Where is the Christian outrage?

Good Christians, where is your outrage? Are you so meek and mild that you’re willing to tolerate the intolerance being committed in Jesus’ name? Will you continue to allow the most extreme right-wing fundamentalist sharks among you to flourish in the ocean of mainstream Christianity?

I’m not a Christian, but I’m outraged by attempts to subvert both science and common sense in the name of theology that nowhere appears in the Bible. This is obvious manmade dogma. If I can speak out against these travesties, why can’t you, good Christians?

Putting creationism in the classroom. The effort to get intelligent design (which is thinly disguised creationism) recognized as an alternative theory to evolution takes us back to the bad old days of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. I thought that we had evolved beyond such specious attacks on science, but the Dover Area School District lawsuit proves otherwise.

Christians want intelligent design/creationism enshrined in the classroom even though there is zero—repeat, zero—scientific evidence in favor of this utterly unproven hypothesis. There is equal reason to believe that the universe is being guided by a Flying Spaghetti Monster as by a willful conscious metaphysical force.

Stifling of Plan B morning-after pill. Last night ABC’s Nightline featured a devastating critique of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) outrageous decision to overrule the advice of its own advisory committee and professional staff. The FDA commissioner, Lester Crawford (who has since resigned), delayed a decision on whether the Plan B pill should be available without a prescription.

Susan Wood, director of the Office of Women’s Health, resigned over the decision. She told Ted Koppel that “science was being overruled by the FDA.” The advisory committee vote was 23 to 4 in favor of approval. One of the four dissenters was David Hager, a Christian ob-gyn doctor from Kentucky.

Hager filed a minority report urging that this utterly safe drug which prevents unwanted pregnancies (and, hence, abortions) not be approved because it might lead to more teenagers having sex. Here’s what he said to an audience at a Christian college five months later:

I argued it from a scientific perspective. And God took that information. And He used it through this minority report to influence the decision. You don’t have to wave your Bible to have an effect as a Christian in the public arena.

Denying global warming. Evangelical Christians are cool on global warming, says Andy Crouch in a Christianity Today essay called “Environmental Wager.” On the face of it there shouldn’t be any reason why Christians would be opposed to protecting the environment. One would think that God’s creation is worthy of respect, since it supposedly was created with a divine purpose in mind.

However, Crouch says that Christians are so ticked off at science because of the theory of evolution, this irritation spills over into over other areas such as global warming: “Thanks to the creation-evolution debate, mistrust between scientists and conservative Christians runs deep. But those scarred by battles with evolutionists might still consider heeding the scientists who are warning us about climate change.”

Opposing gay rights. In my state Basic Rights Oregon is challenging the legality of an initiative (Measure 36) voters approved last year that says only a marriage between one man and one woman is valid. Christian groups led the fight for Measure 36, somehow believing that denying rights to gays will glorify God.

I find Robert Buchanan’s perspective a lot more appealing. And a lot more Christian. He says that Christians limit God’s love when they assume that only certain sorts of people are deserving of it:

Many people have a very limited view of the scope of God’s love. They have allowed their prejudice to replace God’s intention and the message of Christianity. They think that God only came for those who are in a patriarchal nuclear family with a male, female, and children or single celibate people. Sometimes people limit God to those who are of their own gender, color, race, and among their own social status.

As a non-Christian, I do what I can to encourage open-mindedness, tolerance, and respect for scientific facts about reality. It’s discouraging to me that so many Christians aren’t doing the same.

I realize that, according to yesterday’s Oregonian, “a Gallup Poll last fall found that 45% of Americans say God created people pretty much in their present form in the past 10,000 years—a timeline asserted by Christian literalists.”

But that leaves a majority of Americans believing otherwise, most of whom are Christian. Where are their voices? They should be pounding the pulpit and telling the right-wing fundamentalists, “You don’t speak for me!”

I don’t hear this happening. The Christian silence is deafening.

I hope this doesn’t mean that unscientific gay haters are going to inherit the earth. If the meek Christians don’t begin to speak up, that’s a definite possibility.

Comments

[patrick]

Interesting post. I think you are evaluating the situation somewhat correctly. However, I don't find that there is very strong convincing evidence that proves evolution to be a theory (and a theory it still is) that holds any water. So to say that "Christians want intelligent design/creationism enshrined in the classroom even though there is zero—repeat, zero—scientific evidence in favor of this utterly unproven hypothesis. There is equal reason to believe that the universe is being guided by a Flying Spaghetti Monster as by a willful conscious metaphysical force" can equally be turned on the theory of evolution. There just isn't enough evidence to prove either theory to be scientific fact. Blatant stupidity is applied to the situation by both sides, not just the right wing.

Also, your comments about the issue of gay rights were surprising. Some christians may be arguing that God doesn't love homosexuals....but clearly you have to recognize that it isn't the person that God is not loving, but rather the act of homosexuality. You are correct, God did indeed come so that all would accept his love and forgiveness...but you are incorrect in saying that God is just as accepting of someone who is gay as opposed to someone who is not. God is just as opposed to someone who is a chronic liar as he is homosexuals. God is opposed to sin. He is not opposed to people. However, in order for God to remain to be God (being just, holy, perfect, 100% righteous and 0% evil) he must not tolerate sin. And homosexuality is a sin, that much is clear from an honest reading of scripture. God does not hate homosexuals. God does hate homosexuality. And yes God does desire a patriarchal family structure.

I agree that right wing christians are dominating the christian realm which is the reason that christian thought is not counted as legit anymore. I thank you for your post and your thoughts. I hope I challenged your mind with some of this. Let me know what you think,

[Brian]

Patrick, thanks for sharing your thoughts--even though I disagree with several of your main points.

There's plenty of scientific evidence in favor of evolution. Read this Washington Post story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501177.html?sub=new
(registration required, but it's worth it)

As a scientist is quoted, "What makes evolution a scientific explanation is that it makes testable predictions. You only believe theories when they make non-obvious predictions that are confirmed by scientific evidence."

Intelligent design doesn't make testable, non-obvious predictions. That's why it isn't a scientific theory. It's a religious hypothesis and thus should be taught as a philosophy, not a science (by the way, "pagans" such as Plato and Plotinus believed in intelligent design, but certainly not in a Christian god, so Christians should be wary of embracing intelligent design).

Saying that "God hates gays" also is a matter of belief, not of fact. Who knows the mind of God? Or whether God even exists? There are many holy books in the world, not just the Bible. What makes one holy book believable and the others not? And what makes some statements in any holy book more believable than other statements?

Didn't Jesus teach unconditional love? Isn't this at odds with hating gays? Lastly, I find utterly unconvincing the "I hate the sin, not the sinner" argument. That holds water when the supposed sin and the sinner can be clearly distinguished, as would be the case if I shoplifted something.

That is, my essential identity isn't that of a shoplifter. I'm still me even when I'm not shoplifting. So you can separate shoplifting from me. But gays almost universally say that their sexual identity is an intimate inseparable part of them, just as heterosexuality is a part of me.

If you're attracted to women (as I assume you are), could you will yourself to enjoy having sex with men? If not, then you'll understand why gays are offended by the statement "hate the sin, love the sinner."

Your sexual identity is so much a part of you, it is virtually impossible to distinguish from the bodily you (perhaps you are pure soul, as are we all, but that's not a reality for us yet).

Science has shown that sexual identity is basically hard-wired at birth. Many animal species have a high proportion of "gay" members. Are these animals "sinners" also, because they have chosen to be homosexual? We are human animals. Evolution has proven that.

[John]

I suggest reading some books by experts in the field, instead of relying on what gays "feel."
Would you believe me about something just because i had a 'feeling' about it? Of coarse not.

In my decade of working at various psychology clinics, I have queried all of my ‘homosexual’ clients as to whether they were erotically attracted to the opposite sex. All of them said that they were, and most all said that they liked women as friends. I have always found it intriguing that virtually all of them did not fit the common definition of homosexual—a person sexually attracted to their own instead of the opposite sex—but all were to some degree bisexual. Many were once married and most had sexual encounters with the opposite sex. Furthermore, Masters’ and Johnson’s scientific studies of persons labelled homosexual and lesbian have found that both groups consistently listed heterosexual encounters as highly erotic, actually at the top of a list of their erotic fantasies. In one study both male and female homosexuals listed a ‘heterosexual encounter’ as their third most common sexual fantasy!

‘To understand how biological factors influence sexual orientation, one must first define orientation. Many researchers, most conspicuously Simon LeVay, treat it as a sexually dimorphic trait: men are generally ‘programmed’ for attraction to women, and women are generally programmed for attraction to men … The validity of this ‘intersex’ expectation is questionable … sexual orientation is not dimorphic; it has many forms. The conscious and unconscious motivations associated with sexual attraction are diverse even among people of the same sex and orientation. Myriad experiences (and subjective interpretations of those experiences) could interact to lead different people to the same relative degree of sexual attraction to men or to women. Different people could be sexually attracted to men for different reasons; for example, there is no a priori reason that everyone attracted to men should share some particular brain structure.’
Byne, W., 1994. The biological evidence challenged. Scientific American 270(5):26-31 (p. 26).

Sorry this is one of the books you might consider.
Wilson, E.O., 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 281.