Someone Finally Said It....
Over the course of writing this blog and its weekly counterpart, "This Week in the News" I have -- at various times -- been criticized for what readers have (correctly) interpreted as my hostility to organized religion. I have been accused of being a "religious bigot" by one reader, and as having a "grudge" by another. Sometimes it is difficult to meet these charge because "respecting faith while shunning its practice" is a hard argument to make. But I think recent events within the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) crystallize my own problem with the practice of christianity in America better than any argument I may make.
First, a little background. The NAE, like the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition is an organization designed by Evangelicals to build the influence of evangelical Christians within the mainstream culture, most importantly, within the Republican Party. A man named Fr. Rick Cizik is the Vice President of the NAE and a few months back created a veritable shitstorm when he stated that the struggle to solve global warming was one of the most important moral issues of our day. Calls for his ouster soon followed and various prominent members of the NAE (most with their own name-brand christian organizations) sent a letter that read in part:
I think it is absolutely absurd, perhaps insane, to term any of these "the great moral issues of our time." I think you would be hard pressed to argue they make the top three. These issues are undoubtly worthy of serious consideration. I have no doubt that one or all of them has presented a serious moral quandary to particular individuals. But they are not the most serious moral issues of our time. Sex is just not that important. Does anyone look out over the world landscape today and say "The world would be so much better if people did not use condoms." Can anyone honestly look at the world today and say that abortion is the greatest threat to human life in existence? The nuclear weapons we have in our own country can kill more (actual) people than abortions destroy fetuses in an entire year in the US. Is there really anyone who thinks that the world will fall apart if we recognize the unions of gay couples? Can anyone look at Iraq, Darfur, or the various inequalities here in the West and say that abstinence would solve them?
Apparently there are such people and they bear the dubious distinction of doing more harm than good. How is such a morality to be taken seriously?
What has happened is that marginal -- and highly personal -- issues of sexual mores have been elevated to the level of real moral issues, like who shall eat and who shall starve, who shall live and who shall die, and who will advance in a society and who will be left behind. Christians have taken a set of issues, none of which have any serious place in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and all of which are subject to contradictory biblical references, and made them raison d'etre of their faith. At the same time, they have sought fit to ignore those issues which speak to a regard for life on a communal and universal level -- poverty, war, inequality, the destruction of our common home, compassion, forgiveness.
Organized christianity -- much like the culture they often criticize -- has taken what is trivial and made it important, and taken what is important and made it trivial. They should know better.
First, a little background. The NAE, like the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition is an organization designed by Evangelicals to build the influence of evangelical Christians within the mainstream culture, most importantly, within the Republican Party. A man named Fr. Rick Cizik is the Vice President of the NAE and a few months back created a veritable shitstorm when he stated that the struggle to solve global warming was one of the most important moral issues of our day. Calls for his ouster soon followed and various prominent members of the NAE (most with their own name-brand christian organizations) sent a letter that read in part:
First we have to decipher this letter a bit because it uses a lot of code words. By "sanctity of life," the writers do not mean enemies of life like poverty, war disease or famine. They mean abortion. (Christians in America have very little to say about poverty, war, disease or famine. They have a lot to say about abortion.) By "integrity of marriage" they mean the prevention of any legal recognition of gay unions. By "sexual abstinence and morality" they mean the prevention of contraception and pre marital sexual relations. So, according to these folks, the preeminent moral issues of our time are ensuring that no one has sex before marriage, that when they do have sex it is with someone of the opposite sex, and that the aforementioned sex must result in a child.Cizik and others, are using the global warming controversy to shift the
emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity
of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual
abstinence and morality to our children.
I think it is absolutely absurd, perhaps insane, to term any of these "the great moral issues of our time." I think you would be hard pressed to argue they make the top three. These issues are undoubtly worthy of serious consideration. I have no doubt that one or all of them has presented a serious moral quandary to particular individuals. But they are not the most serious moral issues of our time. Sex is just not that important. Does anyone look out over the world landscape today and say "The world would be so much better if people did not use condoms." Can anyone honestly look at the world today and say that abortion is the greatest threat to human life in existence? The nuclear weapons we have in our own country can kill more (actual) people than abortions destroy fetuses in an entire year in the US. Is there really anyone who thinks that the world will fall apart if we recognize the unions of gay couples? Can anyone look at Iraq, Darfur, or the various inequalities here in the West and say that abstinence would solve them?
Apparently there are such people and they bear the dubious distinction of doing more harm than good. How is such a morality to be taken seriously?
What has happened is that marginal -- and highly personal -- issues of sexual mores have been elevated to the level of real moral issues, like who shall eat and who shall starve, who shall live and who shall die, and who will advance in a society and who will be left behind. Christians have taken a set of issues, none of which have any serious place in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and all of which are subject to contradictory biblical references, and made them raison d'etre of their faith. At the same time, they have sought fit to ignore those issues which speak to a regard for life on a communal and universal level -- poverty, war, inequality, the destruction of our common home, compassion, forgiveness.
Organized christianity -- much like the culture they often criticize -- has taken what is trivial and made it important, and taken what is important and made it trivial. They should know better.
posted by Jack Reed at 1:02 PM
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