The Bigotry of the Faithful

During the presidential primary season last year, Ben Affleck was asked about candidate Mike Huckabee’s belief in creationism. He answered by expressing relief that at least Huckabee was not “a real sort of Neanderthal about it—a literalist.” Around the same time, stand-up comedian and political satirist Bill Maher produced a documentary called Religulous which was aimed at skewering religious simpletons for their belief in God. Its cynicism and sarcasm drew the following ire from a minority of critics:  A “snide” “shoddy tirade”, “ugly and hateful”, “offensive” and meant to “confirm…prejudices”. Cosmo Landesman of the UK’s Sunday Times went so far as to say that Maher was “as dogmatic about his doubt as the believers are about their faith.” Even so, Rotten Tomatoes critics’ average gave it a 70% positive consensus and summarized it as “funny and offensive in equal measure…aims less to change hearts and minds than to inspire conversation.” Ben Stein’s pro-intelligent design documentary, Expelled, on the other hand, received only a 10% positive and was summarized as a “patronizing, poorly structured cynical political stunt in the guise of a documentary.”

Most of us are familiar with the stigma of racial bigotry sometimes associated with southern conservatives, and there’s even a bigotry of the religious variety against unbelievers who choose not to live according to the traditional values of the religious right. But today, the bigotry that is perhaps most prevalent in our culture is levied against religious believers by those who not only reject their ideology, but refuse to abide those who profess it. In a nation that is becoming increasingly polarized, this intolerance is divisive and destructive to both our social fabric and our intellectual discourse.

The chief peddlers of anti-religious bigotry are intellectual elites who are devoted to a secular worldview that does not allow for any notions of God, the supernatural, or religious doctrines. But you don’t have to debate university professors or media moguls to be confronted with their way of thinking; you can find it in any number of conversations about faith (as it relates to church or philosophy, etc.), physical sciences (as it relates to evolution or abortion), sociology, politics, and so forth. If you take a position which is in any way informed by a faith tradition or “holy” text, you are opening yourself up to the ridicule of those who do not subscribe to any such reference point.

Timothy Keller, in his book The Reason for God, states that there are three approaches used to degrade respect for religious thought and marginalize those who prescribe to it—outlawing it, privatizing it, and condemning it.

The outlawing movement is, in our country, most notably rooted in the concept of separation of church and state. Despite politically-correct hype in this arena, the founders never advocated exclusion or discrimination against faith or religious thought in the political sphere, but rather called our lawmakers to be indiscriminate and not recognize any particular faith or tradition. And, as anyone who has visited most any monument in Washington D.C. would realize, many of the precepts on which our government was founded are based on religious beliefs as explicitly expressed by our founders—not to mention just about every President since then. To attempt to outlaw or bar religious thought—or any particular strain of thinking for that matter—from the public sphere would be a terrible irony, and it has no place in our free society. You should remain uninhibited to think what you want about religion—practice it or don’t practice it as liberally as our laws can allow—and enable others to do the same.

Those who push to privatize faith take a similar approach—desiring to keep all religion and religious thought and expression out of the public sphere. It may not be outlawed, but it is viewed as inferior or irrelevant. This is particularly common for otherwise tolerant relativists who happily tolerate contrary beliefs until they butt up against their own. For this reason, evangelism is taboo—as well as any moral or political argument that has any basis in faith. If evangelism itself was truly a problem, today’s climate change activists would be the first to be condemned. But since their position is based on scientific theories, they have the philosophical right-a-way according to secular thinkers. This is an understandable preference for them, but it does not justify condemnation of any and all alternate viewpoints.

And that brings us to the real rub—condemnation of all things religious. This is quite a broad condemnation first of all, not only because of the sheer numbers of people who claim to be religious, but also because of the broad range of belief systems out there. Zen Buddhists don’t really believe in God and Hindus don’t believe in the supernatural; some religions are not mutually exclusive and some do not require certain practices or beliefs for salvation (heaven, nirvana, or the like). Keller, therefore, sums religion up as “a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing.” It’s hard to separate this from philosophy, and for that I would introduce the element of faith—that which we are willing to believe without certainty or proof. I believe this element is the true target of religion’s antagonists.

Though many would contend there is a substantial difference in degree, it must be noted that we all live our lives by faith—faith that the new cereal we try is not poisonous, faith that the people driving in the opposing lane of traffic will not veer into our lane, faith that our vehicle is constructed in such a way and the laws of nature are such that our car will stop at a crosswalk and let the pedestrians walk safely across, and…these are just a few examples you might run across on the way to work. That is what you may call small-“f” faith, not because of what’s at stake (people’s lives in every case) but because of the observed, repetitive data. Small though they may be, it’s difficult to make a philosophical distinction between such common exercises in faith and the one that leads you to develop a conviction about, say, morality.

Whether or not you believe in objective right and wrong is based on both observation of behavior and consequences as well as, presumably, some type of philosophical or religious teachings or suppositions. And, when you’re considering religion (or the lack there of), you can’t escape the mysteries of the origin of the universe, which will inevitably lead to a clash between science (which, though concrete, is very limited) and the supernatural (abstract but theoretically limitless). You are free to reject or adopt a big-bang theory leading to our evolution or a seven-day creation from intelligent design, but in either case you will have to contend with the reasonable objections and, necessarily, to bridge any mysteries (and there are bound to be many) with faith. To deny all faith, ironically, requires enormous faith in your own intellect and in the alternate basis of your beliefs—be it science, personal experience, or whatever your bag may be.

It is no secret that atheists are convinced that religious people are devoted to myths and fairy tales no more valid than Santa Clause or greek mythology, and some see no difference between Branch Davidians and Mainline Presbyterians. And it goes without saying that many religious believers are convinced that infidels are lost, disobedient, and very possibly headed to eternal damnation. So, if you put these two groups in a room and ask them to be honest and open with one another, it could get ugly. But we should recognize that these are both legitimate (though unfriendly) positions. And we shouldn’t expect either side to believe differently about the other based on what their faith dictates. We all hold views of the world that will inevitably clash with opposing viewpoints, and it’s entirely appropriate to think critically and hold beliefs and articles of faith up to scrutiny—judging them for consistency and against observable, certifiable truth. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t admit, with humility, that on many points we could be wrong and that our faith could be misplaced. And it doesn’t mean that we can’t maintain respect and tolerance towards those who believe differently than we do.

So, if you hold firm to a set of beliefs—be they religious or otherwise—know that you are among the faithful, and therefore in danger of looking down on those who don’t share your devotion to your god, science, or philosophy. And if you are agnostic or give little thought to figuring it all out, you still have a worldview which may lead you to be suspicious or disrespectful towards people who make claims of conviction.

By marginalizing or shutting out those we disagree with, we are treating them as “less than”, and we’ll inevitably come across as arrogant and obnoxious. We’ll also rob ourselves of the growth that we can experience by broadening our horizons and strengthening or refining our stance.

Why can’t we all get along? The bigotry normalized by our secular culture isn’t helping. Since we’re not all going to agree, tolerance needs to come back in vogue and be consistently applied to the broad range of views and creeds in our diverse society.