The op-ed piece below, which is the most prominent article in today’s New York Times Opinion section (top right of webpage), is an example of how religious delusions get mainstreamed, simply by being presented as if they were incontestably real. (Note: the piece isn’t the paper’s opinion, but they decided to publish it.)
The author, Peter Wehner, is a conservative Presbyterian who works at a right-wing think tank and served in the Reagan administration as well as both Bush administrations. He’s also a contributing opinion editor for the Times, and seems to come up with a faith-osculating piece every Christmas (here’s 2018‘s and 2017‘s), as well as various other kinds of apologetic palaver (e.g., here, a piece that I criticized).
His homily for 2019 (click on screenshot below) is a sermon on the misunderstanding of “the power of Jesus.” And the paradox lies in its title: Christmas is supposed to “humble” us, but who has more hubris than a man willing to state in the New York Times that the entire Jesus story—complete with the Incarnation and the actual words Jesus is quoted in the Bible as speaking, really happened? Wehner is not using Jesus as a metaphor to guide our behavior, but as a real-life person who was the son of God.
Wehner’s message, though long-winded, is simple, and summarized in the first four paragraphs:
If you were wholly unfamiliar with the life of Jesus and listened only to what many Christians in America say today, you could be forgiven for thinking that the most important thing Christianity values is worldly power — the power to control and compel, to impose one’s will on others, to vanquish one’s enemies. Blessed are the politically powerful and the well connected, you might assume, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The birth and life of Jesus shatter this narrative. Those of us of the Christian faith believe that Christmas Day represents the moment of God’s incarnation, when this broken world became his home. But it was an entrance characterized not by privilege, comfort, public celebration or self-glorification; it was marked instead by lowliness, obscurity, humility, fragility.
The circumstances of Jesus’ birth “were calculated to establish his detachment from power and authority in human terms,” wrote Malcolm Muggeridge, a 20th-century British journalist who converted late in life to Christianity.
That could be said not just about Jesus’ birth but also his entire life, which was in many respects an inversion of what the world, including much of the Christian world, prizes.
Well it’s a good thing that Wehner is deeply familiar with the life of Jesus—as recounted in that work of fiction known as the Bible—so he can pile Jesus’s episodes of humility atop one another. “Blessed be the meek”, footwashing, rich men seen as camels straining to go through a needle’s eye, etc., etc. Jesus held no worldly power: indeed, as the 2000-year-old novel tells us, he was destroyed by people with power, the Romans.
So Wehner tells us the locus of God’s real power, to wit:
. . . strength that is not coercive, domineering, prideful and self-seeking but rather compassionate, sacrificial, humble and empathetic. God’s power, perfected through our weakness, makes us instruments of mercy, seekers of justice, agents of reconciliation. It helps us see the world in a different way.
Well, he doesn’t mention that God also has the power to cast people into Hell if they don’t believe in Jesus, for, as Jesus told us in the Big Novel, the only way to the Father was through him. God as a tyrant is constantly on display in both Old and New Testaments. But let’s not emphasize that on this Christmas eve!
Like most liberal religionists, Wehner’s essential message is a humanistic one: be good to each other, support each other, and help those less fortunate than we are. I have no quarrel with that. What bothers me is that he draws these messages from the Jesus story, and tells the Times‘s readers that the whole kit and kaboodle, as presented in the New Testament, really happened.
I wonder how the Times editors would react if some author presented the theology of Scientology, complete with Xenu, thetans, and nuclear weapons, as if it were all true, and then used it to draw conclusions about how we should treat our fellow humans. (After all, Scientologists claim that they’re all about helping humanity.)
Of course we’ll never see a column like that, for Scientology is a new religion and it’s palpably clear that its “theology” is pure hokum. The only reason Christianity can be presented as real, and as a support for morality, is that over two millennia its fictional background has become so widespread that it doesn’t seem ridiculous. But it is, and Wehner makes himself a figure of fun by presenting an Iron Age Paul Bunyan as a real character.
I wonder if Wehner agrees that Christianity is better than the Inca or Mayan myths, and if not, why wouldn’t the creator of everything have let them know, to spare them some trouble?
Wehner, like all religionists, refuses to acknowledge the connection between his beliefs and the evil those beliefs produce. He thinks his beliefs produce only good, if they are executed correctly.
But, there are really only two ways to promulgate beliefs. One is by convincing others through reasoned argument, and the other is by force. Authoritarians rely on force because they don’t have any basis for reasoned argument. So, when outside observers conclude that religionists want worldly power, they are correct.
I think it’s pretty easy to tell when beliefs are a load of BS. In situations where people in power have to choose between compliance and sincerity, if they choose compliance over sincerity, they are assuaging their own insecurity. The whole “God sees what’s in your heart” thing doesn’t really hold water. If it did, people in power would be content to accept the sincerity of those who go along, and leave those who disagree alone, but that isn’t what happens.
BTW, this is something that really bothers me about the whole blasphemy thing. The people who support blasphemy laws are so insecure that they can’t abide even the slightest questioning of their ideas, or they become offended. They have to know on some level how nonsensical their beliefs are, which is why they react the way they do.
L
“there are really only two ways to promulgate beliefs”
Three
Third one : indoctrination of children who are largely^* accepting of everything because adults say so, and are merely learning to do absolutely everything in the first place, like reasoning, forming conclusions based on premises, and even understanding what “true”, “false”, and “uncertain” are.
If there ever was evidence of fraud, this would be it.
^* of course with exceptions, like “you’ll thank me later”, “this will make you big and strong”. But that is a humorous aside.
See also “if it tastes bad, it must be doing you good” and the comeback “you’re meant to rub it on, not drink it”.
I agree with you about the third way, but only op to a point.
Some people grow out of indoctrination, even when that indoctrination is severe. It behooves us to ask what the difference is between the people who get free and the people who don’t.
I wrote my PhD on this. There can be a combination of factors, but the ego strength of some people is amazing. You will still have many who don’t get clear, but cracks can appear from seemingly out of nowhere, triggered by incidents that seem trivial at the time. Even when religious cults try mightily to insulate their kids from “outside influences”, they are not always successful.
L
“Some people grow out of indoctrination”
Yes, however, in that case, the indoctrination was a necessary step.
It is all scary stuff but if you want further crazy stuff, look no farther than last Friday’s speech by your Attorney General Barr at Notre Dame. They could title this one lunatics in office. Barr says militant secularists are behind a campaign to destroy the moral order.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/19/william-barr-attorney-general-catholic-conservative-speech
Good grief! What a tRump enabler. He knows well which unhinged hing his career hinges on.
That’s sure some epitome of moral character (Trump) he is protecting at the expense of our democracy. The cognitive dissonance is completely off the charts.
Some moral orders need destroying.
Anti-miscegenation and anti-gay laws were based on “the moral order”.
Censorship and blasphemy laws are based on “the moral order”.
Prohibition was based on “the moral order” as is the “War on Drugs”.
When you get right down to it, xenophobia is frequently defended on the grounds of trying to “protect our Western values” – which is to say it is just more of “the moral order”
That something represents “the moral order” doesn’t make it worth keeping around.
Wehner has been a prominent player in Republican politics for many decades. Now he is very much anti-Trump. Because of this I view him as an ally, although one out of convenience, and am willing to put up with his religious babbling.
I watched a childrens show on UK BBC which included a section where a vicar ‘explained’ the story of Jesus to children (in uplifting terms, giving us guidance, how to live etc).
I’m not sure I ever *really* believed but decades after I gave up on religion it stuck me how the vicars ‘explanations’ were just deepities strung together.
So is Peter Wehner a true believer or has he just settled on deepities as a framework for his life?
Religion is nuts and Christianity is nuts. I don’t know what else to add.
Well said!
You’re giving nuts a bad name!
Why ruin a perfectly good Christmas with this sort of pap?
Jesus himself was a bit of a creep. What sort of man curses fig trees? And telling his followers to cast aside their families if the latter doubt Jesus is a classic cult leader’s tactic. He fetishized extreme poverty and his actions against the money changers created a pointless prejudice against money lenders (and eventually Jews). His remarks against rich men aren’t bad, but were phrased in the sort of parable that rich people can easily dismiss. The life of Jesus is also disappointing and bereft of meaningful achievements—a lot of fake miracles and false comfort to the poor. To hell with Jesus then.
As for Wehner, I’m amused that he quotes that awful humbug Malcolm Muggeridge, famous for attacking Monty Python’s Life of Brian (his TV debate with Michael Palin and John Cleese shows what a fatuous fart he was). That’s the sort of model Christian Wehner looks up to! The late Clive James eviscerated Muggeridge better than anyone else:
“[Mugheridge] can read God’s mind better than he can read his own. He knows that God regards things like contraception and legal abortion as gross interference. Muggeridge, it will be remembered, could tell which women were on the Pill by the dead look in their eyes. Those 19th-century women who had a baby every year until they were worn out doubtless had a dead look in their eyes too, but Muggeridge was not around to see it. Nor has he ever been able to grasp that the alternative to legal abortion is not Christian chastity or even the edifying responsibility of bringing up an illegitimate child. The alternative to legal abortion is illegal abortion.”
The rest of the piece is here:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n02/clive-james/malcolm-and-the-masses
I wonder if Muggers died knowing that he had single-handedly (well, assisted by a forgettable idiot in a purple dress ; Bishop of Disgusted Tunbridge Wells, or something) elevated the Pythons from near godhead to secular deitification.
That was the best and funniest thing Muggeridge ever did, though obviously not by design. The Pythons would have found it hard to beat his air of sanctimonious, prejudicial arrogance in a sketch (though Not The Nine O’clock News did try).
An old fart whose ego had overpowered his wit many decades earlier but had concealed that sad fact from him.
cr
Oh, I remember the “Not” skit on the programme very well. I saw both, on their first transmissions and was practically pissing myself with laughter for the next several days.
So… theirs is not the kingdom of heaven? He might want to try a new line of work.
Chrissake, at least The New York Sun didn’t take it literally when it printed “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” in 1897.
Two steps forward, one step back, I guess, over and over again.
Personally, I am convinced Jesus is purely fictional. Even if he was real I fail to see what good he actually did. A few pithy sayings and some magic tricks hardly makes one worthy of worldwide worship. Happy Saturnalia my friends!
“What does it mean for God’s power to be ‘made perfect in weakness’?”
Not a goddamn thing. More gobbledygook masquerading as profundity.
Wehrner writes : “God’s power, perfected through our weakness”
Clearly, this refers to the weak writing in the article itself.
Does the New york Times have any redeeming characteristics? Like, do your fingers not go through it?
I notice when I stumble across links to it that it has a paywall. Normally I don’t even follow such links, because it’s a pretty sure sign of being more interested in profit than content.
Slave morality is good, but we don’t need a slave master, even if he is just an entirely abstract and mythic big daddy in the sky. In fact, aren’t we a more perfect and exalted slave if we carry on in our duties even after the master has died?
We need a holiday for Tom Joad.
“Then it don’ matter. Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where – wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’ – I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build, why, I’ll be there.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“The only reason Christianity can be presented as real, and as a support for morality, is that over two millennia its fictional background has become so widespread that it doesn’t seem ridiculous.”
Another reason, of course, is that Christianity is the majority religion in the US. That’s not supposed to matter but it does.