The title is out-and-out theft. Before becoming the first professor theology at the new University of Berlin, the young German Reformed pastor Friedrich Schleiermacher, who had also served, like his fellow faculty-member and nemesis Georg W. F. Hegel, as tutor to some of the wealthiest families in Prussia, published a series of sermons he had preached on the intersection of "religion" and "culture" in Enlightenment Prussia. One must remember that this was the era of Immanuel Kant, of Schelling, of Fichte. This was the time of Voltaire and LaPlace. Schleiermacher's sermons are pleas for the consideration of a mostly beneficent, intellectually vapid culture-Christianity that does neither harm nor good, because it only serves as metaphysical buttress for what is best about society. Despite my great admiration for much of his work, this one, while a stunning popular success, is not his finest hour.
I hope to turn the title around here, because I have made comments in the past couple days that would seem, on the very face of things, to be contradictory. I am a Christian, yet I have taken other Christians (and pseudo-, or non-; I don't really care what Dinesh D'Souza's religious beliefs are, but if he wants to classify himself as a Christian, so be it) to task for the condescension and intellectual vapidity they too often display. I want to make clear the sources of these comments so someone can't jump up and down and say, Horschach-like, "OOO! OOO!"
First of all, I see nothing incongruous with a Christian saying that we need to listen to those of other faiths, and those of no faith at all. This comes from my firm belief in Christian humility, best summed up in the words of my father: "You don't know every goddamn thing!" Part of Christian humility includes listening to the voices of those who not only don't believe, but can't imagine believing. We have no stake, no interest, and no impetus, for demanding that others believe as we do. All we can do is live our lives, and leave the rest to God.
Second, by trying to take every little bit of information and turn it in to an apologetic moment demeans the faith, demeans the intellectual content of the faith, makes us look small, weak, frustrated. It would seem to me that, for example, the presence or lack thereof of atheists in foxholes or mass murder sites is neither here nor there. As with a famous study of the Holocaust done in Israel, the reaction of survivors was pretty much across the board - some had their faith shattered, some had it strengthened, and some said it had no effect on their faith whatsoever. I think to try and bring God in to an argument here, at least in the way D'Souza wants to, is intellectually flabby (to say the least) as well as dishonest. We need to listen to what real people say about their experiences, not judge beforehand what the spiritual outcome might or might not be.
I do not believe the Christian faith is proved or disproved by any and every little action we human beings do, or every event that occurs in the world. I do not think we can say with any kind of intellectual honesty that, "The holocaust shows that God does not exist", or "The survival of 'x' people during 'e' event shows that God was with them," or whatever the case may be. this is my main beef with Dawkins; he wants to show that he has definitively proven that God cannot exist. There is simply no way to do that. One can deny God's existence, for some reasons that are both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. One cannot say that one has shown for all time and all places and all people that God is an existential impossibility. It can't be done. Period. Such intellectual shabbiness is on a par with the horribly awful "apologetics" of Josh McDowell.
I think what we Christians need to do is shut up. I think what we Christians need to do is start listening to people, including non-Christians and even anti-Christians. I think we need to ask forgiveness for our pride, the kind of pride that sees no atheists in foxholes, the kind of pride that sees divine providence in a disaster area, the kind of pride that can detect the invisible action of the Almighty in every eigen-state jump of every elementary particle. I think we need to pray more, sing more, worship more, and let go the vast conceit that we have an "in" to the reality of the Universe that is closed to others. We may claim that the universe was created by God, but that doesn't mean we either understand that universe, or the God who created it. I think we need to practice a bit of silence in the face of so much noise and squawking and shouting. We need to be a bit slower to have all the answers. In fact, we need to admit that sometimes, there are no answers, because there are really no questions.
There's just life. That's all. For me, Christianity isn't the magic key to all the mysteries of everything. It's just about life. And sometimes, life is admitting you don't know everything, and listening to other people tell their stories.
Virtual Tin Cup
