Book of the Month: Irresistible Revolution

It's time to get cynical.

Due to brevity of time, we've made an executive decision to read Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution for the next month.

While there are mixed opinions regarding Shane and his manifesto for a new group of Christians that want to be the church they dream of, we think that Claiborne's short stories and challenging exegesis will provide just the right sparks to ignite a flame of discussion and "holy mischief."

We will meet at the beginning of December to discuss this book and how the rest of the club might function.

Please drop a comment in this blog or email me at jeff.goins@gmail.com regarding when you can meet in the first week of December. We'll probably meet in a coffee shop somewhere near the intersection of Highway 65 and Old Hickory Blvd. in Nashville, TN.

For those of you who are joining us virtually, just keep checking the blog for updates and challenges.

A Rabbi Addresses "Religulous"

A friend of mine forwarded this article to me. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did:

"Maher's Mockery Misses the Point"
by David Wolpe

There are three problems with Bill Maher's new movie mocking faith: It misunderstands religion, misconceives God and gets human nature all wrong.

I have a fantasy of a counter-movie. I would travel around the world and interview every scientist with a crackpot theory or a quack cure. I'd find researchers who were venal, eccentric, foolish or cruel, throwing in a few responsible scientists for credibility. Call it, say, "Scientifictious."

Of course, that would be no more convincing than "Religulous." Religion is not univocal; there are lots of varieties and personalities. There is no shortage of strange beliefs and practices. There is ample opportunity for derision. Think of the movie he could have made about people's eating habits.

What Maher seems not to know, or to understand, is that religion is not a fantasy flung upward but an intuition of something far greater than ourselves. Everyone who lives with open eyes has reason to question. In the search there will be missteps, even cruelties and division, but also sublimity, kindness, beauty, wonder and faith.

Perhaps Maher's greatest misunderstanding of religion is his central indictment: that religion is responsible for the world's violence. It is not. Violence is a product of human nature. Before monotheism, the Assyrians were not kind; the Romans were bloodthirsty beyond the imagination of religious regimes. When religion became less potent in people's lives after the French Revolution, instead of making the world
less violent, it became far more violent: World War I and WWII, communism, Nazism -- all shed blood on an unprecedented scale. None were religious regimes or religious wars.

Maher's dislike of religion is not reasoned, however, but visceral. He told Mother Jones magazine about the Jews praying on his plane to Israel: "Even on the plane over, they were, at a certain point, they all stood up in the aisle of the plane davening [praying] ... they just looked like crazy people, always bowing their head. It's disconcerting." No doubt had they worn Armani suits and been tapping at a keyboard, Mr. Maher would have found them rational; but seeking transcendence in coach -- crazy.

If faith is, in part, the summit of our hopes, a guide and an aspiration, then what does Maher's creed leave him with? Again, as he tells Mother Jones: "I'm telling you. I've got nothing." It should not be hard to understand why someone might choose ancient wisdom over modern nihilism. It is not heroic to believe we are accidents of chemistry.

Maher's view of human nature as essentially animalistic (he repeatedly wonders why anyone would curb their sexual appetites) is dispiriting and plain wrong. Animals we are, but we are much more than animals.

Maher misunderstands God as a projection of human need. This is a common atheistic trope -- your belief is based on psychological deficiencies, while mine is reasoned. In truth, the existence of God is not an antidote to fear but a consequence of wonder. God does not come about through faulty reasoning but through a worshipful and humble orientation of the soul.

"Religulous" repeatedly calls faith irrational. True, it is not a product of pure reason, but then what is, apart from mathematics? Reason does not get us out of bed, or move us to love or kindness. Religion is supported by reason, however. The marvel of values, ideas and consciousness -- nonphysical but powerful phenomena -- can reasonably be thought to have an origin in a nonphysical entity: that is, God. Centuries of people emboldened by, and ennobled by, faith can reasonably be thought to have something more than foolish illusions in their minds and hearts.
Nevertheless, Maher calls religion a "neurological disorder."

In study after study, religion proves to make people not just happier but more likely to give to charity and have stable marriages, to reduce drug and alcohol dependence and improve mental health. That does not make it true, but it is worthy of thought: Why should something so "irrational," a mere "neurological disorder," be so helpful to society?

Many of us suspect -- or yes, believe -- that there is more to the world than we know, that there is a mystery at its heart. That mystery may evoke some unworthy speculation, attract some charlatans, occasion some cruelties. Faith is also the spur for everything from the poetry of Psalms to the Cathedral at Chartres to relief missions. "Religulous" is one-dimensional. Religion is as varied and colorful as God's blessed world.

David Wolpe is the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of "Why Faith Matters."

"Religulous" Movie Review

Yesterday, I joined my buddy Mark and a handful of his renegade friends for a midweek movie matinee viewing of “Religulous,” a film from comedian/commentator Bill Maher and director Larry Charles (Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm). 

We were interested in this movie because--as imperfect followers of Jesus Christ--we are deeply concerned with how the Christian message is communicated and interpreted.

Maher’s premise is that all religion—including Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Mormonism, Scientology, and Islam--is unhealthy and ultimately destructive to humanity.  He makes his argument by interviewing a hodgepodge of practitioners of different faiths and challenging/mocking the least believable—and often most comical--aspects of their religions.

There are several components to his argument.  First, he affirms that logic and intellect always trump faith and experience, which he condemns as unreliable and laughable. Ironically, Maher seems to argue that while it is intellectually “honest” for him to admit that there are things he can’t understand, it is intellectually “dishonest” for religious people to say, “I don’t know...but I believe God does.” 

Under the pretense of honest agnosticism, Maher actually argues for an uncompromising atheism.  Each seemingly benign “I don’t know” morphs into a “...therefore, YOU can’t know.”  By doing this, he negates the possibility that someone else’s faith or personal experience—or even their logic or intellect--may lead them to the conclusion that true faith is not only possible, but preferable.

Throughout the film, Maher makes the argument against the existence of Universal Truth precisely by insisting that his definition of truth should be universal.  But Bill (can I call ya “Bill”?), you just can’t have it both ways. 

Either Truth is objective and external, and we all better dang well pay attention to it...or Truth is subjective and internal, and no one has the right to criticize the values or faith system of another person.  He totally sidesteps both options and refuses to acknowledge that Truth—like our Constitution—can be pure in principle AND poorly practiced.

I am further troubled by Maher’s tendency to use facts, half-truths, and untruths somewhat interchangeably throughout his presentation.  Yes, we’ve all heard the truism that religion has been guilty of much mayhem throughout history, but has it really been responsible for more deaths than any other human cause...more than Stalin, Hitler, Mao AND Pol Pot?  I’d really like to see his numbers.

Maher also goes on a rant about how the Virgin Birth of Christ isn’t credible because it’s only cited in two of the Gospels.  He doesn’t mention that there are only four gospels in the Bible—and that the other two are solely accounts of the last three years of Jesus’ adult life.  Neither does he feel compelled to mention that there are several other places in the New Testament that touch on this theme.

Let’s face it, although he poses as a judge, Maher is really a lawyer for the prosecution.  It’s just not his agenda to present the whole truth.  Rather, he sees his job as spinning this unchallenged evidence so that the jury of public opinion will have no choice but to agree with his verdict. 

 Taken at face value, Bill Maher’s witness list of goofy preachers, power-hungry clerics, self-appointed messiahs, inarticulate commoners and victimized parishioners is pretty damning.  I believe that his tirade requires our honest and active response, because he has put on the big screen what a lot of people in this generation are wondering about in the troubled places of their hearts.

So what?

I can’t answer that for you, but my takeaway is that the worldwide reputation of faith in Jesus Christ has a major public relations problem.  Yes, we Christians are often our own worst enemies. And I’m not saying that all of Bill Maher’s criticisms are warranted.  But I will suggest that if we Jesus followers were more often characterized by our tireless service to others, our unequivocal commitment to justice and the poor, our lack of materialism and self-indulgence, and our profoundly sacrificial love, then Bill Maher would have had a lot smaller target for his ire.  I mean, he didn’t pick on Mother Teresa...not even once.  And perhaps, if more believers came into his life with emotional transparency, spiritual humility, and intellectual honesty...then perhaps his next film about faith may be different. 

Because despite what Bill Maher says, miracles do happen.

What Books Should We Read?

We need your help deciding which books to read for this book club. Remember that the general theme is how faith and culture intersect, which could mean faith influencing the surrounding society or cultural influences on religious and philosophical worldviews.

You decide. Drop a comment here with the book's title and author.

We'll keep a running tally, put it to a vote or something, or just draw straws. Not sure what the selection process will look like, but I assure you that it will lack any kind of rationale or mathematical computation.

Most likely, we'll buy a copy of each book and put a spider monkey in a room with them. Whichever books he doesn't shred to pieces, we'll read. Something sensible like that.

Critics and Cynics: Welcome

Welcome to the "Critics and Cynics" Blog, a place where you can freely discuss your thoughts on issues of faith, life, and culture. This is a landing zone for a book club that goes by the same name, but we encourage the greater community at-large to join in the conversation.

Why "critics and cynics"?
Basically, we feel that anything worth believing in requires a healthy level of either criticism of cynicism.

Criticism is defined as "the art of evaluating or analyzing", whereas cynicism is marked by a "general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others." We believe both are important and necessary when exploring issues of faith and culture.

What's the point?
Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." We want to have a life worth living, even if it means examining some of the ideas and presuppositions to which we've tightly clung for so long. We are dubious of institutions that have trained us to play "follow the leader," and in order to go deeper, we must be healthy skeptics.

Paul of Tarsus said, "Test everything. Hold onto the good." This is the intended end of this little experiment. As we analyze and question, we are hoping that we are able to discard the unnecessary and hold onto whatever is left that is good, true, and noble.

Hopefully, it will be much more substantial than whatever we started with.