Many readers will be well aware of the growing cultural narrative that what we need right now is a revival of Christianity. When held by Christians, this stance requires little explanation—they believe Christianity to be true and the only way to salvation. Believing something to be true is a perfectly valid reason for trying to increase belief in it. Much more puzzling is the number of atheists and skeptics who have increasingly taken this position. Despite their still not believing Christianity to be true, they nevertheless think greater adherence to it has the potential to fix, or at least ameliorate, societal problems. Common arguments for this position are, I would argue, based on existential angst, historical revisionism, and a simple failure to understand human psychology.
I address five of them for Skeptic.
" Many of them can only be made by atheists, or at least by individuals whose belief in Christianity is metaphorical rather than literal. " - YES, thank you.
I remember seeing a clip of Jordan Peterson on Chris Williamson's podcast, saying something like "You have to believe in the ontological transcendent, and that the truth will set you free" in order to be a scientist. And that is just plain ridiculous. I assume he meant epistemological, but even still, that's just saying "you gotta think there's stuff you don't know," only in a language so unnecessarily flamboyant it’d make Foucault proud. I think it exemplifies quite well the issue with the "let’s bring back Christianity." crowd, at least the non-believers in it. They act as if your average believer sits around contemplating Jungian archetypes during Sunday mass.
Half of these people could just say, "People need meaning and community," but instead they'll say shit like, "We must return to the metaphysical framework of the transcendent logos underpinning Being." They seem to think that big words and delusions change the fact that, for actual believers, this is pretty fucking Literal.
Also, love the section of the nonsensical historical claims. That's something that's bothered me for a long time.
Your articles always make my heart sing, and there is so little that does it today. I wish more of the "writers" around had the same ability to state issues so clearly and yet with passion. It may be ought to the fact that so many are "journalists" who seem to lack a solid foundation of knowledge in a discipline, unless that is some side-wing of the social sciences.
Your arguments are all so very true, and even more so, they MAKE SENSE.
And yes, all these people hallucinate Christianity. They seem to have no idea of what it has been for almost two millennia, to have no idea what it is ready to become again any time it should get ruling power. I have spent seventy years in this world and at times I truly believe that the curse of mankind is that we are not long lived enough to remember history and besides, we have a brain that has evolved for selective memory and an imagination that is exceptionally prone to rewriting history if the emotional need is strong enough. I am also a mediaeval historian who happens to have a degree in philosophy in addition, and can find no fault at all in your reasoning.
I am not an atheist, because I have a deep sense of the spiritual... but it has always struck me that organised religion has most often very little to do with spirituality. Organised religion has to do with the need of humans to avoid the actual burden of choice and to be told what to do, and where to bite or what to break when the fit of frustration takes us, both individually and collectively. And organised religion, especially in its monotheistic variety, is a matter of regressing to a state of childhood with an all-powerful Parent, while ennobling our ressentiment as a side perk (Nietzsche trod dangerous brinks in many places, but he uncovered a shining mirror there).
Organised religion, and Christianity paramount, has always been a vehicle of group control, filled with internecine bloody fights among groups belonging to the same faith, and inclined to violent suppression of groups of different faiths. It was like that since the start, since the battles about the requirement of circumcision when some of the Apostles were still alive (Paul won that on account of pure proselytising calculations, because circumcision was abominable to the Greeks, who were then the target converts). Since the first Councils when people killed one another in the streets over which notion of the nature of God should prevail, and after which the losing side were relentlessly persecuted and mobbed to death until that function was passed to the state after Thessalonica. And so forth, from Charlemagne telling the Saxons to choose between taking the cross or the sword, to the crusades declared against heretic Christian communities like the Albigesians and the Cathars, the killing of numberless heretics, and the Holy Inquisition (who few ever expect) dismembering bodies in order to save the souls they contained.
I would like to suggest to these apparently naive folks who believe in the inherently peaceful cohesion of Christianity, to spend a few hours reading the history of the Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years war and the bloodshed and massacres on both sides (for Thomas More undersigned the execution of heretics, but so did Calvin is peaceful Switzerland, and many others).
Christianity as a body ruling began to actually follow the precepts of the New Testament (and turn away from the blood-drenched Old one) only when it was removed from secular power and the ability to impose itself on the unwilling. Began. It has, in my judgement, a very long way still to go before it is called a religion of peace and love. (And besides, which Christianity? Like you duly noted, many tens of thousand denominations, and the Anglican version in which I was raised has very little in common, in spirit, with the Anglican Communion out in Africa, not to speak of the Catholic Church, the Evangelicals, and, let me shudder, Mormon, only to name a few.)
But I have, in the end, a suspicion. That like many in the present culture wars, these previously rational folks chose a side, frequently based on what hurt them personally (see Peterson, see Ferguson and Hirsi Ali, see Weiss, and many others): and they chose a kind of authoritarianism over another, just like many on the left that have done... an easier choice, because continuing to struggle against both sides is harder -- and because, unfortunately, the personal desire for retaliation, in particular against everything reminiscent of former associates that have failed to support, is one of the most common traits of human nature.
And following that suspicion, I am less surprised about the delusions, apparent naivety and rewriting of history: because when these folks speak of a peaceful cohesive society, what they project is a "pacified" society: a society in which dissent is quashed, which does not upset them any more, and where the right kind of offenders are silenced and punished.
A traditional Christian society fulfils the requirements very well, and I fear that this is the reason why they promote this vision, consciously or not.