There is a curiously finger-pointing at religion in our culture, but not just any religion. It’s the “Christian” religion that keeps getting put into the boxing ring, stuffed with straw, sans boxing gloves. And when it falls down it gets propped up again for another round. So Jesus is rejected as irrelevant, not because good evidence to follow him is lacking, but because he can be labeled as ‘religious’ (which connotes ‘private’ and ‘irrelevant’). Then all sorts of strange things follow.

This article, “Look Who’s Irrational Now,” which I found this afternoon in my weekend edition of the WSJ, speaks to a wide-ranging, growing disease of American unreason.

Jonalyn and I find as we engage with media, in our travels, in our speaking and writing, that G. K. Chesterton was right: Those who say they believe in nothing are very susceptible to believing in anything.

I am wondering if being superstitious will one day be widely accepted as ‘normal’ and not as an insult. If thoughtfulness and evidence will become the strange thing; if science will one day be ignored as it gets in the way of what we want and what we fear.

For all scientific and technological age we boast, modern humans have become a peculiar breed. We use technology to suit our passions but find irrelevant the very things technology stands on: a ‘real world.’

Today, we see superstition poking out its head in phrases like ‘spiritual, but not religious,’ which usually amounts to an amalgamation of Eastern thought mixed in with Western productivity. Many are prone to believe the universe actually gives you things if you just desire them (like “The Secret”) or that God is an impersonal force and we need to reach toward an enlightened consciousness (like in “The New Earth”). And if you hang around this boutique religion long enough, you’ll also find out they hi-jack Jesus into a Buddhist-believer, offering us a ‘Christ-consciousness’ so you can achieve your full potential. Your material prayer flags of various colors will be caught in the wind and blow spiritual prayers across the countryside (and you won’t have to do the hard work of encountering a real God and bringing your petitions)….

All that to say, you should read this article. It is the most succinct explanation I have found of this issue that we are seeing daily of irrational superstition replacing a rational look at the supernatural.

And these superstitious attitudes are very much in the church too. We are secularists about faith and superstitions about prayer. We think Jesus is about heaven and his making life easier and we rarely get a larger picture of the heavenly invasion of the Kingdom of God into the kingdoms of men to set things right-side-up. We forget that gratitude is not first a feeling in the Bible, as it is in “The Secret,” but an action toward a larger Person who alone has the ability to give all good gifts. We fear radical love (it might make people feel validated in their sin) and we fear radical unity (it might make people feel validated in their doctrine)….

Jonalyn and I are working on a forthcoming book on this topic of making the most of spiritual small-talk in today’s world by helping the church weed through superstitious ideas in our own lives, and engaging one another with a robust view of a Jesus who is spiritual on one hand and deeply human on the other. And that’s, to me, is the only rational way forward… even rational enough for atheists to consider.

C. S. Lewis said that if monotheism wasn’t true, he thinks the best explanation of the world is some sort of paganism. The universe so filled with wonder, the ancients peopled the sky and the rivers and the elements with gods.

Check out Krista Tippett’s NPR show, “Speaking of Faith,” on this topic. Paganism is growing in the world (which is not new news) but our understanding it, how to get into the shoes of those who believe it, and how to gently navigate those ideas with others may be new to some of us. Here’s the link:

Pagans Ancient and Modern

In other news, CT published a beautiful interview with Andrew Stanton, director of the new Pixar release, Wall•E. Stanton also produced the animated cinematic wonder, Finding Nemo. I appreciate Stanton’s perspective. And I think his interview is one many evagelicals need to read to understand how art & imagination is approached by artists. Being an stage artist, people have often viewed me as ‘drama guy’ and want me to be involved in their church drama programs, which usually means a 5-minute spiritualesqe SNL-style sketch that leads to a sermon.

Well, when I use drama these days it is storytelling or monologue. And contrary to many evangelical church’s use of drama, I think the story IS the sermon… not just a fun entertaining bit to help illustrate the sermon. Stanton’s interview shows that, hitting theatres soon, is a sermon, Jesus-style, designed to draw us in and look at ourselves without being “preachy.” It’s worth your reflection.

The Little Robot that Could

And, finally, many of you may have already read that a Pew survey shows 92% of Americans believe in God while many of them think any sincerely chosen spiritual path is equally valid. This shouldn’t be new news either, at least not among those paying attention to people on the street. With so much spirituality talk today, we should expect this.

What I do think is noteworthy is that the New Atheism isn’t making much, if any, ground. Of all of philosophical naturalisms claims that God cannot be part of the human equation, they aren’t convincing many people. Or, if they are, people hold that belief alongside their private spirituality. When reason dies, so do all our human treasures.

The survey also noted that many are cutting ties with organized religion. I’m still trying to figure out what this means… “organized” as in “going to the building on Sunday” or “not following a coherent set of beliefs of any spiritual leader” or are “both” included?

Here’s the LA Times take on it.

Update: Okay, so one more thing you need to see since I posted the above. CT published a couple of articles on the gender debate between complementarians and egalitarians. Each is written by someone within each camp, criticizing their own camp.

Wounds of a Friend: Complementarian by John Koessler
Wounds of a Friend: Egalitarian by Sarah Sumner

Feel free to comment on any of the above topics… I would love some discussion.

His recent article in the Wall Street Journal called, “Too Much Faith in Faith,” is an uncommon challenge at the major voices of the “New Atheism” movement. Jacobs says that calling “religion” the problem, when it is often used as a thin veneer over deeper, darker motivations, is an anti-intellectual approach of many intelligentsia on these matters. Here’s sampling paragraph:

Most of today’s leading critics of religion are remarkably trusting in these matters. Card-carrying members of the intelligentsia like Mr. Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris would surely be doubtful, even incredulous, if a politician who had illegally seized power claimed that his motives for doing so were purely patriotic; or if a CEO of a drug company explained a sudden drop in prices by professing her undying compassion for those unable to afford her company’s products. Discerning a difference between people’s professed aims and their real aims is just what intellectuals do.

I would add that it should be strangely suspicious to the thinking-class that the New Atheism is fueled by other motivations besides reason, virtue, and doing Westerners a favor. They are doing less to enlighten the public as they are to propagate a certain point of view with evangelistic fervor. Philosopher and atheist, Thomas Nagel, pinpointed the motivation when he wrote, “I do not WANT God to exist!” (The Last Word, 1997, emphasis mine).

Alan Jacobs article points beyond the religious veneer into darker places of the human heart. His new book on Original Sin is on my summer reading list!

I agree with the whimsical assessment of this article. And it is written in a way that average people can understand. Here’s a taste:

[After citing a string of negative adjectives Dawkin's writes about God, Snow says...] Such invective clings like chewing gum to atheist polemics and raises the question of why these people are so worked up about a creator they don’t believe exists.

Darwinists may be able to describe how older bees, wasps, ants, and termites help their younger siblings, but they can’t explain why Raoul Wallenberg became a martyr for captive Jews.

Atheism fails as a creed because it lacks humanity. It destroys the wall of sanctity that defends the weak from the strong. It spawned history’s most savage movements—from the French Terror to the Stalinist purges. None of the atheistic alternatives has survived because reason just doesn’t make a satisfying god.

Those are just a few lines you’ll enjoy in this article, “New Atheists Are Not Great.”