An Astute Observation of the Obvious

One of the most insightful and interesting articles I have read in recent years appeared in the January 2010 edition of the Portland Monthly. In the article, Christopher Hitchens was interviewed by Marilyn Sewell, the recently retired minister of the First Unitarian Church of Portland. Sewell is a former teacher and psychotherapist and the author of numerous books, Sewell, over 17 years, grew Portland’s downtown Unitarian congregation into one of the largest in the United States. She describes herself as a liberal believer.

 

Mr. Hitchens described himself, among other things, as an atheist and has been identified as being a prominent exponent of the "new atheism" movement. He and fellow high profile contemporary atheists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett have often been referred to as "The Four Horsemen" and the "Unholy Trinity".  Hitchens is a secular humanist and anti-theist, and describes himself as a believer in the philosophical values of the Age of Enlightenment. His main argument is that since the concept of God or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. Christopher Hitchers’ 2007 book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything made him arguably the nation’s most notorious atheist.

I will quote just a segment of the interview. The interview, in its entirety, is worth a read or a listen.

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Why does it take a non believer to tell us such an obvious truth? Why is it that we, the people who make up this thing we call the church, have such a difficult time defining what it means to be a Christian? I believe the problem is less theological and more sociological. It has more to do with the cultural moral “good” that drives our culture. It is the ultimate good of being open minded, accepting and acceptable that drives our religious and intellectual community to have such a fuzzy understanding of what it means to be a Christian. It is that, much more than our understanding of God, that drives us and, I believe, confuses us.

Mr. Hitchens has made what I would call an astute observation of the obvious. Christianity is founded on the belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, lived on this earth, died on a cross to pay the price for our sins and, on the third day, rose from the dead. Not believing in these things means you are not, “in any meaningful sense a Christian.” Instead of getting our shorts in a bunch, or entering into a long winded philosophical discussion, or calling him narrow-minded and stupid (Which he obviously isn’t.) perhaps our response should be “Duh, no kidding.”

Some of the basic beliefs of Buddhism are:

1. Buddha is our only Master.
2. We take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.
3. We do not believe that this world is created and ruled by a God.

Frankly, I don’t believe those things: For whatever reason or reasons. I can’t say those are really good or bad things, I just don’t believe them. Thus, I can tell you, I am not a Buddhist. That was easy.

There are many things about Islam that are problematic for my belief system. These are just a few:

1. On the Last Day, resurrected humans and jinn will be judged by Allah according to their deeds. One's eternal destination depends on balance of good to bad deeds in life.
2. Warriors who die fighting in the cause of God are ushered immediately to God's presence.
3. "Enemies of Islam" are sentenced immediately to Hell upon death.

Since I don’t believe these things I would not even consider considering myself Islamic. Not a liberal Muslim or a conservative Muslim. Just not a Muslim.

I may consider myself to be a moral person; a good person; a nice person; a godly person. But since I reject some of the very basic tenets of different faith systems, I don’t consider myself to be a Buddhist or a Muslim. They don’t seem to mind and I don’t mind.

So, why is it, I wonder, that there are such a large number of people around the world who reject some of the very basic tenets of the Christian faith and yet insist on being labeled and accepted as Christian? Many of these people would be deeply offended by what I have written and would condemn me as being a narrow-minded fundamentalist.

I confess. I don’t get it. I don’t believe what people of other religions believe and I am not offended that they don’t accept me as a Buddhist or Muslim. I don’t think they should. Truth is, if they did accept me as a Muslim or a Buddhist, I would wonder what they were thinking.

My only guess as to why I have come to such conclusions is that I am a Christian who thinks too much like an atheist.

Copyright © 2010, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved