In his documentary The God Who Wasn't There filmmaker Brian Fleming spends part of the time challenging the idea that Jesus was a historical person. Most of the documentary, though, has to do with his personal spiritual journey and his reasons for rejecting Christianity.
I won't take issue with him rejecting Christianity. While I think that is sad, it is his personal decision. Also, I understand his reasons. He grew up being taught a lot of doctrines that made God seem like a monster. He was told (as many Christians are) that anyone who does not accept Christ as Savior will be punished for all eternity in Hell. He finds the idea of so many good people experiencing never-ending torture impossible to reconcile with the idea of a good and loving God. He also finds the condemnation of gays unacceptable. (As it happens, I agree with him on both these points and think these are doctrines that can be questioned and rejected.)
I'm part of a group in Christianity that is known variously known as "Liberal Christians", "Mainline Christians", "Progressive Christians", or (Mr. Flemming's term) "Moderate Christians". We are faithful believers who study and follow the Bible intensively and carefully, but not literally or uncritically. We don't think it makes sense just to follow the words, God calls us to understand the meaning and context. We use the teaching and example of Jesus Christ as our interpretive focus. That sounds fancy but it essentially means that we are far more committed to following Jesus than the laws of the Old Testament.
Flemming says that moderate Christianity makes no sense. Christians can't be okay with homosexuality, he says, because God really does hate fags (he cites Leviticus 20:13. Flemming implies that the only legitimate way to understand the passage is literally, without any regard for context, without any questioning or analysis.
The thing is, the Bible is a lot more complex than that and understanding it takes work. There are, and have always been, people of faith who question and defy the biblical laws when they are harmful or cruel. In fact, this isn't a new phenomina; Jesus is well known for breaking the scriptural laws by healing on the Sabbath (also a capital offense accorting to a literal reading) shasing meals with sinners and tax collectors, and welcoming the rejected and despised in the circle of God's love.
Does it make sense to say that Leviticus is right about God and the Gospels are wrong? That's essentially what Flemming's argumans comes down to and it's one that makes no sense to me. There are actully a number of other interpretations of this passage. If we're going to use the Bible to understand God we have to look at the whole Bible, not just take a few passages that support our point of view and hold them as absolute. We have to deal honestly with the fact that the writers of the Bible sometimes disagreed with each other and try to get to the truth behind those disagreements.
Flemming goes on to say that the Inquisition wasn't a perversion of Christian faith, but a legitimate expression of it. He says that, if the Bible is right, and the only way to avoid Hell is to become a Christian, then the Inquisition makes sense. To inflict a little suffering on people in this life to save them from an eternity of suffering in the next life is the nest thing to do.
The problem with this argument is that the Bible doesn't say this. Flemming is repeating a doctrine of the church he grew up in. It's something that quite a few Christians believe. It's a position that they can quote a number of scriptures to support. But there is no passage in the Bible that says this, not anywhere!
Flemming hits one point as the ultimate in what's wrong with God. Mark 3:28-29 quotes Jesus saying: Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.
Flemming says that this means that anyone who denies, or even doubts, the existence of the Holy Spirit is damned to eternal punishment. He sincerely believes this and his story of how this passage terrified him as a child is heart-rending. But while his pain is real, his anger is misdirected. A more careful study of the whole passage tells a different story. Jesus is responding to people who are essentially claiming that he is an agent of the Devil, that his words of wisdom are lies, that his healing is evil, etc. These are people who know the truth but deliberately lie to advance their own agenda. They don't care what sort of dirty trick they have to pull or who who it hurts as long as they "win."
This is what is means by blaspheming the Holy Spirit. When you give into this kind of deliberate and cynical manipulation; when you justify dishonesty and cruelty to achieve a goal, you have rejected the very thing that makes forgiveness possible.
Getting back to Mr. Flemming's film; his pain and anger are real but his aim is sloppy. If God hated gays, if the Inquisition was the truest expression of Christianity, if the Bible said that anyone who doubted the existence of the Holy Spirit was doomed to Hell, then his condemnation of Christianity would be fair. But if he were interested in being fair I don't think he'd dismiss the Christians who have a different point of view without making any effort to understand us.
Sadly, the film is a blanket condemnation of the many for the wrongs of some. It's a shame that he chose this approach instead of inviting an honest and open conversation. There's so much both sides could learn from that.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The God Who Wasn't There
The God Who Wasn’t There
I’ve heard about this documentary for some time and had the chance to watch it the other day. It’s an interesting presentation, though it tends to wander. The basic idea is that Jesus is not a historical person but a mythological figure, cobbled together from the legends of other savior figures. The film’s creator, Brian Flemming, mixes this with general reflections that Christianity is a bad religion that worships an evil God, and with his own personal spiritual journey.
The part debunking Jesus is based on various theories of history which emerged in the 18-20th centuries, and which have recently been revived by Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. While these theories were popular in the late 19th and earlyt 20th centuries, they have fallen out of favor with professional historians.
FWIW, the idea that Jesus “wasn’t there” has been out of favor with most secular historians for several generations. While contemporary historians are skeptican about many of the events of Jesus’ life (miracles, meeting with Pilate, birth in Bethlehem, etc.) they generally agree on several things.
1) There was a historical first century Jewish wisdom teacher named Jesus of Nazareth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus.
2) He was a Galileean Jew who made at least one pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
3) He may have been a disciple of John the Baptist.
4) He taught using surprising and original parables, many of which spojke of the Kingdom of God.
5) He was crucified during the administration of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
6) His followers eventually split with Rabbinic Judaism to form the religion that would become known as Christianity.
While there is a great deal of debate about just about everything beyond this, most historians say that we can trust the historical evidence for Jesus about as well as we can the historical evidence for the existence of Socrates.
Flemming isn’t a historian or biblical scholar himself, and that shows in his lack of basic awareness of what the Bible says, and of scholarly criticism of it. He seems to reject the historical Jesus mostly because he wants to. As Flemming relates his personal journey we learn that he was a bright, original thinker who grew up in a Fundamentalist Christian environment that strongly discouraged his questioning attitude and originality. He had the imagination to see the dark implications of what he was taught about God and came to the conclusion that the teachers at his Christian school, the preachers he heard, and the attitudes of the many (admittedly good and loving) Christians around him were twisted.
After a great deal of personal struggle, Flemming has decided that, if the things he was taught about God are true (EG, that God sends people to Hell for following any other religion), then God is a monster. He has also decided that he would find it immoral to find such a God. Finally, he has concluded that what he calls “moderate Christianity” makes no sense. He is certain that the Fundamentalists are right about the nature of God and that moderate Christians who believe that God is loving, have no problems with homosexuality, etc. are deluding themselves.
I had mixed feelings about the film. Flemming rejects many things that are worth rejecting, but he is far from being rational or objective about it. His confrontation with the principal of the Christian school he attended is hard to watch. I join him in disagreeing with the principal’s doctrinal views, but the way he ambushes a man who obviously likes and cares about him is painful.
I do agree with Mr. Flemming about many of the ideas he rejects, and think he has a lot of integrity for rejecting them. I have some problems with his approach though. In its own way it seems to me as narrow, judgmental, and legalistic as the Christianity he grew up with.
More on the places where I agree and disagree later. For now, I’ll just say that I found the film interesting but lacking in depth, and ultimately it made me sad.
I’ve heard about this documentary for some time and had the chance to watch it the other day. It’s an interesting presentation, though it tends to wander. The basic idea is that Jesus is not a historical person but a mythological figure, cobbled together from the legends of other savior figures. The film’s creator, Brian Flemming, mixes this with general reflections that Christianity is a bad religion that worships an evil God, and with his own personal spiritual journey.
The part debunking Jesus is based on various theories of history which emerged in the 18-20th centuries, and which have recently been revived by Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. While these theories were popular in the late 19th and earlyt 20th centuries, they have fallen out of favor with professional historians.
FWIW, the idea that Jesus “wasn’t there” has been out of favor with most secular historians for several generations. While contemporary historians are skeptican about many of the events of Jesus’ life (miracles, meeting with Pilate, birth in Bethlehem, etc.) they generally agree on several things.
1) There was a historical first century Jewish wisdom teacher named Jesus of Nazareth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus.
2) He was a Galileean Jew who made at least one pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
3) He may have been a disciple of John the Baptist.
4) He taught using surprising and original parables, many of which spojke of the Kingdom of God.
5) He was crucified during the administration of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
6) His followers eventually split with Rabbinic Judaism to form the religion that would become known as Christianity.
While there is a great deal of debate about just about everything beyond this, most historians say that we can trust the historical evidence for Jesus about as well as we can the historical evidence for the existence of Socrates.
Flemming isn’t a historian or biblical scholar himself, and that shows in his lack of basic awareness of what the Bible says, and of scholarly criticism of it. He seems to reject the historical Jesus mostly because he wants to. As Flemming relates his personal journey we learn that he was a bright, original thinker who grew up in a Fundamentalist Christian environment that strongly discouraged his questioning attitude and originality. He had the imagination to see the dark implications of what he was taught about God and came to the conclusion that the teachers at his Christian school, the preachers he heard, and the attitudes of the many (admittedly good and loving) Christians around him were twisted.
After a great deal of personal struggle, Flemming has decided that, if the things he was taught about God are true (EG, that God sends people to Hell for following any other religion), then God is a monster. He has also decided that he would find it immoral to find such a God. Finally, he has concluded that what he calls “moderate Christianity” makes no sense. He is certain that the Fundamentalists are right about the nature of God and that moderate Christians who believe that God is loving, have no problems with homosexuality, etc. are deluding themselves.
I had mixed feelings about the film. Flemming rejects many things that are worth rejecting, but he is far from being rational or objective about it. His confrontation with the principal of the Christian school he attended is hard to watch. I join him in disagreeing with the principal’s doctrinal views, but the way he ambushes a man who obviously likes and cares about him is painful.
I do agree with Mr. Flemming about many of the ideas he rejects, and think he has a lot of integrity for rejecting them. I have some problems with his approach though. In its own way it seems to me as narrow, judgmental, and legalistic as the Christianity he grew up with.
More on the places where I agree and disagree later. For now, I’ll just say that I found the film interesting but lacking in depth, and ultimately it made me sad.
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