I finished this article scratching my head.? The author is a British atheist and editor of the Economist, and his praises for the pragmatic benefits of religious pluralism fit nicely with that sort of free-market ideology:
Consider the United States. It is both the most modern and one of the most religious countries in the world. It also provides solid evidence of how religions can provide a commendable array of social services in the absence of an effective welfare state. But it is also a perfect example of how religion can be kept separate from the state. If we could all become more like America, the book argues, we could all get along famously.
The interview with the New Humanist website does highlight some of the problems with the “secularization hypothesis” (which the link spells differently because it’s British), but it also seems to assume the same hypothesis as the framing assumption-set for the discussion.? After all, nobody present ever asks which of the “religious” claims are true, only which ones provide Bentham-style benefits and setbacks.? And the discussion never does ask anything about God, only about religion.? It’s one of those things that I can’t quite decipher, only point and say, “Not my discussion.”
What do you think?
You’ve got a point, obviously, and at a certain point free-market religion begins to sound like what the Christ the Center guys said about poststructuralism: All things are possible, nothing is probable. Do what you want, in other words, but don’t think you’re “privileged” in the sense of being more reasonable.
At the same time, you have to account for the fact that the U.S. has maintained its religious identity to a large extent–not in the sense that everyone is Christian but in the sense that most people have SOME faith that they hold dear–as opposed to Europe, where a majority of people are atheists in some countries. The separation of Church and State isn’t the only reason for that phenomenon, of course, but it must play some role. (I suspect another reason is that the U.S. didn’t see the effects of the two World Wars nearly as much as Europe did–if the third World War takes place on American soil, and especially if there’s some sort of New Holocaust for American citizens, I imagine we’ll see a sharp decline in faith, free market or no.)
That being said, I also suspect that faith in America is broader than it is wide; because you’re expected to believe in God, you believe but (for many people) in a profoundly uneducated way. I wonder if the situation is different in Europe–there are fewer people who say they believe, but those who do believe in a deeper way than Americans, since it’s unfashionable or at least not expected of you to believe in God.
Interesting stuff, and I’d like to read the book. Based on the intended audience, I’m pretty sure that “not my discussion” is the proper response. I had several friends who were in the free-thinkers’ society at UF, but when I tried to join in conversations about whatever speakers they had that week, or dared to ask if I could sit in on a meeting if there was a topic I was interested in, they let me know that I, as a Christian, wasn’t welcome–don’t think I missed the irony, since they’re called “free thinkers.” Mind you, I’m not a Pat Robertson kind of Christian, and they’ve known me long enough to know that I don’t go around trying to convert people (unless they tell me they’re interested), especially not at a their meeting.
But I’m not at their meeting, so I don’t mind saying that this sort of critique from the outside is helpful to, well, not to our faith, but to understanding how the world sees us, which is important to spreading the faith. My parents were Baptist missionaries in West Virginia, working with the poor. I don’t think my dad ever walked into a crack house to shut it down, but he tried to find out who the truly needy were and get them food, clothing, physical necessities. Then they were, of course, invited to religious functions, but not required to go. My parents lost their jobs in the late 80s, when the Southern Baptist Convention cut a lot of those positions and started focusing on building more mega-churches. Six Flags Over Jesus. Fort God. Whatever you’d like to call them.
My point? Other than rambling, which I’m doing, these kinds of critiques demonstrate one problem with closing The Lord’s Pantry to build Fort God. A $20 million church, with a fully-equipped gym, built next to the country club, competes with other churches for membership. The church I grew up in lost about half its membership because people left for other Baptist churches that had gyms. Since I left, the church has left the downtown area, built a country-club church, and former members have returned. But there’s no longer a Southern Baptist church in the downtown area because everyone moved to the country. You can’t invite poor people to eat if they can’t get to your church. The advantage of listening to a critique from the outside, and doing things that outsiders respect, is that churches are supposed to be in the business of attracting outsiders–not of competing for insiders.
First of all, thanks to both of you for commenting. It’s not often that I get two good, substantive comments on one post. (I long for the day when I can count on just that, but I’m not there yet.)
Michial,
I think your second theory holds more water–I imagine that, were we to have a war with modern-era weaponry on our own soil, we’d likely lose much of our sanguine Joel-Osteen evangelical flavor. (I know he’s a common whipping boy, but he does smile a lot and have lots of teeth.) It’s no great surprise to me that the Economist‘s editor attributes such things to free market economics; it’s what that publication does. What struck me is what you noted about privileged narratives. I’d differ from you just a bit in saying that the conversation’s basic assumption seems to privilege at least agnosticism and perhaps atheism, preferring to deal entirely with sociological claims without any metaphysics.
Zac,
I think this is one of those situations where I’d want to complicate the categories “outside” and “inside.” This is not merely “another way” commenting on the Christian faith but participates in a certain kind of Enlightenment metanarrative (I haven’t used that word in a while) that would situate Christian “religion” as a sociological phenomenon at the very most, nothing that might say anything true about life, the universe, and everything. That’s not to say it’s not useful, but I would, as someone who tries to think theologically, want to note that, within these categories, there’s literally no winning–the only way to talk to these folks would be to challenge the metaphysical framework that they’re proposing.
Nathan:
I’d say that the reason the conversation privileges atheism is because the lessons of poststructuralism have gone only half of the way. Nothing is privileged–but somehow atheism or agnosticism gets named as the default option, which means it needs no privileging.
This is where the ID folks are reasonable in claiming that “science” is itself a belief system.