“I BELIEVE; HELP MY UNBELIEF”

Apparently, I was meant to face intellectual challenges today–witness the Dave Fried post below, and now James Joyner comes along with a discussion on “Biblical” worldviews and their prevalence (or non-prevalence) among American Christians these days.

(James references a couple bloggers with whom I am not familiar, Jen and Joe Carter.)

Jen points to a longer post by Joe Carter, which in turn links to ongoing debates on blogs I’m unfamiliar with, questioning an assertion made on one of those blogs that the vast majority of Americans who call themselves “Christians” don’t actually believe these things:

–Absolute moral truths exist.
–Such truth is defined by the Bible;
–Jesus Christ lived a sinless life;
–God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe and He stills rules it today;
–Salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned;
–Satan is real;
–A Christian has a responsibility to share their faith in Christ with other people;
–The Bible is accurate in all of its teachings.

Joe Carter, in looking at this list, responds thusly:

Am I missing something? Is this the definition that excludes 91% of Christians as Justin claims? Personally, I thought this was what all biblical Christians believed, not just a particular “brand of conservative fundamentalist evangelicalism.”

Yep, Joe, you’re missing something; namely, that what you say is “what all biblical Christians believe” is, in fact, “just a particular ‘brand of conservative fundamentalist evangelicalism.’” Don’t get me wrong–I would agree with everything on that list except the first item (and not the last, as you predicted–I could argue that there are things in the Bible which are of questionable moral applicability today, but I can’t argue that the Bible doesn’t say what it does, since there’s entirely too much manuscriptural evidence to prove that the Bible we have today is amazingly accurate in its relationship to the original content).

The Bible gives instructions on how masters are to treat their slaves, for instance. Anybody want to take up the pro-slavery cause these days? Is it absolutely true that there’s a proper way to be a good slave master? Or have we discovered that slavery is absolutely wrong, even if the Bible contains instructions on how to deal with your slaves? I would argue that what the Bible says about slavery is not absolutely true, in the sense that it refers to practices which any rational person would have to find morally repugnant. It certainly was true for a time and place that embraced slavery, and if sch a time were to arise again, it would still be good; but for today’s world, it has no applicability. The statement There is a moral way to treat your slaves to our minds is always false–there is no moral way to perform what is an inherently immoral act.

(No, that last sentence itself is not an absolute moral truth–it’s a logical statement, and if you don’t know the difference, maybe this will help.)

At any rate, James is noting the gap between belief and practice among Christians:

Most Christians, like most non-believers, violate the letter and/or spirit of biblical teaching on a pretty regular basis. Not so much the murdering, stealing, and other big ticket Commandments, certainly, but many of the lesser Commandments, the Golden Rule and all manner of lesser sins*. The vast majority of Christians have sex long before they’re married, since their sex drive kicks in around 13 and marriage is postponed into their mid-20s or later. Now, if they believed God was literally watching them, would they do it? Let me ask it in another way: If they believed their mother was in the room watching, would they do it? Some professed Christians commit adultery. Would they do it if they believed their spouse was in the room watching? Christians sometimes bear false witness against their neighbor. Would they do it if they believed their neighbor was in the room listening?

There’s a huge difference here. I know God can and will forgive my sins; I’m not so sure about wife or my neighbor. God’s love is infinite; human love is finite. If you live life according to God’s grace, you’re inevitably led to accept Paul’s dictum that “nothing in heaven or on Earth can separate us from the love of God.” In other words, the great thing about God is that he knows your worst thoughts and actions, but still loves you anyway.

James continues:

Indeed, I’d guess a significant plurality of American Christians are, to coin a phrase, “Howard Dean Christians.” Ed.: Heh. They believe in being nice to people, helping their neighbors, doing good works, living a decent life, and all the rest. But they don’t have a deep sense of the supernatural, mythological aspect of the faith. Most Americans who call themselves Roman Catholics are what used to be called “cafeteria Catholics,” they pick and choose from the teachings of their church that they like and ignore the rest. They think the Pope is a really sweet man who deserves a lot of respect, but they don’t really think he’s the Vicar of Christ or the infallible interpreter of the will of God. Many of the taboos of Christianity simply no longer make much practical sense in the modern world, and most modern people have discarded them.

A lot of this is due to mainline Christianity’s misguided attempts to be “relevant” in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly through the widespread embracing of modernism. It was a strategic move which didn’t pay off for the church.

None of this is to say that Christians are bad people or even hypocrites in any conscious sense. Most Christians–and I’d argue, most other people–try to behave decently and struggle with our natural impulses to do otherwise. It’s just that modernity, almost by definition, creates a non-mystical mindset that makes fundamentalism a poor fit.

Hey, I’ll say it–Christians are hypocrites. In fact, you can’t really be a Christian unless you already know that you’re a hypocrite. Chasing righteousness and catching sin–that’s the reality for every Christian, and it does make us hypocrites. That’s why most liturgical churches start their worship with some form of confession and forgiveness. Our theological identity begins with the acknowledgement of our own hypocrisy.

As for modernism and its non-mysticality, that point can’t be argued. Again, just look at the history of American mainstream Christianity between World War II and, oh, 1980 or so. It’s the story of the triumph of psychotherapy over spirituality. But the world has moved on to post-modernism and its many paths to the same goal, its alternate realities based on existential commitments, and its lack of universal anything. This environment is much more amenable to mysticality and supernaturalism–it’s just that the Christian versions of same aren’t weird enough for most PoMo folks.