From Charlotte Allen in the LA Times:
I can’t stand atheists — but it’s not because they don’t believe in God. It’s because they’re crashing bores.
No doubt this will offend a lot of atheists, but those she mentions – and others – never seem to mind hurling insults at Christians. As I have said before, I’m really glad these folks have come out in support of intolerance; these days, it’s a rare item. As G.K. Chesterton said, “Tolerance is the virtue of a man with no convictions.”
This post follows up on the discussion on my prior post, Moral reasons for atheism, in which I suggested that many atheists choose not to believe in God because of moral issues – they don’t want to change, acknowledge sin, or acknowledge any absolute moral code – not because of intellectual issues. Modern atheists typically try to pass themselves off as being rationalists, discounting a belief if God because God is not possible in the universe they have invented to believe in – one is only material in nature.
To perhaps oversimplify the argument (but not by much):
It is, of course, self-fulfilling; but in the absence of any greater understanding, this argument “works” for them. Most, for example, simply ignore the fact that “the method” is not itself something which can be proven to work. There are foundational issues with a reliance on reason itself which I’ve discussed before. The only way that atheism functions in its current state is really to sidestep these issues completely. But, if belief in God is merely an intellectual issue, why would anyone not want to deal with these issues? It begs the question of what, then, is the real issue.
Now, I am not saying that atheists are immoral and Christians are moral; nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth. We are all immoral creatures. At the very heart of Christianity is the acceptance that “all have sinned” and that we are saved “by grace and not by works, that no man should boast.” Martin Luther coined the phrase, simul iustus et peccator – simultaneously saint and sinner; we are made perfect in Christ, but on our own we stand condemned by the law. To deny that we are in any way righteous, or even morally superior, is to have a false gospel; Christians who claim a morally superiority are frauds (I’ve just finished writing a book on this).
One of the problems with modernism – which, by the way, we were all “baptized” into, whether we like it or not – is dualism, in its many forms. We separate the physical from the spiritual, mind from body, and mind from emotions. Slowly doctors are discovering that we are more internally connected than modernism would want us to be; many physical ailments are in fact known to have emotional causes.
This dualism is handy if we want to ignore our emotional or moral components; we can pretend to be totally objective, we can create wonderful logical arguments, and we can use lots of fancy-sounding words to sound intellectual. However, I do not think that any of us can reduce the choices we make about what we believe about life and God to mere intellectual issues. We are more complex than that. A lot is said about intellectual dishonesty – arguing things we know are not correct – but not much is said about emotional or moral dishonesty when talking about a belief in God (except, it seems, by Christians who are unable to grasp the intellectual issues; it’s that dualism thing again).
In discussing one’s choice of beliefs (and I insist they are choices), I believe we have to take more of a gestalt approach. We all have our issues; that is, those things we acknowledge as maters for discussion. We also have our interests, the things that really matter to us, that may be unconscious motivators, and the more substantive of the two. Morality – not “being good,” but how we view what is good or bad – is, I suspect, at the very core of who we are. It is interesting that guilt is nearly universal; the absence of guilt pretty much makes you a sociopath, even if you’re an atheist. Since we all have our internal morality meters, we all deal with sin, even though atheists wouldn’t consider it as such. But, as Paul wrote, to do that which someone considers wrong is for him, sin.
What is different is how we deal with sin. We can blame it on evolution, upbringing, society, genetics, Adam, or Satan – most of us hate to blame ourselves, although most of us do, deep down. This gap between who we really are and who we think we should be – what a friend calls the “crap gap” – affects us in more ways than most of us care to admit, whether we are Christians, Buddhists or atheists.
Intellectual debates are great, for what they are. I appreciate reason and logic, accepting their foundational weakness. Many atheists are quick to point out the Christian’s need to believe in God; I’ve yet to see one own up to a need not to believe in God. But, I suspect it’s there for many, if not for most.
I am picking up where I left off a couple of weeks ago, talking about liturgical worship. If you recall, I’ve gone through the entire Lutheran liturgy from the old “Red” 1958 Service Book and Hymnal, interspersed with a few other posts dealing with aspects of liturgical worship. For those who may stumble across this post who haven’t read the whole thread, I was raised Lutheran, but have spent the last 30+ years in various non-liturgical churches, mainly in Vineyard churches, which are about as loose as you can get. I began visiting Lutheran and Episcopalian churches over a year ago, and since last December I have regularly attended a large Episcopal Church.
I like it. After years of “grab bag” worship, coming back to liturgy has been a Godsend, literally. It has probably saved my spiritual life from near death – or at least a starved, tortured existence. It’s not the mood, or the great music (St. Paul’s excels musically, which certainly doesn’t hurt). Here are a few reasons why liturgical worship means so much to me:
Truth: I’ve written on this before, but I realized some time ago that I was starving for truth; in most evangelical churches (using the term in its popular, narrow sense), truth is pretty much up for grabs. You can object, but it’s true. Week after week goes by singing worship songs that are often vague, existential and which focus on personal experience rather than on truth. The Bible is read only as part of the pastor’s sermon, and it’s often doled out in fragments, often taken out of context, and often misused. The Pastor’s point of view takes precedent over the plain truth of Scripture. No creeds are read; often, I wouldn’t know what a church believes just be attending on a Sunday morning.
With liturgical churches, all these issues are resolved. You can’t possibly walk out of church not knowing who Jesus is. You may have other questions (which is good), but you’ll have the basics.
Intentionality: Nothing in a liturgical church is haphazard. In fact, you’ve got nearly 2000 years of thought and intentionality behind what you’re doing, and it’s doctrinally rooted in history. And, you’re not alone; you know that you are agreeing – in recitation of creeds, praying the Lord’s Prayer, and celebrating the Lord’s Supper – with Christians throughout space and time. Liturgy has a very solid feel to it, as it should.
Interactive Theater: The liturgy is participatory, interactive theater. The priest, pastor or rector are not anyone but people filling a certain role. The pastors are for the most part interchangeable; they may change, but the liturgy remains the same. The people as well participate, reenacting the Gospel story every Sunday.
I liken it to the old “Rocky Horror” events where people would come in costume and say the lines along with the movie. You can go sit and watch the professionals do church for you, or you can choose to join in. That’s really what the liturgy is – it’s a chance to join in, in acting out the Gospel.
Incarnational Theology: The liturgy – especially the Lord’s Supper (aka communion, or Eucharist) – is empty without an incarnational theology. Perhaps that’s why so many evangelicals (again, using the term narrowly) think of it as ritualistic or the recitation of empty words. Incarnational theology is essentially non-dualistic; that is, God is really present. As NT Wright has written, the worship service is a place where heaven intersects earth in a very real way. The valley of dry bones becomes the body when church gathers, and communion is more than just a memorial. We don’t wait “for God to show up,” we just know that we experience the Real Presence.
Another aspect of liturgy is that the church’s theology, too, is rooted in history and anchored in the liturgy. The church is not blown too and fro from Sunday to Sunday as the pastor gets a new revelation. This certainly won’t keep the pastor from throwing in random stuff in his sermons, but at least in liturgical settings, the sermon is positionally subservient to the Scriptures.
Humility: Humility is built in the liturgy, especially in Lutheran versions. Church is first and foremost the gathering of saved sinners. We celebrate the Eucharist because we need it. The liturgy reduces everyone to their status as sinners, and then raises them up.
Today’s sermon was particularly interesting, using the text from Acts 10 where God tells Peter that nothing is unclean if God has declared it clean. The Jewish Christians had forgotten that they were not the host of the banquet, but were merely guests as well, and God has every right to invite whoever he wants. The reminder to us was that we, too, are guests. This sums up the liturgical attitude well, I think.
Corporate: The liturgy acknowledges the existence of the Church Universal, and the corporate nature of the local body. The fact that people stand, sit and kneel together and recite prayers together acknowledges in practice what we believe theologically. The “do your own thing” worship totally contradicts the concept of corporate worship.
It’s Out of This World: High-church worship has an obvious other-worldliness to it, with the vestments, music, and ritual. I personally am tired of going to churches where people don’t even bother to comb their hair. I expect Heaven to look different than the mall… why shouldn’t church look different, too?
The Eye of the Storm: Lately I’ve come to think of Sunday as the true eye of the storm; it is not retreating from the storm, but taking refuge in the one and only safe place to be renewed and refreshed, to be sent back out.
In the evangelical world, it is common to ask things like, “how was church today,” and in the typical evangelical church context, the question makes sense. However, when I’m asked that now, it strikes me as quite odd, for “church” is no longer about anything that changes from week to week. Church is always good, because the liturgy is good; that doesn’t change. The sermon or music could be “off,” but that doesn’t impact “church.” It’s always good. (I will make an exception, as I’ve visited churches who play around with the liturgy to try to make it more contemporary or “relevant.”)
I am not saying that liturgical worship is the only way to worship God; that would be ridiculous. However, if I were to correct the defects and gaps that I see in many chuches, I would add in many of the elements which have been a part of Christian worship for hundreds and hundreds of years. I suspect the inclusion of a few of these elments could revitalize the evangelical church.
A few months ago I read a blog post – I was trying to find it, but couldn’t recall which blog – where a pastor wrote about an encounter he’d had the week before with a teenager from his congregation. The boy confessed that he no longer believed in God. The pastor looked at the boy for a while, then asked, “So, how long have you been sleeping with your girlfriend?” This, in fact, was the case. The boy had no real issues of faith; what he had was an issue of morality.
I recall being told years back that most atheists rejected God for moral, not intellectual, reasons. I have not presumed this in my dealings with atheists, and would never go so far as to apply this to all atheists. However, over and over again I have run across outspoken atheists who are good machine-gunning intellectual arguments for atheism, but who turn out to have significant moral issues. They deny that morality has anything to do with their beliefs, but often the coincidence is too obvious, and their arguments are not that good.
Morality may be, after all, one of the more common reasons for atheism.
In searching for the blog post I mentioned at the outset, I came across another story that was almost identical. Coincidence? Perhaps. However, for someone dealing with guilt, unforgiveness, or simply a need to believe that right and wrong are not absolute, the easiest way to resolve the isse is to mentally do away with God, at least the Christian God.
I routinely read a blog by a young atheist who is very bright, and writes about atheism from a very logical point of view. He is somewhat refreshing as he does occasionally agree with the other side on a point or two, at least giving the appearance of intellectual integrity. Recently, I discovered that he also is a proponent of polyamory – good, old-fashioned licentiousness. Coincidence? Perhaps.
Issues of morality for which atheism provides some conscience-relief include sex outside of marriage, including adultery. As I mentioned earlier, unforgiveness – the inability to forgive or the resentment for not having been forgiven – can only be justified if there no God. The same is true for self-righteousness, which includes many arguments about the problem of evil and suffering. The only way to really make a good argument about evil and suffering is to somehow ignore the fact that you are a contributing cause; once that concession is made, the argument is somewhat deflated.
I am not saying that there are not purely intellectual arguments in favor of atheism (none are very good, in my opinion), or that people can’t sincerely believe in any of these arguments; however, more and more I see indications that people have reasons other than purely intellectual ones to chose to believe what they believe.
Obviously, I can’t prove this; however, this does seem to agree with Paul in Romans 1. At the very least, morality plays a large part in many people’s decisions concerning religion.
