A recent post on the apt and excellent blog by H.L. Goodall (http://www.hlgoodall.com/), discusses the problems with devout religious believers empowered to make laws that reflect their tightly held convictions (http://www.hlgoodall.com/Blog/The-Last-Taboo-and-Me-and-You.html).
The author of the blog notes that: “Representative John Shimkus (R-Ill), a Christian man who begins every day with a Tweet containing a Bible verse reminding Democrats and Republicans alike of God’s wrath, may become the next chair of the House Energy Committee…” and that “…Mr. Shimkus firmly believes that no one should worry overmuch about climate change because God promised not to destroy the earth again after Noah’s flood.”
In this we have a perfect example of a myth that comes to us from 1000 BCE used to confront, and with an ardent believer of this myth in a position of considerable political power, to attack and deface a very large and growing body of scientific information that tells us we have very much to worry about with climate change.
That would be enough for those of us not so well blessed by all-comforting belief to tear at our hair, right there.
We know, though, a significant minority, if not a majority, of Americans, when polled admit to believing the earth is about 6000 years old and the biblical story of Noah’s flood is an historical account.
These are the sort of people who equate the word “theory” with “just another story”. We aren’t going to convince them of anything by trying to rationally change their minds. It ain’t a-gonna happen.
If we are to reach them, the twice- and thrice-weekly church-goers, we must speak to their hearts. Having been raised among these people, though not now a believer, I am able to accurately tell you that one of the things that most motivate their convictions and their opinion are examples of forthright hypocrisy, particularly when it is presented to them in terms of the language and symbols of their faith.
When we talk about the actions like the Christian Senator Coburn’s consistent support of his Big Oil sponsors, no matter how nastily they behave, or how much his support hurts ordinary people (and we back our talk up with accurate citation of checkable fact), or when when we factually talk about the human costs of dirty coal and Representative Shimkus’ strong support for it, I think we have a chance to show people that these men, and others like them, are worshippers first, of power and the means to achieve it, with the God of the Bible taking a distant second.
Now it is true that for some believers, the arrival of “end times” and the imminent return of Jesus, would offer little reason to try to preserve a depraved and ultimately doomed world. To these folks, we might call attention to the utterance of Jesus himself, speaking of such matters, when he said “no man knows the day or the hour.”
Again, the point is to intelligently invoke their way of seeing and believing to convince them.
When I commented to Dr. Goodall’s blog (a blog which I recommend to everyone without reservation), what I said then would stand as a preface to what I’ve written above. Instead of recapitulating what I’ve already written, I simply copy here what I posted there:
Like the author, I, too “don’t think Representative Shimkus has the right to condemn us (and the rest of the world) to inaction on climate change,” but I would add, “on account of his personal belief in a particular interpretation of the Christian Bible“.
And just as the author says, we do “…live in a nation that recently elected a coterie of Teapublican nabobs intent on forcing their corporate-financed, Fox-mediated nattering nonsense on us all…” who are “…intent on reversing energy, justice, tax, and social policies that contradict their literal interpretation of the Christian Bible.” Their “literal” interpretation, it should be emphasized, is an example of a specific interpretation they call literal, and which derives from a particularly American pietistic tradition that asserts God’s truth comes through the individual quest of a believer reading his or her Bible alone in the company of God’s Holy Spirit–but with a twist. The twist is a little like the Pigs’ role in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “…all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal…” The interpretations of Churchly “authorities” are to be understood by believers as carrying more weight than just anyone’s. This point is important, in order to understand what is meant by “literal” in this characteristically authoritarian American-style modified version of “me, mah bible, an’ the holy spirit,” and what it is that undergirds present-day temporally empowered American Christianity.
I was most moved to write this comment when I read the following. (You will see why.): “A caveat: I do not claim to know the mind nor the will of God. Nor do I know for sure that climate change will be the one thing that destroys the earth. Could be Armageddon. Could be a widespread virus against which we have no defense. Could be nuclear war. Could be a giant burst of energy or a dark star colliding with the blue planet. So no, I don’t know how things will end. I am, if anything, just an average citizen concerned about the future who reads widely and isn’t shy about applying what we know to solve real problems. I do believe that climate change is a real problem.”
I want to take exception to the author’s careful stance. In a sense, I am going to boldly stand up and claim that I do. “know God’s will” in that I am choosing to pay close attention to my corner of the cosmos and to reliable accounts by others about other corners of it as to what has happened and is happening… particularly with respect to the “big questions” and what religions have done vs. what they have claimed to hold to. (You see, I cleave to the conviction that paying attention to what happens trumps what is said (or what an acquaintance once said “is gassed about.”)
Poignant to the situation in contemporary America convicted Christian belief proves, upon close examination, for most believers, more a defense/threat mechanism against the fear of death than it is anything else. Senator Coburn’s and Representative Shimkus’ view of climate change and the Bible is as much an outgrowth of that, as it is anything else, and we are able to witness the truth of this in watching their reactions (and the reactions of those of like mind) when we offer criticism of their carefully balanced beliefs, or we stand up for the validity of alternative paths and interpretations. The line of “reasoning” goes like this: “If any part of the edifice that assures me that I am not really going to die can be called into question, then any part of it might be, or even the entire thing. If that happens, maybe I am going to die, after all.” (Full disclosure here: I was raised deeply within the American Christian Fundamentalist tradition, and speak with authority, when I comment about what the Fundamentalist sects consider or do not consider important.)
We should not neglect the insight (in the admittedly snarkily expressed) observation that 90 percent of Euro-American religious activity boils down to an admixture of three distinct reactions to the divine: 1) God as our Invisible Friend for whom we are throwing a surprise party, 2) God as the Boss who is coming, in anticipation of whom we must look busy, and 3) God as a Sock Puppet. (The latter designation may require some explanation for people not acquainted with every aspect of online jargon. A “sock puppet” in this sense is an online identity used for purposes of deception, specifically the deception that a different person is speaking one’s own thoughts and convictions, other than oneself. A person creates a sock puppet and then comments on listservs, social networking sites and blogs through it, as though a different individual were speaking.) Acknowledging this, we can only conclude that most of what people accord to God as “his will” and his direction comes not from any outside source of intentionality, but from within, and that “God” gets loaded down in this way with a lot of rubbish (for want of a better, if more off-color term) completely unrelated to anything that might come to a person caught up in the moment of connecting with the numinous.
I’m going to go even further in my claim to knowing “God’s will,” though. From reading that same Bible that guys like Mr. Coburn and Mr. Shimkus mention so often, the Christian God, if he or she is manifest in a form at all like what most people imagine when they give meaning to the word (namely, as a transcendent creator-being of great power who has a deep concern for each and every human destiny), I would like to suggest that Senator Coburn, Representative Shimkus, and others of their ilk are contemporary examples of Pharisees, in the most negatively pejorative sense of the word–here meaning “corrupt and false priests.” From their actions (as noted in the article), we intuit that the gods they truly worship are power, and the monetary means to achieve and augment it. Even a less than a careful reading of the Christian New Testament tells us that in the teachings of that faith’s originator, Jesus (later known as the Christ), hypocrites, self-dealers and takers of the Pharisaical kind become the objects of Jesus’ most pointed condemnation. (In noting this I find myself strongly resisting the urge to quote scripture here to prove my point. Must be the fundamentalist upbringing trying to come out.) If the Christian God had anything at all to do with the formation of His Book then clearly what Senator Coburn and Representative Shimkus are, are fakes, and what their “faith” is, is a lie.
In saying what I say, here, I think I am urging us all–those of us who cherish a different view than the narrow one represented in recent electoral victories by Tea Party advocates, and who feel a compelling desire to confront the lies that threaten our world–to carry “the last taboo” all the way into the territory of the opposition. All the way, speaking with authority in language and terms with which our opponents and their followers are familiar. In other words, not just to use tropes like, “…if God (said or did), then it follows that…” but a more “in their face” assertion that what these people stand for is not God’s will but their own, and their lust for a crown. We need to be willing to make recourse to the same sets of stories from Christian Mythology that they do.
Right now, all we have is the weak advantage of mind. They–these enemies posing as Good Friends–hold the peoples’ hearts. I believe there is room to wrest the hearts of the people away from them, while keeping our minds.
(In this comment, to some, I’m sure I would sound like a Christian, because intelligent believing Christians might make an argument that arrives at a similar place by different means. I may sound like a Christian, but I’m not an Anything.)
