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solarbirdI've probably built it up too much now, but, well, such is life. It started with a story I didn't bother to run in with the usual Cultural Warfare Update:
You see, one of the things that has bothered me more than anything else about the fundamentalist movement, historically, is its rejection of a scientific approach to, well, science. I don't expect a scientific approach to faith. Indeed, that's rather missing the point. But I do want it with science. Science works. It's how we've gotten medicine, high-quality videogaming, the internet, really cool motorcycles, and fresh strawberries in February. It's why humans don't live in straw huts shaking sticks at bears and hoping they go away. I'm for it.
But as I've spent the last decade documenting, the way the fundamentalist movement judges the truth of evidence in science is whether it confirms to their ideas about received Biblical truth, or, as they more often put it, Biblical literalness. This is also made clear by the ongoing clown-car clusterfuck they call"scientific Creationism""intelligent design." Sometimes, they even put it in print:
That's been kind of a hard fight for them, and they know it. Yes, most people believe in one form or another of creationism in the United States, but there's not yet been an outright rejection of the process that eventually undermines creationism, rational thought based upon empirical evidence; people just don't think about it, for the most part, because they don't need to and it doesn't affect their daily lives - or, at least, they think it doesn't, and that's close enough. Combine that with a lot of disinformation, obsfucation, lies, and"teaching the controversy"propaganda, and you've got the kind of results you see in American polling.
But despite that, their own numbers say that only 9% reject reason as a primary method of understanding the world. Nine percent. The rest give at least lip service to the idea of taking data from the world and using that to figure out how the world works.
That's what they want to address. This is Focus on the Family going for the brass ring of not just what people think, but how they think, calling it "one of the most ambitious and powerful projects in the history of [their] ministry." The Truth Project has as its overt goal Biblical literalism - or their version thereof - as the definition of the world.
The logical and literal reading of this leads directly to Christian Reconstructionism, of course. They're the only ones genuinely honest about all this, so it's not comforting to me that I've seen Chalcedon Institute writers showing up more in mainstream fundamentalist organisations such as Concerned Women for America (as documented in many previous Cultural Warfare Updates). The Reconstructionists haven't moved; the fundamentalist leadership, on the other hand, has.
It's no wonder they've been quoting Stalin without irony. They're using his tactics. If you control the thought, you control the action. If you control the mechanisms of thinking, you control the thought.
And American science education - hell, American education in general - has been so wretched for so long that they've maybe got a shot at it.
But in the end, what does this get them? It gets them the Arabic world in the 14th century. Repeating the same mistakes. Choosing the same road; purity of faith over everything else. And most likely, meeting the same fate - dragging down the rest of America with them - all the while praising God and the glorious new road, just like every previous civilisation which has marched down it to irrelevance. This time, it'll be different! - except no, I don't think it will. And I certainly know I don't want to see it tried.
1: What a Soviet-esque article title! What next, Devote All Energies to Successfully Running Socialist Research Institutes? (Reportedly the real title of a real Chinese research paper, as translated.) Or wait, no, excuse me, it should be Marc Fey Discusses the Importance of Devoting All Energies to Successfully Running Creationist Research Institutes. That's better.
2: The world is not flat; the Bible says it is, like a circle. It also says it has four corners. Allegorical? Sure, I can take that. They don't, though, except when they do, like with that whole flat-earth thing, where suddenly it's real inconvenient.
3: Focus on the Family has been a strong supporter of Creationist efforts of all stripes; see previous CWUs for as much documentation as you can eat.
DVD Course on Biblical Worldview Launches This WeekI mostly dismissed it initially as an actual religious news story, the sort they toss in occasionally with their political news to remind people that they're still a religious organisation in arenas other than politics. But then I saw this link, in the Donations section, which included this text:
Focus on the Family
Newsbriefs
May 2, 2006
http://www.family.org/cforum/briefs/a0040341.cfm
Focus on the Family announced Monday the launch of a DVD-based small-group curriculum aimed at training Christians to have a Biblical worldview. The Truth Project will hold its inaugural event this weekend at Calvary Church in Charlotte, N.C.
What's a Worldview Anyway?I know more than enough about their rhetoric by now to know that I should investigate this.
"Worldview" is fast becoming a commonly used term. But do you know what it really means? Dr. Del Tackett shares four important points to keep in mind when seeking to understand the meaning of "worldview."
You see, one of the things that has bothered me more than anything else about the fundamentalist movement, historically, is its rejection of a scientific approach to, well, science. I don't expect a scientific approach to faith. Indeed, that's rather missing the point. But I do want it with science. Science works. It's how we've gotten medicine, high-quality videogaming, the internet, really cool motorcycles, and fresh strawberries in February. It's why humans don't live in straw huts shaking sticks at bears and hoping they go away. I'm for it.
But as I've spent the last decade documenting, the way the fundamentalist movement judges the truth of evidence in science is whether it confirms to their ideas about received Biblical truth, or, as they more often put it, Biblical literalness. This is also made clear by the ongoing clown-car clusterfuck they call
The Bible consisting of the thirty-nine canonical books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven canonical books of the New Testament, is the divinely inspired revelation of the Creator to man. Its unique, plenary, verbal inspiration guarantees that these writings as originally and miraculously given, are infallible and completely authoritative on all matters with which they deal, free from error of any sort, scientific and historical as well as moral and theological.These ancient writings - these demonstrably wrong in many cases words2 - are the officially unalterable and uncompromisable literal standard against which observable reality is measured, not the other way around - and if, as the Dover decision so clearly showed, if that makes "And then a miracle occurred" into a valid process step, they're fine with that.3-- Institute for Creation Research FAQ ( http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=home&action=faq )Living from a Christian worldview means that what you do aligns with what is true, and the Scriptures are the ultimate authority on Truth.-- Focus on the Family/The Truth Project, "A Real Foundation: Marc Fey discusses the importance of integrating a Christian worldview into every area of life"1)
That's been kind of a hard fight for them, and they know it. Yes, most people believe in one form or another of creationism in the United States, but there's not yet been an outright rejection of the process that eventually undermines creationism, rational thought based upon empirical evidence; people just don't think about it, for the most part, because they don't need to and it doesn't affect their daily lives - or, at least, they think it doesn't, and that's close enough. Combine that with a lot of disinformation, obsfucation, lies, and
But despite that, their own numbers say that only 9% reject reason as a primary method of understanding the world. Nine percent. The rest give at least lip service to the idea of taking data from the world and using that to figure out how the world works.
That's what they want to address. This is Focus on the Family going for the brass ring of not just what people think, but how they think, calling it "one of the most ambitious and powerful projects in the history of [their] ministry." The Truth Project has as its overt goal Biblical literalism - or their version thereof - as the definition of the world.
A biblical worldview is based on the infallible Word of God. When you believe the Bible is entirely true, then you allow it to be the foundation of everything you say and do. That means, for instance, you take seriously the mandate in Romans 13 to honor the governing authorities by researching the candidates and issues, making voting a priority. [...] Most of us go through life not recognizing that our personal worldviews have been deeply affected by the world. Through the media and other influences, the secularized American view of history, law, politics, science, God and man affects our thinking more than we realize. We then are taken "captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ" (Colossians 2:8). (emphasis added) (The Truth Project: What's a Worldview, Anyway?")Make no mistake: what they're saying, very clearly, means that between their ideas of Biblical literalism and observable data, between how they read the Bible and the very idea of reason - "the world" - the Bible wins, no matter how screwed up it might happen to be. It's no coincidence that people like Terry Randall said that when things started go to wrong in the Western world was at the Renaissance. It's no coincidence that their idea of "history" can let them rip early American scientist Benjamin Franklin brutally enough out of context to appear to come up with this condemnation of people using reason:
Living from a Christian worldview means that what you do aligns with what is true, and the Scriptures are the ultimate authority on Truth. (As before, "A Real Foundation: Marc Fey discusses the importance of integrating a Christian worldview into every area of life".)
"So convenient it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."Abusing Benjamin Franklin as a closing coda, a sideswiping attempt to clip the side-view mirror of historical legitimacy, taping it to the door of their car as they race down the freeway to... where, exactly?-- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1791
The logical and literal reading of this leads directly to Christian Reconstructionism, of course. They're the only ones genuinely honest about all this, so it's not comforting to me that I've seen Chalcedon Institute writers showing up more in mainstream fundamentalist organisations such as Concerned Women for America (as documented in many previous Cultural Warfare Updates). The Reconstructionists haven't moved; the fundamentalist leadership, on the other hand, has.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). ... If we capture and embrace more of God's worldview and trust it with unwavering faith, then we begin to make the right decisions and form the appropriate responses to questions on abortion, same- sex marriage, cloning, stem-cell research and even media choices.This is them trying to rewire how their rank and file think. Not the conclusions they come to - they've already got them onboard that, work there isn't needed - but the actual mechanisms of thought, the actual ways in which evidence is weighed and conclusions are reached. They're losing the battle of the observable facts, and they aren't yet getting what they want against the tide of collective story - at least, where queers are concerned, and for them, that's plenty bad enough - so they're trying to replace reason with the words they've already decided to be true, so that any observable evidence can just be discounted as irrelevent. It's more than "political correctness," it's religious correctness, and they've apparently decided to chuck 1800 years of lessons from violent European history and declare that this time, religious sectarianism will be different!
It's no wonder they've been quoting Stalin without irony. They're using his tactics. If you control the thought, you control the action. If you control the mechanisms of thinking, you control the thought.
And American science education - hell, American education in general - has been so wretched for so long that they've maybe got a shot at it.
But in the end, what does this get them? It gets them the Arabic world in the 14th century. Repeating the same mistakes. Choosing the same road; purity of faith over everything else. And most likely, meeting the same fate - dragging down the rest of America with them - all the while praising God and the glorious new road, just like every previous civilisation which has marched down it to irrelevance. This time, it'll be different! - except no, I don't think it will. And I certainly know I don't want to see it tried.
1: What a Soviet-esque article title! What next, Devote All Energies to Successfully Running Socialist Research Institutes? (Reportedly the real title of a real Chinese research paper, as translated.) Or wait, no, excuse me, it should be Marc Fey Discusses the Importance of Devoting All Energies to Successfully Running Creationist Research Institutes. That's better.
2: The world is not flat; the Bible says it is, like a circle. It also says it has four corners. Allegorical? Sure, I can take that. They don't, though, except when they do, like with that whole flat-earth thing, where suddenly it's real inconvenient.
3: Focus on the Family has been a strong supporter of Creationist efforts of all stripes; see previous CWUs for as much documentation as you can eat.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 12:15 pm (UTC)Her ideas are not sound. Ms. Pearcey is bedazzled by her own brilliance. In autobiographical parts of the book, she tells how she grew up Lutheran but got annoyed when the pastor and other church teachers told her that her scientific questions about Christianity were not important. So she left the faith as a teenager. When she encountered a more intellectual Christian group, the L’Abri Fellowship, that did answer her questions, she converted back to Christianity. The adage says that new converts are the most fanatic believers. She manages to be both raised in the faith and a new convert, so she is absolutely convinced that she has the total truth, when all she has is the answers to her favorite questions. I apologize for us Lutherans not teaching her properly in the first place.
And she is one of the Intelligent Design people honest enough to explain her philosophy. The ones who lie are worse.
Erin Schram
no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 12:59 pm (UTC)"Do not trust the written or spoken word, but think for yourselves and pray for divine guidance."
(Huh. LJ's spell checker doesn't have "literalist.")
no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 11:47 am (UTC)"Do not trust the written or spoken word, but think for yourselves and pray for divine guidance."
I do not remember that line being in the Bible. Do you have a chapter and verse reference? I checked my concordance and instead I find verses that say the opposite. For example Proverbs 3:5-8 says:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way. Never let yourself think that you are wiser than you are; simply obey the Lord and refuse to do wrong. If you do, it will be like good medicine, healing your wounds and easing your pains.
The closest I can find in the Bible about using your own judgment is the warnings about false teachers who lie about God's word for their own purposes. For example, Matthew 7:15-20 says:
Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves. You will know them by what they do. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes and briers do not bear figs. A healthy tree bears good fruit, but a poor tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a poor tree cannot bear good fruit. And any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire. So then, you will know the false prophets by what they do.
Erin Schram
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-14 06:40 pm (UTC)One man judges one day more sacred than another, while another man judges all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat meat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain from meat, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. Romans 14:5-6
That section has lots of good verses. For example, verse 10 and 13 (verses 11 and 12 are an Isaiah quote) are:
Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we all stand before the judgment seat of God. Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block in the way of another.
And verses 17-19 are:
For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
While browsing Hebrews, I found the following verse too:
Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the full reality, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are offered year after year, make the worshippers perfect. Hebrews 10:1.
That is good for debunking someone who says the Old Testament law is absolute.
Erin Schram
no subject
Date: 2006-05-14 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:44 pm (UTC)Things have been rapidly moving toward a point where their worldview, which doesn't accomodate any others, will be completely imposed upon everyone else's. If you're not willing to wait for Englightenment v2 (and Enlightenment v1 came from within the system), then we have a cancer that will need cutting out and a radical dose of chemotherapy.
One of the minor things that has kept me sane is realizing that people are getting tired of Bush. They're getting tired of the mindset and the people behind him that have gotten us here. There's a chance that in the rush to "throw the bums out", we'll get rid of the influence most of the people who are politically pushing us back to the dark ages.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 03:04 pm (UTC)Seriously: how will "getting rid of Bush" do this?
Sure, he's a friend to them. But it's not like they're going away when he leaves office. They aren't moving out any time soon. Outside of New England, they mostly control the Republican party - they may be wrong, but they're very, very dedicated, and have put in the labour and work and time needed to take... no, to become - that party at the local organisational level.
I agree, of course, with your appraisal of their intention. Indeed, it's rather a religious mandate for them; that's what the whole evangelism part is about, after all.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 03:19 pm (UTC)Not just Bush, but surrounding Republicans. That's what I had intended to say when I was talking about "throwing the bums out".
From the little I've seen of things, this whole movement has been pushed by the Republican party. It might have support within the Democratic party as well, but I haven't seen that. It does even seem to be winning over people that I thought were "cleaner", such as McCain and that's a pity.
My thought is that the voters seem to be about to go through a "purge the Republicans" phase due to the way things have been going recently. If that actually happens, I suspect a few things will happen:
I think the point I'm less convinced of than you are is the true allegiance of the Republican party to these people. I would guess that fully 1/4 to 1/3 of them are solidly in these people's camp. The rest are around for the power their support has given. If their power gets cut short, I suspect that some of the Republicans will drop them.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 03:58 pm (UTC)Not so much.
I mean, yes, but not in the way you mean. This wasn't an invention of some leadership bloc inside the party; this was a takeover of the party from the outside, which, of course, leads to becoming the inside. But don't think this is some sort of uppermost-level-driven thing.
The South, also, tends to vote as a cultural block, and has followed the evangelicals to the Republican party.
Republicans will see a lot of the agenda that has put them in their current uncomfortable position as having come from the religious right and will move to dissociate themselves without overtly backing out.
You're still seeing the fundamentalist right as the tail, and the old party as the body. At this point, outside of New England, you have that essentially backwards.
I think the point I'm less convinced of than you are is the true allegiance of the Republican party to these people.
I'm saying that in largest part, they are the Republican party - or rather, its rank and file base. They've spent decades working to become so - literally decades - and have succeeded in the majority of the country.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 07:37 pm (UTC)Well, sort of.
To put it in a SF-style analogy, the Republican party is in a symbiotic relationship with a parasitic organism that has pretty much changed its essential nature. At the moment, the relationship is a very cozy one and the parasite has largely overwritten the previous personality of the original organism.
However, once the parasite becomes too much of a burden, I suspect that a portion of the original organism will reassert itself. I don't expect that to be the case across the board.
In the end, I think it's just a matter of political expediency. It always seems to be that way.
Here's what scares me, and my dad, about this
Date: 2006-05-10 07:41 pm (UTC)That's what freaks me out - I'm actually related to some of these people... But like I said, he's only my half-brother, from Dad's first marriage (pretty much a shotgun wedding, when Dad was 18), so I blame his mother. I don't know her so she's easy to blame.
:)
Monica
Re: Here's what scares me, and my dad, about this
Date: 2006-05-14 07:03 pm (UTC)Erin Schram
Re: Here's what scares me, and my dad, about this
Date: 2006-05-15 07:38 pm (UTC)The Purpose-Driven Life is one thing, but I'm not certain the Purpose-Driven Church is exactly the same since it's more about evangelism than actual spiritual growth. I haven't read either, but from what I've read about them (book reviews, etc.), it seems the Purpose-Driven Church is more of a "baptize 'em all and let God sort 'em out" kind of philosophy, but with a good dose of church capitalism thrown in (grow your church membership, grow your budget - that kind of thing).
Purpose-Driven Life/Church do seem reasonably harmless, and I hope you're right that the Creationism thing doesn't follow directly. Can't imagine the spiritual conflict that would happen in my brother's mind trying to reconcile his science-based profession (and one might say life's calling) with a Creationist world view.