What can we learn from the Atheists Acts 17:16-28a February 10, 2013 FUMC, Little Rock Sources: Brian McLaren, Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed cross the Road? Joel A. Cooper, Atheism is not the Answer, sermon preached by Joel Cooper at Central Fayetteville. Church Pastors Become Atheists, June 6, 2012, The Clergy Project - an online group of 240 clergy who have become atheists. More than 200 church clergy across the country now say they no longer believe in God, that is, according to the June 6, 2012, on line organization called The Clergy Project. Can you imagine the surprise that an announcement like that would make to a pastor s congregation, if they revealed that word some Sunday morning during the sermon. It could cause, even the closing of the church as it did in one congregation just 8 days after that announcement by its pastor.1 And of course, nearly all of us have known or know someone who claims to be an atheist. You have heard statements like, Most wars are caused by religions! Or, religions, and especially monotheistic ones, are inherently violent. Brian McLaren quotes Sam Harris who had this to say before listing a dozens centers of religious conflict in our world: Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these division have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past. Then he asked the question, why has religion been so fruitful in terms of violence rather than peace? Good question! I don t know as much as I should about other world religions, but I have studied the Judeao- Christian Faith, and know of its dark side. In the very beginnings of our faith, it seems that God expected a blood sacrifice to appease his anger, and that theology has continued even until this day By the 6 th chapter of Genesis, so much evil had come to pass that God had determined that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually, and the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Genesis 6:5-8). Hence, God sent a flood to destroy every living thing on the earth because of human sin. Later on in Genesis God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on the Altar at Mt Moriah. Since God rescued Isaac, we call that event the binding of Isaac. Later on with Abraham God instituted the practice of Circumcision, a blood sacrifice to seal their covenant relationship forever. Still later in the formation of our faith, God told the Israelites to take the promise land away from the inhabitants there through the practice of Herem; that is, the slaughter of ever living thing (men, women, children, and all domestic animals, so that their faith would not be compromised by the indigenous religion of the land they were conquering). How horrible! Human sacrifice never became part of the Judeo Christian religion as a result of the story of the Binding of Isaac, but God s hostility toward humankind continued to be problematic for the human race so animal sacrifice was practiced something we today would seem very barbaric; well up past the time of Jesus till the time of the destruction of the temple. And though for us Christians, animal sacrifices never became part of the Christian tradition, the idea of God demanding his Son s death on the Cross, or sending him here to die as a substitution for our sin continues to be the orthodox thinking of most of
Christianity. It s called the Penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. And it goes something like this. God cannot forgive sin without inflicting punishment and shedding blood, so God is obliged to punish all sinners. Because their offense is against an infinitely holy God, their punishment must be absolute, irrevocable, and eternal. All human beings will therefore be damned to eternal conscious torment in hell if God does not provide a substitute upon whom God s infinite wrath can be vented - and that substitute is his sinless Son Jesus. And those who believe that Jesus died for our sins will be save. And those that don t, won t. Period! They will burn in hell all because they did not confess him with their lips. This theory make God responsible for Jesus death on the cross, not the Jews nor the Romans. I think this theology has way outlived its usefulness for the Christian faith in our day because it portrays a very hostile God, whose hostility is repeated in our liturgy and life. Sin has always been a very serious human problem, one that only God can cure, but this popular way of imagining the character of God extremely over emphasizes his violent nature; that he demands a blood sacrifice for sin, even the death of his son Jesus on the cross to appease for our sin. To me, it is a distortion of the true identity of our creator! And, I have a hunch that much of the reason for the spread of atheism in our day has do to with abhorrence of such hostility that seems to be part of most religions, including our Christian Faith, and including the way we have historically characterized and imagined the character of God! It may not have been so with their founders, like Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, or Mohammed, but it surely was and still is with their disciples who follow after them as they become so adamant that their new way, is the way, the truth, and the life, even to the detriment to those who believe and think otherwise. In fact, it seems that religions, including Christianity, grow stronger by incorporating hostility to others in their identity. Different religious groups begin to energize themselves on the basis of their uniqueness and correctness in opposition to others, and carry in their ecclesiology the same violent tendencies that they have attributed to their God, emphasizing their goodness and the other s evil, their innocence and the other s guilt, their chosen-ness and the other s condemnation. Often times we define the other as irrational, evil, demonic, and even subhuman, and simultaneously define ourselves and unit ourselves through our shared hostility toward the other. For instance, how much of our identity as Christians is tied up in being ant-gay, anti-femist, anti-artificial birth control, anti-democrat or anti- republican, anti-secularism, anti-life, anti-liberal, or anti-conservative and on and on. Marion Matson reminded our Thursday Class of these words from South Pacific as Lt. Cable sings out: You've got to be taught to hate and fear, You've got to be taught from year to year It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made And people whose skin is a different shade You've got to be carefully taught. You're got to be taught before it's too late Before you are six or seven or eight. To hate all the people your relatives hate.
You've got to be carefully taught. Hate and hostility are learned things, and religion does play a ugly role in creating and sustaining hostility in our world, but it doesn t have to be that way. I think that many atheists have seen the depth of this hostility virus in religions to the point that in their minds, the world would be better off without any religion, or any church - that in fact, there is no God. They may even proclaim, wouldn t the world be more peaceful without religion? To them, maybe this hostile oppositional identity is so deeply ingrained in the fabric of the faith that it cannot be removed and is indistinguishable from it. Hence, throw it all out. All religions. All of them - there simply cannot be God! I m thankful to some of the Atheists in learning from them that a hostile religion, leads to hostile followers, and hostile followers to a world of violence and that just doesn t make sense to the future survival of the planet. Brian McLaren in the chapter, The Crisis of Christian Identity, in his book, Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the road, has a 10 item questionnaire that helps determine the strength of our Christian identity. A high score indicates a strong Christian identity. A low score indicates a weak benign Christian identity. The questionnaire is listed in your bulletin. Take the test. 5 means you strongly agree, and 0 means its absolutely untrue. What s your total? If you have a low score would you say that your aversion to hostility has led to an overall weakening of your Christian identity? If your score was high, how do you feel about item #10 on Hostility. Is it really essential to the list? Must you as a Christian maintain hostility to other faiths if you are going to hold a strong Christian identity? Considering imagining a new # 10 on Solidarity, like that we spoke about a few Sunday s ago, that says, My understanding of Jesus and his message leads me to see each faith, including my own, as having its own history, value, strengths, and weaknesses. I seek to affirm and celebrate all that is good in each faith, and I build intentional relationships of mutual sharing and respectful collaboration with people of all faiths, so all our faiths can keep growing and contributing to God s will being done on earth as in heaven, instead of the one on hostility. If you made this substitution would it make any difference in your response to the others? Would it change your faith? Would it change your understanding of how and why you do missions? Does this kind of model make more sense to you than the hostile model? Is it too radical or revolutionary? And can you begin to debug your own personal Christian Faith from this rampant oppositional virus from the prayers you pray, to the liturgy we use, to the music and hymns we sing, and to the motivation behind your service? My score in this new way is close to 50! So what are our options: Option 1: Throw them all out - no religion! No God. Atheism is the answer. That, of course, would be what the Atheists have done. They are right in that we cannot prove the reality of God, but we can site data that is suggestive of his existence. The collective witness and wisdom of the world s religion is one major data source. Personal religious experience of the sacred is also highly suggestive, along with provocative affirmations of postmodern science that points to a stupendous more than just the world of matter and energy, time and space. 2 Furthermore, it seems to be a psychological and inborn necessity to put faith in something. Human beings have always been religious by nature. Atheism, though, is not the answer! The kind of God you worship is! Option 2: Dumb it all down to the smallest common denominator - You know, We re all trying to get to the same place anyway. This is not the answer either to the violence of religion for the result of this is a weak, benign, no passion, irrelevant and unsustainable faith.
Option 3: Develop a strong benevolent hospitable religion based on solidarity. Marcus Borg calls this in his book, the Heart of Christianity, the God of love and justice. Threads of this kind of God run all throughout our Scriptures along with threads of a hostile God. We just need to debug our faith from this hostile interpretation, then live the benevolent threads out in our theology, preaching, hymns, creeds and deeds, liturgy and action in our world in his name. Atheism is not the answer to a strong-hostile religion, but neither is a weak-benign one, everyone is trying to get to the same place in the end religion, where all religions are brought down to their least common denominator, but rather a strong -benevolent religion that works for and prays for and wishes the very best to be expressed in each religion. The Apostle Paul, might have said it like this to us to use his language to Romans here in Little Rock: Men and Women of Little Rock, I perceive that in every way you are religious, and I am particularly interested in your idol to a benevolent God. Let me tell you about Him for I know him well. He created all things in diversity and called it good. He made us male and female, red and yellow, black and white, and all are precious in his sight. He gave us freedom and his own creative powers to fill the world and enjoy it and be its caretaker, and it was good. And he sent us his son, Jesus, to example before us the end of hostility and violence as the new way, the truth, and the life. This Jesus said, turn the other check, forgive your neighbor 7 times 70, love your enemies, do good to those that persecute you for righteousness sake. Let s meet Jesus again, as if for the first time, and see in him, that our God is a God of love, justice, and hospitality, not hostility! It s time to re-discover, re-vision, and reformulate who our God is for our post-imperial, post-colonial, and post-christian way. It is time this God, rightfully seen and understood through Jesus, took its rightful place in our worship, theology, liturgy, and life and becomes our way, our truth, and our life. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 1 2 Church Pastors Become Atheists, June 6, 2012, The Clergy Project Marcus Borg The Heart of Christianity, page 64.
The Strength of My Christian Identity 1. Validity: My Christian faith is highly significant to me because it adds true meaning and value to my life. 2. Intentionality: For me, Christian faith is not merely an un-chosen inheritance, a social custom, a matter of convenience, or the path of least resistance; it is an intentional commitment that I uphold and practice by conscious choice. 3. Durability: I plan to remain at least as committed to my Christian faith as I am now, over the course of my lifetime, through both hard times and easy times, and I hope to pass vital Christian faith on to my children and grandchildren. 4. Intensity: My Christian faith is so central to my life that it requires of me sacrifices and commitments that are sometimes costly and even painful. 5. Purity/Consistency: I conform to the beliefs, behaviors, habits, examples, prohibitions, ideas, and values that are consistent with my Christian faith, and I resist or reject their opposites as inconsistent with my Christian faith. 6. History: I consider myself to be part of the history and traditions of my faith community; Christian history is in some real sense my history. 7. Responsibility: I feel responsible for the health and well-being of the Christian community, now and in the future. 8. Missionality: I invest my time, energy, money, and abilities to participate in the Christian mission as I understand it. 9. Loyalty: I feel a special sense of loyalty to my fellow Christians because we are connected to one another through our shared faith and mission. 10. Hostility: I see other faiths as wrong, false, or evil, and I maintain a posture of opposition to all faiths but the Christian faith. Or 10. Solidarity: My understanding of Jesus and his message leads me to see each faith, including my own, as having its own history, value, strengths, and weaknesses. I seek to affirm and celebrate all that is good in each faith, and I build intentional relationships of mutual sharing and respectful collaboration with people of all faiths, so all our faiths can keep growing and contributing to God s will being done on earth as in heaven.