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.
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