- Ross Douthat on the swings of dogma within the Catholic Church;
- Politicians who “textjack” the Bible;
- Valerie Tarico on 10 thought processes that trip up Christians.
The pieces today echo other recent items: the Veritasium piece (posted on the 5th) on cognitive ease (say something over and over…); Adam Lee’s item about book bans (posted on the 6th) from conservative parents so absolutely certain of their dogma they insist on imposing it upon everyone else; and the item about that obscure Christian text (posted about on the 1st) once popular, now forgotten.
This is from one of NY Times’ conservative columnists.
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NY Times, opinion by Ross Douthat, How the Extraordinary Became Normal in Catholicism
Recall the opening minute of the Veritasium video, and read Douthat’s opening. Something relevant there about religion, here.
The Francis era in Roman Catholicism is a good example of how the abnormal and even extraordinary can come to feel, with enough repetition, old hat and status quo.
The rest of the column is examples: back and forths in policy, and schisms within, the Church. What was alarming and threatening a couple decades ago, to true believers, is now a feeling of “repetition and familiarity.”
I don’t care about the details (that involve such matters as women, same-sex relationships, sex scandals in the church, and so on — and he doesn’t mention recent news about Pope Pius XXII’s complicity in the Holocaust) as to observe that religious certainty is built on shifting sands, and virtually none of the billions of followers (of all the religions) realize this. The scholars do, even many of the pastors, but they’re not telling. Following, “believing”, is more important.
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More in the shifting sands department. Religion is ideal for motivated reasoning: you look for the parts that support your position, and ignore the parts that deny it. Or, you lie about what your sources actually say.
CNN, John Blake, 3 Oct 2023: As the 2024 campaign heats up, be wary of politicians who ‘textjack’ the Bible
The piece begins by recalling a gaffe made by Howard Dean in 2004 (confusing Old and New Testaments) that, the article implies, killed his campaign. (As I recall there was more to it than that.)
As the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, some politician will inevitably make the same mistake as Dean — they will twist the original meaning of some biblical passage to score political points, a practice known as “textjacking.” Some will even blatantly lie about scriptural meanings to justify their positions or court voters.
Of course, that’s not what Dean actually did; he was merely confused. (This strikes me as yet another article trying to do “both-sides-ism”; the example is analogous to Trump’s mispronunciation of that Corinthians chapter.)
One theologian, however, is providing the public with a biblical sloppiness detector. Kaitlyn Schiess, author of the new book, “The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here,” offers some notorious examples from US history of politicians abusing the Bible.
Though church attendance is declining, Schiess says the US remains a “Bible-haunted” nation. Citations and allusions to scripture from leaders still carry weight and adorn our public buildings and ceremonies. The Bible is a potent political weapon, but many Americans remain theologically unarmed—they don’t know enough scripture to tell when they’re being played, she says.
And then she offers examples. The “shining city on a hill.” Justifying atrocities — slavery; taking children away from their parents (photo of Trump holding up that Bible).
The article then gives some credit: George W. Bush, and especially Abraham Lincoln.
His speeches were filled with rich Biblical metaphors and apt citations of scripture. Most importantly, he used scripture to not only elevate America but to chastise the country for its failings, as he masterfully did in his Second Inaugural Address. He quoted the Bible four times, mentioned God 14 times and summoned prayer three times in the famous speech.
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Related to the above are these 10 items compiled by Valerie Tarico, another writer, like Greta Christina, I’ve not seen in a while.
Valerie Tarico, AlterNet, 7 Oct 2023: Opinion | Former Christians are getting tripped up by these 10 thought processes
These reflect many of the observations I’ve made on this blog about believers: simple-minded, black and white thinking; the reduction of the world into good and evil; the obsessions with sin and confessions and sex; the idea that our current lives are only preludes to an afterlife; the alliance with authoritarians and demagogues; the preference for simplicity and denying any kind of moral ambiguity. (The denial of the real world.)
I’ll list her ten points.
- All or nothing thinking.
- Good guys and bad guys.
- Never feeling good enough.
- Hyperactive guilt detection.
- Sexual hangups
- Living for the future.
- Bracing for the apocalypse.
- Idealizing leaders.
- Desperately seeking simplicity.
- Intrusive what-ifs.
Closing with comments about the reality of the world we live in, which the Christians would like to deny.
In the real world, growth is gnarly. It happens in fits and starts, with forward leaps and sideways turns and backward skids and times of stasis. Change is rarely linear. Flip-flopping often serves truth-seeking. Certitude is rarely a virtue. We seldom know where we are headed. Nonetheless, sometimes we can look back and say with confidence, Not that. I may not know exactly what is true and right and real, but there are some things I can rule out.
I often find myself quoting one former Bible believer who made a comment but left no name: I would rather live with unanswered questions than unquestioned answers. Embracing uncertainty about the future and the big questions frees us to live more in the small delights of the near and present—a nest of blue jays, a hug, the smell of butter on toast. That may be as good as it gets.
That quote about living with answers has a reputable source… but I will look it up tomorrow. Update: it was the great physicist Richard Feynman > Quotes.
