True believers and angry atheists
In thinking about evangelizing in this culture, it may be important to hear why non- believers– who are also non-atheists– do not hear religious faiths as bearing “good news. ” This essay by Eric Weiner in last weekend’s New York Times, I think, captures one set of reasons why one group of people find it hard to join organized religion. 1) They are turned off by the marriage of religion to American political life; 2) they are deeply uncomfortable with a spirituality of certainty in a time when it appears we have more questions than answers about the universe; and 3) they don’t like humorless scolds.
So what would the Commonweal blog recommend Mr. Weiner to read by Catholics about Catholicism? What do we have to offer that is 1) non-political, 2) that emphasizes the greatness of God and the contingency of human knowledge in a sense of wonder, or 3) which is, well, funny or values humor. Let’s make a reading list.
I’ll start–and yes, I’m picking the easy one–but it’s my post.
Fr. Jim Martin, S.J.’s Between Heaven and Mirth.
The Portal of the Mystery of Hope by Charles Peguy
The Shewings of St. Julian of Norwich
Anything by Herbert McCabe. Maybe start with God Matters.
Can I add another reason people don’t choose church?
4. People have no desire to give up their Sunday mornings, and use reasons 1-3 to justify their choice when asked. And I can understand why that’s an appealing strategy, as much as I love what we do on Sunday mornings in church.
Nearly anytghing that gets folks off ipods, computers, tv, etc… and to slow down with no stimuli… for five minutes a day.
The Little Prince by Saint-Exupery
Let’s see, non-political, focus on greatness of God and wonder, and with a nice sense of humor; my recommendation is any of the various works of GK Chesterton. I particularly like ‘Miscellany of Men’, the ‘Common Man’, and ‘Orthodoxy’
I also like the work of Bishop Sheen, but while he wrote a lot, due to his presentation skills (e.g., voice, drama, humor), I think his audio work and better, but that is harder to access.
Can I add another reason people don’t choose church?
Mark Preece,
You utterly missed the point of Cathleen Kaveny’s post, and may I suggest that it is, among other things, people like you who drive nonbelievers (who are also non-atheists) away from religion.
Prof. Kaveny didn’t ask why people don’t go to church on Sunday. She didn’t ask what would be good recommended reading for people who rationalize not doing what they actually believe they should.
You seem to want a pat on the back for giving up your Sunday mornings to go to church. “God, I thank you that I am not like other people . . . “
Yikes! The voice of God!
I thought it was about why people think they don’t choose organized religion. My point was just that there are “penny in the slot” answers to many questions. “They’re all humorless scolds” happens to be one at the moment that nobody is ever going to question. So I think that ends up being the answer some people give without a whole lot of thought. I’m not convinced that means all those people have really experienced us as humorless scolds.
My final sentence was not requesting a pat on the back — quite the opposite. I was honestly questioning what I would do if I actually had a choice, trying to put myself sympathetically in someone else’s shoes.
Karl Rahner, it is said, that he answered an inquirer about books saying that it would be better to find a community that serves the poor and volunteer. Rahner, I think, had the notion that if one sees people actually exercising faith they would “read” exemplary acts and “see” faith in practice.
Of course, if one needs books, I agree with Eric that one could do worse than pick up a book by Herbert McCabe.
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor (Sally Fitzgerald, ed.)
Easily satisfies, IMHO, all three of the criteria for the reading list.
I think this rebuke is harsh given this column, David. I didn’t find Mark’s remark smug as much as an alternative explanation that is true to my experience for many of my longtime yet now newly agnostic friends who, after sometimes long histories of “practice” and years of “believing,” don’t find Sunday morning Mass or services compelling for the many reasons often cited here. Over the years, the walk in the woods, terh Sunday Times, or kids sports schedules have eroded customs and habits of belief as many have explained. I think we ‘d all agree that change in habits changes beliefs as much or more than changing beliefs affect habits.
… and let me add that I made the mistake of making a comment because it reminded me of something else I’ve been thinking about. The question of how people answer questions is something I’ve just been writing about (eg, do many conservative republicans tell pollsters they don’t believe in evolution because they want to “vote” in the culture wars against the liberals, rather than because they actually disbelieve in evolution?). As I read my comment now, I can understand how you (David) read its tone. I still think you over reacted (good thing you don’t know my middle name; if you’d started your response with all three of my names I’d have read the whole thing in the voice of my mother when she was angry!).
Virgin Time, by Patricia Hampl
I would guess that all of the works published by Paulist Press in the classics of spirituality would fit the criteria, as would almost all of the great classics of Catholic theology. I would also agree with Karl Rahner and Larry Cunningham, adding only that a close look at how the vast majority of Catholics live their lives of faith would show how poorly the stated objections describe the state of the Church.
They shoul read Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy. A laugh out loud book that makes you think about being and meaning.
I second William Collier’s rec of O’Connor’s letters! (We agree about some reading selections after all!)
I guess St. Julian’s Shewings aren’t humorous, now that I re-read Cathleen’s post. But I have always found them an antidote to despair.
And then there’s this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHASQg8fR0s
Yikes! The voice of God!
Mark Preece,
Yes, I overreacted, and I apologize.
There’s something that annoys me very much about certain comments on religion blogs, and I apologize for taking it out on you. I’ll try not to do it again, but would you mind revealing your middle name in case I find it necessary? :-)
What I am talking about is the tendency of certain people to imply, or even claim, that their own views are objectively true, and those who disagree with them are at best fooling themselves, but perhaps more likely just being dishonest.
Cathy Kaveney’s post was talking about “one set of reasons why one group of people find it hard to join organized religion” and looking for ways to reach them. There may be another group of people who dishonestly claim the three stated reasons are what keep them from joining organized religion, but can’t we acknowledge the one group of people Cathy Kaveney is writing about actually exist?
For humor there’s most of Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene’s “Monsieur Quixote”. And I second “Lost in the Cosmos”. Muriel Spark is just too grim sometimes.
For the prayerfully inclined: Karl Rahner, “Encounters with God”, Brother Lawrence, “The Practice of the Presence of God”, and Fr. Thomas Keating, “Open Mind, Open Heart”.
Ooops, that should be: Karl Rahner, “Encounters with Silence”.
I think we ‘d all agree that change in habits changes beliefs as much or more than changing beliefs affect habits.
David Pasinski,
It’s an interesting observation, no doubt true in many cases and, as I understand it, one of the reasons why cognitive-behavioral therapy is effective. But ultimately, the fact that scrupulously adhering to some schedule for religious practice reinforces a person’s religious beliefs tells us nothing about the truth of those beliefs. The principle works for all different kinds of religions and other belief systems, including religions and belief systems that contradict each other.
Also, while you didn’t address this point directly, it is perfectly natural for people to question religious rules or commandments that will require a change in behavior. If refraining from using contraception were easy for married Catholics, then it is doubtful that many of them would question Humanae Vitae. But the fact that Humanae Vitae requires married couples to do what would be difficult for them is a perfectly good reason for them to question the teaching. Just because using NFP, or having many more babies than planned, are harder routes to take does not automatically make them right. Yes, of course people must be wary of letting what they want to be the truth influence their perception of what is actually true. But people who choose the more difficult path are not proven right by the fact that their way is harder. Of course it is going to be true that teachings are more likely to be question by those who will be more heavily burdened by them.
I doubt that it will do much to attract nonbelievers, but I have to recommend St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies by John Bellairs, although it is long out of print. A sample (from memory, since I don’t have the book with me)—one from the collection of grade-school-nun stories:
While it won’t make you laugh out loud, I would put God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas on the list
http://www.amazon.com/God-Us-Rediscovering-Meaning-Christmas/dp/1557255415/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323713481&sr=1-1
You won’t laugh out loud, but it’s non-political and abounds in the greatness of God and the contingency of human knowledge in a sense of wonder, and it’s perfect for Advent.
However, I must say that I fear our work is cut out for us with Mr. Weiner. He seems to see us as wishing to return to an age of raw superstition. I guess that’s the stereotype of us from those who see us as on “the other side.”
I am wondering if there’s an evangelical purpose to this thread, that is, will the list be presented to Mr. Weiner?
Thanks, David. The philosophical issues you raise are valid, but I am referencing the why and how persons come to that posiition because the habits of reflexive belief and practice are eroded by other factors and then, slowly or quickly, other parts of the superstructure don’t make sense. It has more to do with making one’s beliefs congruent with a practice rather than practice more congruent with beliefs. As Richard Rohr and others, I imagine, have stated and possibly reflecting a behaviorist, rational emotive approach, “We don’t think ourselves into new ways of acting; we act ourselves into new ways of thinking.” I say this with an appreciation of the transformative role of spiritual direction, psychotherapy, the role of liturgy, and the experience of servicedi. It is not always true and is surely contestable. I think the excellent book, Take Our Bread, or some of the writings of Anne LaMott — and Dorothy Day’s own experience –reflect that regarding how conemplation and practice leads to the larger issues of truth that you are addressing. Of course, I still just like staring at those cold, starry nights when I have the patience and courage to do so.
I think the scriptures meet Cathy’s criteria. Especially the Gospels.
God Bless
Publishers Weekly includes Between Heaven and Mirth in its list of top ten religious books of 2011. Two that particularly appealed to me were Conversions: Two Family Stories from the Reformation and Modern America, and The God Upgrade: Finding Your 21st-Century Spirituality in Judaism’s 5,000-Year-Old Tradition. A book with the that title (The God Upgrade) admittedly has the potential to be awful, but it got a starred review, and I tend to trust PW’s reviewers.
It has more to do with making one’s beliefs congruent with a practice rather than practice more congruent with beliefs.
David Pasinski,
I understand, but just because one loses or alters one’s beliefs to conform to one’s practices when one’s practices change does not mean the beliefs were true in the first place. And it may also be that the beliefs were not deeply rooted. And I always think of Huckleberry Finn doing what he “knows” to be wrong, and expecting to go to “the bad place” for it, when his heart can’t accept what he “knows” from the Widow Douglas’s attempts to “sivilize” him.
I’d suggest almost anything by John F. Haught, but for starters: “God and the New Atheism” (popular) and “Is Nature Enough?” not knee-slappingly funny, I’ll grant, but full of wisdom, wide in their charity, and with plenty of what used to be called “wit.”
And, if I may stray into Episcopalian territory, I’d recommend a sermon by Ellen F. Davis, on Isaiah 5.8-25. It is reprinted in her book “Wondrous Depth: Preaching the Old Testament,” on pp. 138-144 (it is for Advent II).
I suggest anything by J. F. Powers or Thomas Lynch.
I would suggest that people read the Gospel with the idea that this is the Good News. When you mix it with politics, especially a particular party, you are prostituting the Gospel, and it is no longer Good News. Maybe, churches have lost the idea that this is Good News. Wherever you find the gospel presented as Good News, that’s worth reading. For me personally, I believe the Euchrist and the Mass are part of the Good News, no matter how bad some of the surrroundings are.
Timothy Radcliffe, “What is the Point of Being a Christian?” (which I’d recommend not just for non-believers, but for many believers as well).
Whatever your favorite Flannery O’Connor stories might be — I’d pick, among others, “Revelation,” and “The Artificial Nigger.”
There are various things by Archbp. Rowan Williams, but I can’t cite chapter and verse right now.
“The People’s Padre” by Emmett McLoughlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_McLoughlin)?
No, I guess not.
This is a good exercise and has provoked good suggestions. But the Weiner piece also displayed extraordinary ignorance about the beliefs of his fellow Americans. He has seen what he wanted to see to confirm his jaundiced view of religion.
I would suggest that he read “American Grace” by Putnam and Campbell. This is a book that Cathy has previously mentioned insofar as it contains warnings against the counter-productive effects of political interventions by religious leaders. But it also contains a great deal of empirical evidence that contradicts the stereotypes of religious believers marking Weiner’s essay.
For example, Putnam and Campbell present solid data showing that the religiously active are much better neighbors and citizens than their secular counterparts. They demonstrate that American believers, sometimes despite their doctrines, are anything but intolerant.
Peter, with all due respect, I think you are confusing two issues. And I very much want to keep them separate. You can comfort yourself with the judgment that he unfairly rejects religion in general or Catholicism in particular. Or you can try to spread the good news. This is America. No one owes anyone a hearing. No one owes any other religion a hearing. In my experience, telling people –especially non-affiliated people–that they are utterly mistaken about your religion is not a good strategy for attracting them. These are his concerns. And these stereotypes are not without some basis in fact–look at the Republican debates. What would you say to assuage them?
In the quote below Eric Weiner has outlined his problems with Franciscan Catholics. So eve if the three criteria mentioned in the post were met I suspect that he would find these hurdles to be showstoppers.
“Relatively inflexible theology. A rigid clerical hierarchy. The elaborate ritual that some find appealing, others might find exhausting.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-weiner/guide-world-religions_b_1129981.html
In addition to the excellent suggestions of Fred, Eric, Ken, Barbara, Chris, and Larry Cunningham, I’d like to add Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness and Caryll Houselander’s The Reed of God (especially for those put off by the Church’s Marian doctrines).
Weiner writes:
Chesterton would be surprised, to say the least, to find his remark about religion and joking being yoked to the pragmatism of William James. He would have pointed out that you cannot know whether something works well before you know what it is that it’s supposed to be doing. Different religions don’t simply furnish us with different tools for living well; they offer different (though overlapping) accounts of what it is to live well. Pragmatism won’t help you choose one such account rather than another.
Cathy, I’m not instructing Eric Weiner or trying to convert him or saying anything about MY religion in particular. He’s a writer. He wrote a piece in a prominent publication. It reflected a view of religion in America that was factually uninformed. I have little doubt that if he was as uninformed about the law as he is about sociology of religion, you would not hesitate to say so. This is simply a matter of intellectual accuracy, not of apologetics.
You ask what I would do to assuage people upset by the impression of American religion conveyed by the Republican debates. My answer would be exactly the same: I would urge them to read a good factually grounded book about American religion, namely “American Grace.”
But I appreciate your effort to provoke a positive list of books reflective of faith. I second many of those named. I also recommend subscriptions to Commonweal, Christian Century, and Books & Culture.
Patrick–
Thanks for the link, it made me laugh, especially this part:
“Who it [Catholicism] is most likely to appeal to: …Those who find the promise of unconditional love, and forgiveness, attractive.”
Ok, so is there anyone out there who does not find the promise of unconditional love or forgiveness attractive???
Peter, one of the things I think those interested in evangelization tend to forget is the lost art of rhetoric. I don’t think that telling people, flat-out, that they’re wrong, is a good way to convert them. And I doubt that sociologists would say this is how it generally happens.
And I’m curious, exactly, what wrong statements he made. He admits, flat out, he is a non-believer. So of course, from the perspective of a believer, his views are jaundiced. He’s telling us why he doesn’t believe. He is saying why HE and those people HE knew weren’t religious. I don’t think he was pretending to give an objective or a complete account of the state of religion in America. He gives more weight to the three factors described in the body of the post than to the other factors you talk about. But we all give weight to different things. The Catholic church’s non-ordination of women is a deal breaker for some–even though it does so much good for women in other contexts. Islamic terrorism is a deal breaker for some–even though Islam has many qualities of peace and hospitality. He’s telling us what his deal breakers are.
Weiner says he’s seeking God, a God who laughs, so I assume he’s seeking a personal God, not the Asiatic sort with no face. On the other hand, he thinks religion is “the relationship we have with ourselves or, as the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “What the individual does with his solitariness.”” This tells me he probably has contemplative, perhaps even mystical yearnings for a God with personality. And he repeatedly says he wants to be able to *talk* about this God.
So which of the contemplative saints autobiographical writings might help him find a God he could then talk about? I’d say not Thomas Merton. In his published works he didn’t talk about his own mystical experiences at all but he was quite sympatico with Asiatic practices. The Rahner and Keating I mentioned before are perhaps too abstract, but Brother Lawrence isn’t. Neither is St. Therese of Lisieux, whose God of Love emerges clear as sunshine. I suspect that Weiner would understand her inner passion quite well. Then there’s the poetry of G.M. Hopkins whose God is Beauty, and Augustine whose God is Persistence and Forgiveness itself. Hmm. I wonder just Whom he’s looking for. Maybe a surprise? And aren’t we all?
A lot of these books don’t seem to have a lot of laughs (and neither does the discussion).
But you folks have a chance to do some real live evangelizing. I’m watching the offerings to see what I can give my mother for Christmas, which I don’t expect will turn her Catholic, but might at least give her something to connect to and shut up her snide comments about me and my “magic Jesus.”
Right now, Powers and Lynch (she might like the Irish connection) are at the top of the list. I’d give her “The Little World of Don Camillo,” but she’d root for the Commie.
I think what Mr. Weiner can use is Paul Wilkes’s “Excellent Catholic Parishes: the Guide to Best Places and Practices,” and other works by Wilkes.
Great selections above. I am saving this post for the future and some of my reading.
Yes…agree…All of the above.
I would also suggest commentaries on the sermons of Meister Eckhart. Richard Woods has some excellent work as does Bernard Mcginn.
Agree strongly with David P above
I would suggest though not five minutes….aim for 30 minutes. It takes at least that much time to settle.
I used to be there pre-internet days, media days…..alas…not so much now and I am feeling the effects. It will be my New Years resolution (that’s January 1st as in the solemnity of Mary the Mother of God not January 1st as in these God-awful New years eve party when you are supposed to hug and kiss everyone in a drunken stupor)
For an alternative to a book, I recommend James T. Burtchaell CSC’s audio tape series “Bread and Salt” – most likely out of distribution anymore. He was a great fan of Caryll Houselander and quoted from here quite extensively.
“Bread and Salt” was developed from theology lectures @ UND when JTB was still in good graces there and allegedly one of the most popular teachers with the undergrads.
I listened to it many times in the past and still have it. Maybe I should try it again.
I’d suggest Wilkes’s “In Mysterious Ways.”
An addendum to Ann @ 7:23:
Religion is morality touched by emotion. (Matthew Arnold, Robert H. Super (editor), The Complete Prose Works of Matthew Arnold in eleven volumes, VI, p. 176.)
The emotion might even be humor at times and in various places.
Cathleen, I’ve noticed that you and George Weigel occasionally think about the same things from different points of view. In the current issue of First Things (available on its website only to subscribers, I believe), he has an article on Catholic evangelization. His take on what constitutes effective Catholic evangelization is probably not going to appeal to Mr. Weiner. Weigel’s recommendations include making Catholic political engagement more effective by focusing on areas in which the church has competence, acknowledging that life issues are the foundation of Catholic social teaching (including disciplining Catholic politicians and public figures who temporize on this), less focus on lobbying (because the church has diminished political clout and financial resources) and more on educating its own people on such matters as life and marriage issues.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/11/the-evangelical-reform-of-catholic-advocacy
The recent writings of Terry Eagleton might satisfy the three criteria. He clearly has a sense of the transcendent and the sublime, is witty (if subtly so), and his politics are probably compatible with many new age searchers in the spiritual marketplace. When they object to the entanglement of religion and politics I think it is not Martin Luther King style entanglement that they fret about; rather they merely share the phobias of the glitterati of the left about the dreaded right-wing “theocrats.”
Whether Eagleton is whole-heartedly Catholic, even by his own lights, is another question, but reading him would probably be a step in the right direction.
Then there is the intellectual approach to God. Yes, there really is. For that I recommend again Edward Feser’s little triumph of clarity, “Aquinas”. For once a none-technical book gives an accurate and powerful presentation of Thomas’ arguments and his explanation of what the Great God is, viz., everything good that can possibly be.
Feser is an extremely conservative Catholic, but nobody’s perfect. And he’s sometimes funny, a rarity in philosophers, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed. Try his blog. The current topic greets you with a picture of Frankenstein :-)
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/
“And he’s sometimes funny, a rarity in philosophers, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed. ”
One time, in a homily, to illustrate the fallacy of inductive reasoning, I quoted the only humorous thing I’d ever encountered in a philosophy class, Bertrand Russell’s parable of the chicken. http://robertphilen.blogspot.com/2007/02/bertrand-russells-chicken-sign.html
I warned the assembly that philosophy humor was impending. After reading the passage, the reaction that ensued – a couple of wan, courteous chuckles, and one loud guffaw – seemed about right.
1)Bravo first and foremost to my friend, Andy!
2)What’s a Franciscan Catholic as opposed to Catholic????
3)Thanks to David for recalling St. Fidgeta, a really funy book…
But, 4) lots of good coments on serious works here, especially Rahner.
5)I think the conversation would really move forward if not only Weiner but all of us would dump our steretypes of a wide range of non and semibeleivers.
I hardly think Weigel helpsBTW.
At almost 6 o’clock yesterday, Cathy followed up my claim that Weiner’s piece was factually uninformed with a query about “exactly, what wrong statements he made.”
I’d like to answer that question because I think it’s relevant to the way we all think about religion in the U.S.
But first I would propose a couple of additional books that I think an intelligent “None” might find attractive. They are both by the English philosopher of religion and Descartes scholar, John Cottingham. One is called “The Spiritual Dimension.” The other, very brief and introductory, is called “Why Believe.”
And on the topic of humor, one of the very first suggestions above was the work of Herbert McCabe. McCabe’s essays are not at all heavy and sometimes very witty.
Back to the question of Weiner’s essay. The problem, Cathy, is that like Caesar he divides the map of American religion into three parts. There are the True Believers. There are the Angry Atheists. And then there are “the rest of us,” the “Nones.” The “Nones are the undecided of the religious world.” They drift and dabble. They oppose politicized religion. And “all we see is an angry God . . . . constantly judging and smiting, and so are his followers.”
Leaving aside the unfairness of this map to atheists, many or most of whom are not necessarily angry, this map simply either excludes or slanders the vast majority of Americans with a declared religious identity (approximately 85 percent of the population and 75 percent of the younger population). Are they really all “True Believers,” i.e., religious and political fanatics? Is the God that is preached in their churches, synagogues, and mosques just an angry God of judging and smiting — while they are smiters, too?
There is lots and lots of data demonstrating that the answers are no, no, and no. I have all sorts of disagreements, theological and political, with the more conservative segment among religiously affiliated Americans, and there are some among them who are genuinely fanatic, but that is no excuse for radically mischaracterizing the bulk of both conservative believers and the mainstream and more liberal ones.
Matthew Boudway, above, has already addressed the shallowness of Mr. Weiner’s notion of pragmatic truth. My concern is rather with the shallowness of Mr. Weiner’s notion of his fellow Americans who are religious. When Mr. Weiner contrasts himself with the True Believers, he declares, “I am a rationalist. I believe the Enlightenment was a very good thing, and don’t wish to return to an age of raw superstition.” Are all the Jews, Muslims, and Christians who identify themselves as such opposed to rationality, and derisive of the Enlightenment (a complex historical phenomenon, by the way), and eager to return to “an age of raw superstition”?
I resubmit: Weiner’s essay is an exercise in stereotyples. No doubt he holds these stereotypes sincerely; no doubt they have arisen or been confirmed by experiences with his own, possibly narrow slice of contacts or by reports in the media or by watching GOP debates.
But they don’t jibe with serious research. And while stereotyping the vast majority of Americans is not dangerous like stereotyping minorities such as Muslims and Jews –the vast majority can take care of themselves — it is ignorant nonetheless. Mr. Weiner seems to me to be a lot less open-minded and searching than he prides himself on being. Or if not, he would learn a good deal from reading “American Grace.”
One reason I didn’t write this reply last evening is that I spent it at dinner with friends, almost all of whom are probably “Nones.” Much of my personal and professional life has been lived among “Nones.” So, Cathy, while I am sure that I can benefit from your advice about the best rhetorical art for evangelizing them, this is not exactly new territory for me. Evanglizing “Nones” is certainly as subtle and challenging an undertaking as evangelizing bishops. But I don’t think we should hesitate to point out, charitably, the factual errors and stereotypes held by individuals in either group.
Peter:
Thanks for adding some light on this topic. The word “true” is sometimes used to indicate the exercise of putting things in alignment as, among carpenters, “truing up the boards.” My suspicion is that a large number of believers (though I may projecting) believe and attempt to true up their faith with the demands of faith so instead of “true believers” most of us are believers who attempt to be true.
Peter Steinfels:
Weiner’s categories may not reflect the American population as a whole, but they aren’t all that bad for classifying people who write comments on religion blogs, especially the First Thoughts blog over at First Things, where I am a None (and somewhat despised for it). The two atheists who comment there aren’t angry, though. In fact, they are probably the two least angry people there.
lawrence cunningham,
Did you perhaps read The Truing of Christianity John C. Meagher?
The term “true believer” entered popular discussion with Eric Hoffer 1951 book by that title. Hoffer’s book was part of a literature examining mass movements of a totalitarian or authoritarian sort, fascism, Nazism, and Communism above all, often emphasizing psychological deficits like resentment and anomie rather than economics or politics. The literature also reflected a Cold War state of mind in which America’s adversaries were the problem needing explanation, not ourselves. Reinhold Niebuhr, with his sense of ambiguity, irony, and tragedy, was an exception and corrective. Lumping the mass of contemporary believers in this country, of whatever faiths, under the category “true believers” is a hopeless distortion.
Now whether the term applies to people who write comments on religious blogs, that’s another matter. I’m tempted to say it certaintly does, with the exception to be sure of dotCommonweal. By the way, David, I did read Meagher’s book. What became of him?
It seems likely to me that non-true-believers do not want to be because the tb’s seem vain, smug, sanctimonious, and, particularly in their politics, malicious and wilfully ignorant because, well, they are. And, not to put too fine a point on it, religion, altogether, suffers from being, more or less, a ridiculous fabrication. Trying to talk (or write) someone into believing is, more often than not, an excercise in deviousness and manipulation.
I really do appreciate all the discussion. As to reading, what abut Dorothy L. Sayer’s The Whimsical Christian, essays written 70 years ago yet still fresh. Real questions of faith addressed, but also incorporating wit and humor–e.g Saint Supercilia, patron saint of pedants.
I think a good “adult” book would be Northrop Frye’s Fearful Symmetry, his study of Blake’s thought. Perhaps Blake was too influenced by Swedenberg (sp?), but he proposed that the creative impulse in “Man” is God in human adults, and so if adults would become skillful in the arts of any discipline, they’d have what I call — at least — a “secular reverence for words.” And then they’d be able to divine the more profound human energies in non-verbal language, and after that, they’d experience the verities implied in phrases like the Body of Christ and the “national identity.” Then a “new birth of intellectual insight” might be another thing celebrated at the winter solistice, when we also celebrate the beginnings of other things, other lives. Every day then is Christmas. every night, New Year’s Eve?
I think I’d add Rosemary Haughton’s THE CATHOLIC
THING and Sara Maitland’s A BIG ENOUGH GOD.
Atheism is growing and the Church is on its out simply because of the Church’s hold on the marriage and sex lies. Saying one has to be married to have sex damns a lot of people in today’s post-pill society. Jesus actually instructed us to NOT marry in Matt. 19:10-12 and fornication (or sexual immorality) only meant prostitution in the original Greek. And, the essence of protitution is “sex for money or conditions”: like marriage! Even the gay slams don’t hold water. There has definitely been a corruption, and the people who are really damned are today’s “Christians” who refuse to disseminate these truths.
The Goldenrule Name ( the-goldenrule.name )
I would also add Daniel Rops nice book about the Holy Land during Jesus’ time; I think it was “Daily Life in the Time of Jesus’. He describes the landscape, the food, the weather, clothing daily routines, customes, all in a very easy and light, but complete manner.
Please correct me if I have the book title wrong.
Again, mine is a HUGE / Apocalyptic issue. So, I realize I’m talking WAY above simple minds.
The Goldenrule Name ( the-goldenrule.name )
Thank you, Peter, for continuing the campaign against stereotyping and for reducing the world of discourse, once again, into two extremes between which one is oneself, of course, the golden mean.
The Goldenrule Name. Huh? What the whatever?
Wow, first a full-page ad for Fr. Barron’s DVD series, complete with love quotes from NCR (no, National Catholic Register) and George Weigel and then Peter Steinfels and I see eye to eye on Mr. Weiner.
What’s become of Commonweal? Keep this up and I’ll have to urge my friends and relatives to subscribe.
Living in the middle of a cornfield, I wouldn’t presume to give advice to a cosmopolitain New Yorker such as yourself, Peter. But I will say this: I don’t think Weiner was or is required to have broad training in sociology of religion to reflect on his own experiences with religious people and to invoke aspects of those experiences as a justification for why he himself doesn’t believe and doesn’t find believing attractive. My reasons for not finding Mormonism, or atheism, or scientology persuasive or attractive are probably also quite partial. I don’t feel a need to read sociological studies of Jehovah’s witnesses before deciding it’s not for me. I think he probably has met many religious believers- in person or on television or in the blogosphere who fit those three sets of qualities to which he objects. I know that I have. So I don’t think he’s engaging in stereotyping as much as taking the part for the whole. It’s a real part, even if it’s not the whole. But maybe he hasn’t met other parts of the whole- in a real, compelling way. So I wanted to help him meet them existentially, not statistically, by coming up with a reading list.I don’t think sociological studies convert anyone.
Bottom line- he owes no Christian believer a fully intellectually responsible account of why he hasn’t become one any more than you owe a Buddhist a fully intellectually responsible account of why you haven’t converted to Buddhism.
And the point of this post was not to castigate him for irresponsibly rejecting religion in general or Catholicism in particular; there is enough of that sort of castigation going on elsewhere in the blogosphere. I am far more interested in trying to make sense of his reasons, attributing to him good faith in articulating them, and in trying to respond to his concerns positively, than in blaming him for not believing.
The church in the United States is withering not growing. It’s cold comfort to me to blame potential converts for their failure to join us.
I would second Ann’s recommendation of Graham Greene’s Monsieur Quixote but I think Cervantes addresses Mr Weiner’s questions better. Does anyone know, did a Sancho Panza travel with Weiner on his quest?
But can any of these books help? Weiner’s view of religion is so skewed toward the private side, I am not sure what it would take for him to recognize its real role as a part of the city, the polis. The politics there is not about parties and platforms, but people living together and finding ways to communicate their deepest experiences with one another. It is not just about those deep experiences, but about the depths of others, especially of the God who chose to become another human alongside us.
Peter, one of the things I think those interested in evangelization tend to forget is the lost art of rhetoric. I don’t think that telling people, flat-out, that they’re wrong, is a good way to convert them. And I doubt that sociologists would say this is how it generally happens.
Would you say the same in response to an article with uninformed stereotypes about black people?
I don’t mean this as a gotcha — perhaps your approach would be the best in response to racial stereotypes or any similar notions. Very few people change their beliefs in response to being informed that they are wrong.
Stuart, I think you’re confusing two things. 1) an objective account of the characteristics of a sociological group and its contributions to the political community of which it I’d a part; and 2) a subjective account of whether a particular group is a good fit for me– for my beliefs, aspirations, and sensibilities about spirituality. I can and do think Mormons make good citizens and great contributions to American without having an personal affinity with Mormonism as a belief system. It seems to me Weiner could say the same things about Christianity. He could be convinced by reading Peter’s sociological studies that Christians are good neighbors while counting to hold, without contradiction, his three subjective reasons why he can’t be a believer.
So you analogy doesn’t work: objectively inaccurate views about religion and race should be corrected. But people can’t convert personally with respect to race in the US in he same wy they can convert religiosly. So my point 2 – with which Weiner is concerned, works with respect to religion – not race.
Prof. Kaveny wrote:
“I don’t think Weiner was or is required to have broad training in sociology of religion to reflect on his own experiences with religious people and to invoke aspects of those experiences as a justification for why he himself doesn’t believe and doesn’t find believing attractive.”
In my observation most people thougt processes work exactly in reverse with respect to the sequence you attribute to Weiner. Because they have decided not to believe, they selectively experience as “representative” the type of religious people who provide justification for their decision. In other words “experiences” don’t take place in an existential vacuum. I believe Peter’s point was that any objective observer could easily verify that, say, hypocritical fanatics are not the statistical majority of US Christians. However, surprisingly, they are the only kind that many people like Weiner ever “meet.”
Experience doesn’t take place in an experiential vacuum. But i see no reason to doubt he tried seriously to connect with actual believers- to join a community– it didn’t work. He didn’t find those people compelling. Maybe somewhere there are compelling believers– but he didn’t meet them. So in his case, I think the people were decisive.
It seems to me that Mr.. Weiner has two problems == reasons to believe in God and reasons not to believe in Him. Among the reasons not to believe are the hypocrisy and narrow-mindednes of believers who claim that thier way is *the* way when it patintly isn’t. But it also seems to me that this is not a valid reason for disbelieving, unless you equate “religion” with memebership in a spiritual community of some sort. And, No, not all spiritual matters have to do with God. Often membership in a “religious” or “spiritual” group is motivated by the desire to become a better person who genuinely wants to develop his or her spiritual nature and become a more loving person. But you can do this wihout any belief in God at all. (Think of the Unitarians — you don’t have to be a believer in God to belong to that group. At least that is my understanding. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
“Religion”, on the other had, has traditionally meant a relationship with God, usually a relationship which requires that the person be a member of a community which seeks to share its beliefs. But how to share those beliefs?
It seems to me that we all need reasons to believe, and there are many, many,kinds of reason. And it is often by reading a book that we find some of those reasons. There are philosophical arguments, testimonies of how the author came to see that belief in God made sense of the world (the existential approach). Book bring us wsitnesses to the fact of grace in human lives. Grace takes many forms and can’t be predicted, but it seems to me that one of the most importnat messages we can give to seekers is that there is the grace of God, that spiritual energy which makes us weak creatures capable of doing good even when we resist doing good. For each of us tee particular form of grace is different, I thin but still we find that power beyond ourselves to do what is right an d good. This is why novels and movies and poetry, I think are sometimes so persuasive. Take Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory” It is about a vey, very weak man, but one who wants to love. Greene, by his supreme artistry (and no doubt as a result of his own experience of his own weakness and the grace of God) makes the reality of grace in the life of the whiskye priest believable.
That is so often the problem — to make God and His grace believable. But the arts especially help us to see at least that God and His grace are possible. After that it’s up to the grace of God in the life of the seeker and the seekers own responses Then things become totally personal..
OOps ==
I also think that music speaks to our spirits, and can tell of religious belief. I’m thinking particularly of Gorecki’s second symphony which became a world-wide best-seller and was often described as “religious”. For many people chant also tells of God, and I think that this is one reason that Pope Benedict is such a fan of that music. On the other hand, chant turns other people off, being, apparently more like a foreign language. And the same thing can happen with other artistic expressions of belief.
Lumping the mass of contemporary believers in this country, of whatever faiths, under the category “true believers” is a hopeless distortion.
Peter Steinfels,
Perhaps Weiner made a bad choice in using “true believer,” but I didn’t understand him to be using it in the sense that Eric Hoffer did.
Now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I want to respond to Peter’s specific critique of Weiner’s piece. I guess I still don’t agree with his judgment, and I’d like to explain why.
1. Peter says: The problem, Cathy, is that like Caesar he divides the map of American religion into three parts. There are the True Believers. There are the Angry Atheists. And then there are “the rest of us,” the “Nones.”
Cathy responds: Peter, I don’t see him as dividing the map of religious believers into three groups; I think he’s dividing the public discourse. And I think he makes that clear at the very beginning of the essay. “For others, myself included, it’s a time to shake our heads over the sad state of our national conversation about God, and wish there were another way. For a nation of talkers and self-confessors, we are terrible when it comes to talking about God. The discourse has been co-opted by the True Believers, on one hand, and Angry Atheists on the other. What about the rest of us?”
I think it’s obviously true that the public discourse about religion is polarized. And I know a lot of believers who are “nones” when it comes to public discourse–they don’t want to get their heads blown off in the culture wars.
2. Peter says: “Matthew Boudway, above, has already addressed the shallowness of Mr. Weiner’s notion of pragmatic truth.”
Cathy responds: As I read Matthew, he did two things: 1) He pointed out that (rightly) Chesterton would be surprised to find himself lumped in with James (though I thought the jump in the essay to joking was a matter of bad editing here); and 2) He noted that a pragmatic theory of truth depends upon a prior account of what counts as “working.” That is also true, but I don’t think it cuts against Weiner. He tells us, albeit briefly, what counts as “working” for religious belief for him. “If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.” His distinction between a practice-oriented religion and a dogmatic religion may be too sharp, but it is not false. Religious studies professors evaluate religions on this scale. It also is reflected in life. One can value saying the rosary because it is a meditative calming practice, not because one affirms each of the mysteries it treats as containing a true proposition. He’s not attracted to dogma-heavy religions. Okay. That’s why I think that it would be a good idea to show how the dogma of Catholicism doesn’t preclude, say a via negativa which emphasizes the limits of human knowledge about God.
3. Peter says: “My concern is rather with the shallowness of Mr. Weiner’s notion of his fellow Americans who are religious. When Mr. Weiner contrasts himself with the True Believers, he declares: “I am a rationalist. I believe the Enlightenment was a very good thing, and don’t wish to return to an age of raw superstition.” Are the Jews, Muslims, and Christians who identifiy themselves as such opposed ot rationality, and derisive of the Enlightenment (a complex historical phenomenon by the way) and eager to return to an age of raw superstition.”
Cathy replies: First: Peter, I think it’s important to distinguish between being a rationalist, and being rational. He said he was a rationalist–not that believers weren’t rational. Rationalists do not accept any non-natural explanation for events in the world. So a rationalist WOULD think that a belief in miracles, for example, is “superstitious.” Second, if you focus on the public discourse of religion, there HAS been a tremendous amount of “Enlightenment” and “liberalism” bashing among religious public figures. I don’t frankly see how it can be denied.
I would add to Cathy’s last statement that a great deal of public discourse not only about religion but about science emanates from religion based groups that link their authenticity to the denial of scientific theory, method and evidence. How can you follow the debate about climate change or the teaching of evolution and not come to that conclusion? It’s not easy for a person who doesn’t spend a lot of time studying denominational differences to distinguish the Catholic Church from Evangelicals — and to the extent that the two make common cause on other issues someone could legitimately merge them together in their mind on things like evolution or climate change.
There are lots of people who probably sit somewhere in the middle of all this and think, “well, I might be interested in religion but not if I have to check my brain at the door or make a declaration of allegiance to stupidity or denialism.” The stupid oozes out onto more than those wielding the loudest trumpets — including those like Peter and anyone else who takes umbrage at being lumped together with the modern day equivalent of know nothings. It would be better to simply distinguish yourself from those whose views are being wrongly attributed to you than to scold someone like Weiner.
After a second reading of Weiner’s column, I think Cathy may be right that he was only trying to characterize public discourse about religion rather than offering a complete taxonomy of American religious belief and attitudes toward religion.
Still, even for an op-ed piece, his characterization is crude and misleading. Besides the Angry Atheists, the True Believers, and the Nones, there are still a lot of committed believers willing to give an account of the hope that is in them without impugning the sincerity or decency of all nonbelievers — or of those who belong to a different religious community. And why not describe this last large category as “true believers”? After all, their faith — and their commitment to truth — may be no less strong than that of the people Cathy describes as culture warriors. Cathy writes that Weiner isn’t so much stereotyping as taking a part for the whole, but when you cannot present the part as the whole without misrepresenting the whole, doesn’t this amount to stereotyping?
Perhaps part of the problem with this op-ed really is, as Cathy suggests, editorial ineptitude. Certainly the problem we’ve been arguing about here might have been solved with a phrase signaling that the author was presenting a subjective impression rather than an objective description: “It can often seem to a None like me that the public discussion about religion has been coopted…etc.” There is obviously nothing wrong with offering personal observations in an eight-hundred-word newspaper piece, but it is a failure of both rhetoric and modesty to do this in such a way as to alienate a lot of readers who belong to the culture you pretend to be describing.
Cathy writes: “I see no reason to doubt he tried seriously to connect with actual believers–to join a community–it didn’t work. He didn’t find those people compelling. Maybe somewhere there are compelling believers–-but he didn’t meet them. So in his case, I think the people were decisive.”
That’s certainly possible, but I want to suggest another possibility that Cathy’s speculation seems to rule out. It is not clear to me that if a person like Weiner met a person like Dorothy Day he would be so impressed by her compelling example that he would become a Catholic and try, as she said she was trying, to be a Christian. It is possible that he would have found her example rather too compelling — or, at any rate, much more than he is bargaining for when he asks of a religion that it make us “more loving, less angry.” If the rich young man in the gospel went away sad, it wasn’t for lack of a compelling example.
To be compelled by even the best example requires conversion, including the conversion of one’s ideas about what religious faith might offer and how much of oneself it might require. The mission of the Christian evangelist — which is to say, of the ordinary Christian — is not to apply for the job of servicing a None’s spiritual needs. It is to invite Nones like Weiner (and “angry atheists” too) into a community that will challenge and change their understanding of what their spirits need. The church does more than bid on a contract to make people more loving; it asks them to reconsider what love requires by showing them love’s way of life in the life of Jesus Christ.
Some note:
** Weiner tells us, “If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.”
It seems to me that he is being the perfect Pragmatist here — a statement is true if it “works”. But what would Weiner mean by “it works”? Some of what he says implies that he wants a religion that makes him a better person. Some of what he says implies that he also wants a personal relationship with God. I think he needs to clarify his goals, or at least his hopes.
** Weiner tells us also, “I believe the Enlightenment was a very good thing, and don’t wish to return to an age of raw superstition.”
This seems to be another of Weiner’s goals– to avoid accepting what he thinks of as superstition. Unfortunately, heirs of the Enlightenment typically dismiss all miracles out-of-hand as superstition. But if the Enlightenment heirs were truly open=minded as they claim to be, they wouldn’t dismiss the *possibility* of miracles. Unfortunately, Hume’s dismissal of miracles is still a generally accepted part of Amrican Humanities education, and the non-Enlightened rationalists haven’t been inclined to argue with him. My point is that only some strng non-Enlightened rational defenses of miracles would overcome the prejudice against miracles of the Humeans. And this would require some ppurely intellectual effort on Mr. Weiner’s part.
** As to meeting a Dorothy Day, yes, just meeting her has influenced many, many people. But I wonder if those people already believed in the grace of God? It seems to me that many Nones dismiss heroic sanctity as some sort of psychosis because they don’t have any other sort of explanation for it. And such behavior IS beyond the natural (it’s supernatural, but that word is a no-no to Enlightened ones). Such behavior is contingent upon the grace of God, a notion which many Americans have no idea of whatsoever. As I read him, Weiner doesn’t seem to be aware of it yet.
His lack of understanding of grace is perhaps why he doesn’t seem to have looked much, if at all, into the extraordinary sorts of mystical experience which are found not only in the Catholic big names such as Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross but also in some Protestants, Jews, Muslim and Hindu mystcs. Theirs is yet another sort of grace.
Weiner’s lack of interest in that sort of religious experience might have been discouraged by the current “neurotheologians” (e.g., Damasio) who have done a lot o empiricall research into what *they* call “mystical experience”. Howevern, what they call “mystical” is what the psychiatrists call psychotic. In Damasio[s sort of experience the self is identified with everything, and all things are identified with each other, and the experience is an ecstatic one. I’m with the psychiatrists on this one. But the Damasio sort of experience is NOT the sort that Teresa and John and others seem to be talking about. Theirs is a union with God Who is Love. The other sort of experience isn’t directed to Love at all, though many such mystics are quite loving. Complexity, complexity, even in the lands of the mystics. Sigh.
Here’s a quote from a familiar name that pertains here:
“However vigorously the non-believer may assert that he is a pure positivist who has long left behind him supernatural temptations and weaknesses, he will never be free of the secret uncertainty whether positivism really has the last word. He is troubled by doubts about his unbelief, he remains threatened by the question whether belief is not after all the reality which it claims to be.
Just as the believer is choked by the salt water of doubt constantly washed into his mouth by the ocean of uncertainty, so the non-believer is troubled by doubts about his unbelief. Anyone who makes up his mind to evade the uncertainty of belief will have to experience the uncertainty of unbelief.
— both the believer and the unbeliever share, each in his own way, doubt and belief. Neither can quite escape either doubt or belief; for the one, faith is present against doubt, for the other through doubt and in the form of doubt.
Perhaps in precisely this way doubt, which saves both sides from being shut up in their own worlds, could become the avenue of communication. It prevents both from enjoying complete self-satisfaction; it opens up the believer to the doubter and the doubter to the believer.”
Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger (1968)
This may pertain even more:
“In A Burnt-Out Case (1961) Graham Greene introduces his central character, Query, as a person who has lost his faith. The portrait bothered Evelyn Waugh, and in a series of letters back and forth, Greene concludes one saying: “If people are so impetuous as to regard this book as a recantation of faith I cannot help it. Perhaps they will be surprised to see me at Mass.” Greene explained that he had wanted to give expression to various states of belief and unbeliev, and when Waugh took issue with Greene’s manner of division, Greene responded that deep friends though they were, perhaps they simply “inhabited different wastelands.”
Greene would clarify that while he had no issue with the “piety of simply people who accept God without question“ he did have issue with “the piety of the educated, the established, who seem to own their Roman Catholic image of God, who have ceased to look for Him because they consider they have already found Him.” Greene would note how “perhaps Unamuno had these in mind when he wrote ‘those who believe that they believe in God, but are without passion in their hearts, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not in God himself.’ ”
Jimmy Mac, thanks for brining back Greene -very germane to the problem of sterotyping.
Jimmy Mac ==
For years now I’ve been meaning to read a good biography of Greene. I fear the Sherry one is beyond me. (THREE volumes?) Do recommend any lesser ones?
He is, I think, one of the most relevant of 20th century theologians. So many theologians, or should I say spiriitual writers, are concerned with perfect lives and not weak ones.
New Wine of Dominican Spirituality: A Drink Called Happiness by Paul Murray OP
Following up on Jimmy Mac’s post, here’s another excerpt from Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity:
On another thread, Cathy was convincced we needed better approaches in evangelizing.
This thread seems of a piece with that.
I think she comes from a deeply centrist perspective and is genuinely concerned that our voice is not being heard effectively in many quarters.
Whatever the divide here, I think she needs to be appreciated for raising the issue!
Having said that, I note last Sunday’s 10 minute news report on CBS on divsion in the American Church.
The role of women, I thought, and religious women in particular was center stage and the breach ( a word I’ll borrow from the Catholic Theol.ogical society’s letter to USCCB re the Conference and theologians)seems not to be being closed but growing.
What does this say to the broader community?
My experience here in a highly educated community(most PHD’s per capita) is that many respect the experience of their Catholic brethren who parctice the loving service we’re called to but have lots almost cynical approaches to the policy/instituional Church people.
That’s clearly anecdotal, but I think we are in a current state of problematic that’s not being faced up to both pastotally and intellectually.
You’ve got a posting here recommending James T. Burtchaell’s work. Apparently the writer is unaware that “Father” Burtchaell was dismissed as Provost of Notre Dame years ago for a series of proven instances of sexual abuse of male students, for which he obliquely and oddly apologized. Somehow he stayed on the editorial board of First Things. This is a very sick individual who has hurt many young people and yet somehow has continued to publish on Catholic moral issues unabated, with what must be tremendous cynicism. Anyone skeptical about this can simply Google James T. Burtchaell along with sex abuse and you’ll get an enormous number of hits, including Notre Dame’s outreach to victims for what they hoped would be a conciliatory gesture on the part of the university.