A Christian Critique

Not many people read this. That’s not a bad thing: in fact, it’s largely my choice. While this certainly isn’t a secret blog, I purposely  don’t advertise it much. You can find it in my contact info on Facebook, but I’ve never actually posted something like “I have a blog! Check it out!” It’s just not the type of thing I’d want everyone to read. Even though I’m trying to be transparent, there’s something to be said for not beating Grandmom and Guy Who Sits Next To Me In Physics over the head with my thoughts and confessions. That puts my small handful of readers in a pretty unique place. If you read this regularly, you know me quite a bit better than the majority of people. There’s a certain intimacy in that which would be lost if I knew hundreds of people were reading.

All that to say, most days I get less than 5 views. On days that I post, I might get 10 or 15. So, what happened here?

Almost 70 hits on Sunday; a day I didn’t even post. Seriously. What’s going on?! Where did all those people come from, and more importantly, why did they leave so soon?

Oh well. Let’s move on to a nice, friendly, non-controversial topic.

Things I Hate About Christians

The flashy title should obviously be taken with a huge grain of salt. I am a Christian, and this isn’t a post about self-loathing. Many of you are Christians too, and these criticisms may not apply. What I mean by “Christians” is a stereotype: but unfortunately, it is a very accurate stereotype for many, many people. It’s the Christian Culture, the one that fills churches and youth groups, that I have major problems with. And what I mean by “hate” is not a personal vendetta against people who (often unwittingly) fit the stereotype, but a huge frustration against a movement which, I think, has turned the American Church into a very bad joke.

A. Lack of Intellectual Integrity

Working for a Christian Audiobook company, I get exposed to a lot of books by a lot of Christian publishers. Most are books on theology or spiritual growth, which I have no problem with. But when it comes to apologetics or politics, most are a joke. Even the classic ones I grew up with.

Take Lee Strobel’s books. If you’ve been a Christian the last decade, you’ve probably heard of them. The Case For Christ, The Case For Faith,The Case For A Creator, The Case For The Real Jesus. They all have the same theme. “A skeptical journalist investigates issues of faith by interviewing experts in the field, and boy is he not afraid to ask the tough questions!”  I’ve never read the latter two. But growing up, The Case For Christ and The Case For Faith were staples. I read and reread them, strengthened in my faith and convinced that everything was solved. After all, the guy who wrote the book was skeptical himself! If the experts could convince him Christianity was true, they could convince anyone!

Looking back, I can’t believe how naive I was. Maybe going into his first book, Strobel was truly a skeptic, but can you really publish 4 bestselling Christian Apologetics titles and still pretend to be unbiased? Not likely. If he was a skeptic, he was certainly not a very good one. First of all, he only interviews like-minded Christians. Anyone, especially a “skeptical” journalist, should know that healthy inquiry means hearing both sides of the debate. And rather than asking the “tough questions”, he accepts everything these people say without question; his questions are clearly designed to lead the “experts” into whatever point they wanted to make. Even when it’s clear that those points don’t hold any water. Like this argument, put forth by Peter Kreeft on the topic “If Evil and Suffering Exist, a Loving God Cannot”:

“There would have been plenty of time for evolution to have finished and evil to have been vanquished. But there is still evil and suffering and imperfection, which proves that atheists are wrong.”

Anyone with even the smallest understanding of Darwin would immediately recognize that argument as crap. No proponent of evolution says that the end result should be the “vanquishing of evil.” But mischaracterizations like that litter the book, and without giving any credence to opposing viewpoints, they stand. To those of us who didn’t know better, they seemed convincing.

It’s that sort of thing that really bothers me. I grew up thinking that all of these arguments we had for Christianity were so infallible, any atheist hearing them would be put to shame. So they were forced to ignore them. In reality, they ignore many of them because they’re bad arguments. Like the historical Ontological argument, the classic example of a terrible argument which is still sometimes quoted.

“God is, by definition, the most powerful being we can imagine. A being which actually exists is more powerful than one which does not. Therefore, the most powerful thing we can imagine must exist: if it did not, it wouldn’t be the most powerful thing we can imagine. Therefore, God exists.”

Boy, I’m glad that’s settled. Now that I don’t need to worry about the existence of God, I can spend my time doing other things, like eating the Super Burrito that must be in my fridge. What’s a Super Burrito, you ask? Why, it’s only the best, most delicious food you can imagine. And since something is better to me if it’s in my fridge than if it isn’t, clearly there’s a Super Burrito in my fridge. Yes!

Fortunately, there are fewer proponents of that argument these days. But there are others: one I read in a very recent apologetics book attempts to prove why the universe must have had a beginning. The authors called it one of the “most convincing” arguments they had ever heard.

“1. An infinite number of days has no end.
2. Today is the end of history.
3. Therefore, there were not an infinite number of days before today.”

Again, this is just trickery. It’s equivalent to proving that there aren’t infinitely many numbers. Why? Because an infinite number of numbers has no end. -1 is the end of the set of negative integers in increasing order. Therefore, there are not infinitely many numbers less than -1. The number line must have a beginning!

See, my problem isn’t necessarily that these arguments exist. Bad arguments exist everywhere. But usually, there will be those playing devil’s advocate who will look at an argument and say “This is wrong, we shouldn’t use it anymore.” Until we get to issues of faith. When it comes to Christianity, bad arguments absolutely refuse to die: as long as it can still convince someone, that’s one more person to add to the flock! Then books like this, filled with misleading arguments and half-truths, are allowed to stand uncriticized. People will say things like “This book may not convince anyone new of Christianity, but it will strengthen your faith.” What that’s code for is “This book will only convince you if you don’t know any better. And since being convinced of our faith is a noble end, the less-than-satisfactory means aren’t important.” If an argument can be shot down, you shouldn’t use it and you certainly shouldn’t become rich selling it. Period. That’s what it means to have integrity.

B. “Us-vs-Them” Mentality

This is the logical conclusion of Problem A. Since there is a severe lack of intellectual integrity, many Christians never get a fair understanding of what other people actually believe. Instead, they’re stuck with caricatures and strawmen, invented by Christians and mocked by Christians. One particular memory that has always stuck with me took place at Indian Hills Summer Camp. I went there with my Church every summer, from 1st – 4th grade. We were sitting in the chapel, watching a skit about the creation/evolution debate. The Evolutionist was played by head counselor Curly. He had thick-rimmed glasses with duct tape, a big plaid shirt, a pile of books in his hand, and a very goofy grin. The Christian was cool and casual. They each presented what they believed. The Christian said something like “I believe in one book, the Bible, which hasn’t changed in 2,000 years. How many books do you have?” Curly looks uncomfortable. “W…w…well, our b…b…book has been revised over 42 times! But we’re sure it’s right this time! Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck!” All the classic zingers followed: “You seriously believe I came from a monkey?!” “If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys that didn’t evolve?” etc. We laughed and laughed at poor Curly The Evolutionist, so willfully ignorant of things we 4th graders could all understand. What an idiot!

Now, that’s a strawman if I ever saw one. And things like that happened all the time growing up: really, any time atheism was discussed, it would be in the realm of ridicule. Portraying your opponent as an imbecile and then teaching kids to laugh at him might breed nice confident children, but it has serious repercussions when those children grow up. They wind up believing that everyone out there really is that stupid, and that we Christians are the only ones willing to accept obvious truths. At it’s core is a serious belief that most of the world is not only wrong, but idiotic. This has a few very bad effects.

First, it makes us very pushy. Why? Since we’re so used to seeing every other viewpoint mischaracterized and  belittled, we take for granted not only that we are right (which isn’t a bad thing: everyone believes they’re right),  but that our correctness should be obvious to everyone. Making us immune to the separation of Church and State that other religions are rightfully subjugated to. While we would be furious if a prayer to Allah took place in a classroom, we are indignant when our right to a prayer to God,  in Jesus’ name, is taken away. Why? Because Christianity is true, and obviously true. Therefore, we should be privileged above those other joke religions. Our beliefs should be upheld through legislation, and if the government is giving us clear preferential treatment, so be it.

In other words, it leaves us unwilling to put ourselves in others’ shoes. We know, deep down, that if any other faith were given the sort of preeminence we expect of Christianity in America, we would feel uncomfortable and alienated. And if we actually understood that those of other faiths weren’t dumb caricatures, but instead real people with valid concerns much like ourselves, we might be able to make that connection. But when the world is full of two types of people, the correct and the stupid, that is unthinkable.

Second, it makes us very rude and very stubborn. And it extends beyond the realm of faith, into almost every area of life. Since we’re often brought up only hearing one side of every issue, we cling to every belief with equal stubbornness. Take politics. Beyond a few ethical issues like abortion, is there any reason one particular party (cough Republican cough) should be almost exclusively associated with evangelical Christianity?  When I look at the core principles of each party, neither seems especially moral or immoral. There are some good ideas and some bad ones, but aside from those issues which are obviously ethical, not much of a Biblical imperative. Yet Christians, at least where I come from, cling to their politics with almost religious fervor. Even in the college group I go to, the attitude is common (but not universal!). Otherwise very friendly people will say things like “Democrats are morons.” “Those stupid liberals are ruining our country.” Bitter, disgusting name calling. Imagine if a liberal person (and I identify myself as, at least, moderately liberal) came to the group for the first time. They would have been welcomed in, sung a few songs, heard about the love of God, and been called a moron a few dozen times. I’ve developed thick enough skin to not let that bother me: but let me tell you, it happens a lot. And it’s symptomatic of more than politics: it’s this prevalent idea that because we’re right, no one else’s opinion matters. And it’s embarrassing.

C. Lack of Personal Integrity

Finally, there’s a lack of real personal integrity. What I mean is this: for all the books we have “proving” our faith and every rude misrepresentation of everyone outside our faith, we don’t take our faith very seriously at all. Sure, we say we do in an argument, or in the middle of an emotional worship song. But I know so many people that have been stars of their youth group, have Bible verses in their Facebook Quote’s section, and then proceed to completely ignore the tenants of their faith. There are the obvious flaws: they’ll sleep around, get trashed every weekend, etc. But there are more fundamental flaws: they don’t love their neighbor, they don’t care for those in need, they don’t respect the authority that, Biblically, God established. Name-calling, gossip, rudeness, hatred. No, Christians aren’t perfect and, yes, there is always forgiveness. But Christian liberty is too often used as an excuse for total complacency. If you claim to be a Christian, you should act like one. When you fail, you should genuinely want to fix it, not schedule your next failure the following Friday Night. I know pointing out hypocrisy in the Church is the trendy thing to do now, but it’s hard to ignore. It’s everywhere.

It seems that there’s a tendency for Christians to fall into one of two camps. Either they are ignorant but devout, or loving and respectful but don’t take their faith seriously. It’s like we’re forced to take an extreme. In order to follow your faith devoutly, you’re often convinced of it at the expense of vilifying and misrepresenting others. And if you actually concede that other people’s opinions are worth your time, faith often becomes such a “personal” thing it loses all outward manifestation.

I don’t like either option. Closed-mindedness is suffocating and vaguely-spiritual openness is hollow. There has to be a middle ground.

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