Getting back to the question of why Christians become rabid fans of manifestly unworthy leaders, Bilbo Baggins posted an article in the comments section by Mark Knoll, the author of "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind." Knoll said many interesting things in his article updating his classic book, but the statement that most caught my attention was:
"Taken together, American evangelicals display many virtues and do many things well, but built-in barriers to careful and constructive thinking remain substantial."
The moment I read that statement I wondered, what if it turned out that faith itself is one of those built in barriers to careful and constructive thinking? What if faith turned out to be the biggest of all such barriers? Faith, after all, is the willingness or ability to believe without evidence, or to believe despite evidence to the contrary. I can see why Christians want others to share their particular faith. As Charles Sanders Pierce memorably put it, "we think all of our particular beliefs true and it is a mere tautology to say so." But the question that confronts (and sometimes haunts)me is whether faith is a desirable thing at all?
I have to say that training large numbers of people to believe certain propositions without evidence, or training them to ignore, distort, and/or refuse evidence when doing so becomes necessary to maintain their belief in those propositions, strikes me as a course fraught with peril. At the very least, its a bad way to help people stay in touch with reality. And one could argue persuasively that faith is down right immoral.
Personally, I suspect that it is our training in faith (by which I mean our training to be indifferent to evidence) that facilitates the tribalistic loyalty Christians often show to manifestly unworthy leaders.
Yes, yes, I'm aware that those who have not seen and yet believed are blessed, that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. But there seems to be a serious downside to being a person of faith, at least in terms of information processing. I think it would be foolish to ignore this fact.
Any thoughts?
Joe H.
Posts
The Years Of Writing Dangerously
9 years ago
3 comments:
Joe -
Why can't you just allow me to live quietly in my ignorance? Rabble rouser...
Just kidding. I don't think God calls everyone to plumb the depths of the relationship between their faith and their reason, but it is important for at least reflective Christians to take great care in what issues they are willing to suspend their reason for in favor of faith.
Very clearly, when the willingness to suspend reason begins to march across all areas of life, (as in selection of political candidates), we're probably neglecting something very important that God gave us.
I think that the Apostle Paul's advice is worth recalling -- Faith, Hope and Love abide but Love should be our guidepost (which echoes Jesus' formulation of what underlies all of the Faith : that we love God with all our heart and that we love our neighbors). It might be uncharitable of me to simply say that some Evangelicals are simply not living the Way in the way they fail to love.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1541466,00.html
Joe - this is a link to the very same kind of article written by Andrew Sullivan.
I am not done with it yet, but I think a follow-up post would be a great idea.
Don't you like how I jump in the driver's seat there? : )
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