages have always been balanced and held in check by other texts that promote a compassionate ethic based on the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like them to treat you. Despite manifest failings over the centuries, this has remained the orthodox position.
In claiming that God is the source of all human cruelty, Hitchens and Dawkins ignore some of the darker facets of modern secular society, which has been spectacularly violent because our technology has enabled us to kill people on an unprecedented scale.

So, human beings may well be innately violent - nature red in tooth and claw - and that tendency may well be held in check by the power of religion. What do you think?

God and Politics Shouldn't Mix

The second point that Karen Armstrong addressed is whether one's politics should be informed by, shaped by, or decided by one's religious views.

Certainly, we think, Americans know the answer to that one. We look with disdain at those countries where religion and politics overlap. We point with pride to our separation of church and state; or, at least, some of us point to that ideal with pride.

Truth be told, we know of many people in our country, just like millions more in countries around the globe, whose political understandings and religious understandings are one and the same. The current GOP candidate for governor in Virginia has a history of involvement with Christian Reconstructionism, for example. If you do not know about that movement, you should.

Armstrong's answer to the consideration of "God and politics shouldn't mix" was "Not Necessarily." In her concluding paragraph, she made this point:
Of course, the manner in which religion is used in politics is more important than whether it’s used at all. U.S. presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama have invoked faith as a shared experience that binds the country together -- an approach that recognizes the communal power of spirituality without making any pretense to divine right. Still, this consensus is not satisfactory to American Protestant fundamentalists, who believe the United States should be a distinctively Christian nation.

Obviously, if you are a person of faith or a person of no faith, that will have some bearing on your political views. That fact about you cannot not influence your perspective on some political question. Yet, the questions of how much, in what way, and what does this mean for those of other religious views continue to bedevil us. What do you think?

Thinking Again - About God

The magazine, Foreign Policy, regularly has a feature that seems designed to have its readers re-think an issue. Hence the name of the piece, Think Again. This piece posits a "conventional wisdom" position related to the issue and then gives reasons why the conventional wisdom may be wrong.

This month's Think Again is penned by Karen Armstrong. It can be found at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/19/god_0. I thought it would be nice to feature the questions and counter-points in this forum.

The first piece of conventional wisdom to be debunked is "GOD IS DEAD." This idea goes back to Nietzsche in the 19th century and was the watchword of sociologists of religion in the 20th century. Many assumed that human beings would move beyond traditional beliefs about God and religion and become fully secularized.

This did not happen. In fact, at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, the power of religion seems as strong as ever. This is true, despite the rise of the neo-atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al) and the rising number of people who claim no religious affiliation.

Armstrong concludes this section of her essay with these words:
These writers are wrong -- not only about religion, but also about politics -- because they are wrong about human nature. Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus. As soon as we became recognizably human, men and women started to create religions. We are meaning-seeking creatures. While dogs, as far as we know, do not worry about the canine condition or agonize about their mortality, humans fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives. Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues. So God isn’t going anywhere. And when we treat religion as something to be derided, dismissed, or destroyed, we risk amplifying its worst faults. Whether we like it or not, God is here to stay, and it’s time we found a way to live with him in a balanced, compassionate manner.

Do you agree more with the neo-atheists or with Armstrong? Do you think the human search for meaning means that religion and God will always be part of the human endeavor?