Why "The Christian Left" is Neither

Can suppressing open dialogue be truly "Left"?
by Peter John

For unfamiliar readers,  "The Christian Left" is a formal organization. It promotes itself as sensibly Christian, believing in Jesus Christ, promoting liberal values, and asserting that Jesus himself seems more liberal than conservative by modern standards. After all, he supported helping the poor and needy, and condemned hoarding wealth. He challenged ecclesiastical authorities, exposed their hypocrisy, and disavowed their actions "as one having authority" of his own.

"The Christian Left" fails the test of liberalism when it suppresses open discussion on issues, as many respondents on Facebook have learned. All it takes to get blocked from responding to its posts is to dispute one of its arguments. However respectful or well-considered the response may be, if it sheds doubt on the conclusions of the original post. They block this dialogue even as they claim that Facebook censors their ads.

I learned this by disputing an assertion that because the Bible refers to God breathing into man "the breath of life" to make man "a living soul", it means that Biblically we are not living human beings until we draw our firstbreath. The ironic fault in this argument is that it employs literal Biblical interpretation -- the same literalism the organization decries in conservative fundamentalism. More seriously, it promotes the very anti-Christian assertion that abortion is completely acceptable in Christianity, and goes so far to suggest it as desirable in some cases. That falls far short of being tragic in even the most understandable cases.

The Christian basis for opposing abortion has more to do with the dogma of incarnation than does the Biblical Creation story. Luke talks of Mary carrying Jesus --the embodiment of the Creator --as soon as she conceives. She immediately visits her cousin Elizabeth, six months along with John the Baptist. When the women meet Elizabeth immediately recognizes Mary as the Mother of her Lord when John the Baptist jumps in her womb. Theologians commonly interpret this as Jesus' formal prophetic commission of John, even though both are yet unborn -- and even though Jesus has barely been conceived.

Such New Testament revelation establishes the personhood of the unborn for Christians. Philosophical conclusions augment this. These recognize that by definition being human means that there will never be another you. As a human being, you cannot be replaced, what makes you unique cannot be transferred to anybody else, and you exist for your own sake -- not merely as a part of something else. In combination it means that the key word in "human zygote" is still "human".Christianity recognizes the irreplaceable humanity of even a child who has just been conceived.

"The Christian Left" has no interest in hearing these thoughts, or in allowing discussion of them. It deletes dissent and blocks dissidents, permitting only approval of its conclusions, and creating the illusion of consensus. Truly liberal dialogue embraces discussion. Truly Christian dialogue does not minimize the destruction of human life. In the end a thoroughly misnamed "The Christian Left" becomes religious fundamentalism of the most destructive kind because it calls evil good and good evil.

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(c) Peter John Stone. All Rights Reserved. Contact author for permissions.

Atheist Fundamentalism

The Religious Fundamentalist Nature of Militant Atheism
by Peter John




This quote from Dr. Richard Dawkins shows his willingness to embrace a false dichotomy rather than accept that some people have reasons beyond his own experience for believing as they do.
This is religious fundamentalism.

I respect the knowledge and experience of Dr. Richard Dawkins. I admire the logical genius of the late Christopher Hitchens. I appreciate their contributions to our culture and public dialogue, regardless of my differing beliefs. I respect that their atheism is a reasonable conclusion if they have never had any objective experience to support believing in God.

That is more than their ridicule of Christianity and religion in general offer any others who do believe in God. Dr. Dawkins' argument epitomizes a common fundamental attribution error common among atheist fundamentalists. Dawkins argues that the creation accounts from the Bible and other major religions have no supportive evidence, while the scientific account of how the universe began has extensive evidence. Were that comparison valid, concluding that those believing in a creator are simply fooling themselves might be valid as well.

This argument has two central problems. Its false assumption that the message of divine revelation demands literal interpretation comes first. This results in a false dichotomy -- the appearance of only two available and mutually exclusive options. Both of these not only constitute poor science, but serve as easy to spot earmarks of fundamentalism.

Many of the very heroes of science whose work created the scientific model of how the universe came to be believed in God. Despite the Church's harsh and erroneous judgments against him, Galileo still believed in God. Copernicus was a Roman Catholic deacon. Monsignor Charles LeMaitre, who proposed what we now call the Big Bang Theory, was a priest. By Dr. Dawkins' reasoning this means that either  their conclusions are the product of addled and illogical brains, rendering them untrustworthy, or these clear thinking men had some experience that Dr. Dawkins has not shared.

Just as any fundamentalist religious person, Dr. Dawkins imposes limitations on the arguments his theological opponents can make. His position leaves no room for the Historical Critical Method of Biblical interpretation, for example. In this method theologians consider scripture from the perspectives of the cultures and times from which they emerged. In our understanding now a "day" of creation can simply mean a non-specified period of time, so the Biblical account of creation need not mean it happened in six 24-hour days.

This blog does not seek to argue the details on creation or evolution at this time. Right now we simply seek to demonstrate the fundamentalist nature of Dr. Dawkins denunciation of religion. These non-scientific arguments disregard and demean those who accept the science, yet believe in God for reasons of their own. They serve no purpose to advance science, and in fact hinder its promulgation by constructing further ideological walls between science and religion. Since these arguments promote his system of belief more than science, depend on false assumptions, and advance through false dichotomies, they constitute religious fundamentalism.
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(c) 2013 by Peter John Stone. All Rights Reserved. Contact for permissions.