"God's Not Dead" And Neither Are Stereotypes

The wife and I just came back from a movie we didn't expect to see. The movie was God's Not Dead. A good review of the movie can be found here. A point from this review should be emphasized: what is depicted in the movie has never happened that we know of. And that is the problem especially with what is at least strongly suggested at the end of the movie. At the end, a list court cases regarding religious liberty issues are listed.

What happened in the movie? A philosophy professor, who is a rabid atheist, makes his students sign a paper on the first day of class stating: "God is dead." If they don't, they risk failing the class. So, the hero of the movie, a traditional freshman, after feeling conflicted refuses to sign. He is confronted by the professor in class. They work out a deal where the student gets three 20 minute segments to present his case. The winner of this challenge is determined by the students in the class.

Now if I tell you that this film is a Conservative Christian film, then I've told you all about the end of the movie. The student wins the contest with a unanimous decision from his classmate jury, the professor was found to be an anti-theist rather than an atheist because of a family tragedy that occurred when he was young, and almost every key person in the film who didn't believe in God at the beginning of the film was converted by the end including the professor who made a deathbed conversion. And, btw, my fellow Calvinists need not watch this film because the presentation of the Gospel was filled with free will being used to answer the question, "why is there evil?" 

But a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the movie. All of the political leftists in the movie reinforced a stereotype that many Conservative Christian have of that group. These cooperative Leftists included the professor, his colleagues, and the young reporter who was converted after she discovered she was terminal with cancer and was left by her boyfriend.

What stereotype of the political left was reinforced here? It was one of hating God and having snobbish disdain for any of His believers. The professor himself served as a caricature but the other political leftists were no slouches. And herein lies one of the major problems. This movie's depiction of the "godless" Left does not match my experience with leftists. And that includes one of the atheists which the professor listed in class as an atheist, Noam Chomsky. 

Yes, Chomsky is an atheist. But he respects people and he holds deep respect for all, including theists, who involve themselves in helping others and defending their rights. In fact, on an office wall, Chomsky has a painting of the Angel of Death as he stands over Archbishop Oscar Romero (click here).  The Angel of Death is in the painting because of the assassination of Romero which was later followed by the assassination of 6 Jesuit priests who were helping the people of El Salvador free themselves. Their assassinations followed U.S. aid to a military junta as well as American training for some of the junta's troops. The assassinations of the Jesuit priests were carried out by a squad that was trained in the U.S. 

Or you can go to how he praised religious Conservatives who joined solidarity movements that went into Central America to protect the people from imperialism (click here). While doing this, he recognizes how American religious Conservatives were not a monolith. But at the same time, he can come across rather strong against Intelligent Design (click here). The point being is that how the Left reacts to religious Conservatives cannot be accurately portrayed as being singular and that always being against God. Sometimes, their reaction to us religiously Conservative Christians is because of our politics and other beliefs.

And that has been my experience as an anti-Capitalist, Leftist. The percentage of fellow Leftists whom I have encountered and who have disdain for my faith lies around 1% to 2%. In fact, some Leftists are thrilled that a Conservative Christian is protesting with them and wish for more. And so the movie's portrayal of the Left as being monolithic and unconditionally against Christians is wrong.

But this movie tells another story. That story told seems to be another product from the Christian persecution industry. This industry is in the words of commentators, preachers, the blogs, and this movie. Christians are being portrayed to themselves as being pitted against the world in all matters. And according to the Christian persecution industry, this conflict stems from the nonChristian's irrational rejection of God. It has nothing to do with some of the questionable things American Conservative Christians support such as our current predatory Capitalist economy, American Imperialism, our current attack on the climate, and our opposition to gay rights.

As a whole, the movie doesn't just try to defend the Gospel, it attempts to keep Christians in the conservative political and cultural fold. This was shown by stereotyping of the Left as well as by the role that a member of Duck Dynasty plays in the movie. It was there to show the contrast of the Christian cultural conservative with a person from the Left.

But in the end, while stereotyping the Left, the movie reinforces a stereotype that some in the Left have of religiously Conservative Christians. That stereotyped image is that such Christians have such a self-centered preoccupation with where they will go after they die that nothing and, perhaps, no one else matters to them. Thus, saving faith, in the movie, is something that is practiced so one can get a ticket to Heaven for oneself. And as important as Heaven is, there are additional matters to tend to until one is called up yonder. Those additional matters make up part of the repentance that comes with belief.

Of course there are many other things to point out about the movie, but it is the use and inadvertent maintenance of stereotypes which which seems most pronounced. And how unfortunate that is in this case since both religiously Conservative Christians and those on the political Left have many things to teach each other. And it seems that the movie was designed to keep the two sides apart. 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 12, 2014

March 9

To Dr Jay Richards and his video posted by Justin Taylor on the Gospel Coalition's blog



1.   Was the old Soviet Union a socialist state? The assumption is that, starting with Lenin, the Soviet Union was following Marxism and Socialism. 

Before determining whether the Soviet Union was a socialist state, consider what was said in the following two links

    i.    http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm
         Reading just the first paragraph would suffice

    ii.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xpbgfkF9yk
          Here, Noam Chomsky challenges the popular perception that Lenin and the Soviet Union direction that followed was Socialist at all. In addition, he describes why both the Soviet Union and the West called what was practiced in the Soviet Union, Socialism

2.   By establishing the Soviet Union as the opposite of American Capitalism and be stating that the only alternative to the Soviet Union was what was practiced in the Soviet Union, he has established a false dichotomy. There are a number of different anti-capitalist models such as anarchism, socialism, and communism. We'll note that fascism and capitalism  stand in contrast to those models. And each model has various flavors. So fleeing to American Capitalism simply because the Soviet Union model failed is living in a false dichotomy. 

3.   Richards stresses the importance of freedom for vibrant economy. But freedom for whom? If the workers are not in control of production, are they free? If the community doesn't have a say in how businesses that reside in the community, is the community free? And what about protection? Do consumers, workers, and communities lose protection when businesses are given more freedom.

    We have to ask if what Richards is really promoting is privileges, not freedom. That is because freedom for a select few cannot be freedom because it is not for all. Liberty - equality = privilege.

4.   Giving the businesses privileges over the rest of us puts those owning businesses in an at best paternalistic relationship with the rest. The relationship is paternalistic if the privileged side takes care of those who are underprivileged. But the privileged have advantages and call the shots and the underprivileged are to tolerate their inferior status for the  sake of keeping their benefits. Now where is the freedom in that?

5.   Yes, gov'ts break laws. But they don't do so without businesses--remember that Hitler was put in power with the help of leaders of big business. And there are a number of ways those with wealth and the gov't interact. Regardless of these ways, both are competing to win the loyalty of the rest by claiming they best represent the rest of us.

6.   What Richards misrepresented about our founders is that they opted for a strong federal gov't that would protect the minority with wealth from the rest. One can verify this by reading the Constitutional debates. This means that the founders, since they were opting for strong gov't, may not have been committed to limited gov't. BTW, Richards substituted anarchy for anarchism. In anarchism, there is great cooperation and can be a high degree of organization, there is just no centralized authority that has coercive abilities.

7.   BTW, if one wants to examine the reasons why Asian countries have benefitted better from globalization than many Latin American countries is because many Asian countries have well-regulated economies while many Latin American countries have allowed the free-flow of capital. In addition, there are two kinds of private property: personal and capital or business. So we should note that different laws should be set up for each kind of private property. The attempt to overlook this distinction at the end of point #5.

8.   The win-win game Richards talks about does not exist. Every great economic power in today's world has gained economic wealth partially through colonization, theft, and exploitation. Remember that America started with ethnically cleansing the land of its indigenous population and slavery. Then it moved to empire and controlling who was leading certain countries with resources. Other European countries had their own empires too.

9.   His point on the church is not historically supported. Rather, the Church, especially conservative churches, have generally supported those with wealth and power. That is true of America for the past couple centuries and it was true of France. It was also true of pre-revolutionary Russia. And it was true of Germany.

10.  BTW, we should note that comparative advantage address is not good for every kind of product. During the last 15 to 20 years, Hairian farmers were forced to compete with American Agribusiness and were forced out of business. This left Haiti without the ability to provide its own food and this results in Haiti having food shortages when the price of either foreign food itself or transporting imported food rises. But this also puts many Haitians out of work. The same is true for other countries that have succumbed to comparative advantage or the specialization of labor by country.

11.  Finally, and this is a Reformed theology criticism, Richards needs to better distinguish God's creativity from human creativity. It isn't that God didn't keep all of the creativity and left some for us as Richards said. Rather, God is the source of all creativity while our creativity is derived from him. This is part of the creator-creature distinction.

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March 10

To Derek Richmawy's blogpost on ideological moralism. This was posted on the Gospel Coalition's blog


There are two sides to this. There is certainly the temptation for all, Christian or not, who are involved with moral causes to become like the pharisee in Jesus' parable of the two men praying. The pharisee spent his time blowing his own horn while externalizing evil. The other side is that we Christians relegate to mere ideological moralism those nonChristians who, as mentioned in Romans 2:14-15, don't have God or His Word but from their conscience do what is right, though neither perfectly nor all of the time. And we minimize what they say and do for the same reasons the previously mentioned pharisee did.

It seems to me that if we really believe that we are sinners and are saved by grace and are not caught up in the externalization of evil trap, we would feel convicted when we see nonChristians love our neighbor more than we do. And there are plenty of times that happens especially when we confuse the  parts of our culture which we enjoy with Christianity.

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To Joseph Pearce's blogpost on giving atheism credit for the guillotine and the gas chamber. This post appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.


Certainly atheism is not innocent, but if we look at all of history, we find that perhaps we should use the kind of scoring they use in the NHL. That is because not only does the goal scorer get credit, so does the person(s) who passes the puck. The latter get an assist.
The guillotine just didn't result from spontaneous generation. Rather, it was used as a humanitarian alternative to previous methods of execution used when the clergy played a prominent role (the 1st estate) in French society. Before the revolution, methods by which people were executed included burning at the stake (also see Calvin's Geneva), hanging, being pulled apart by 4 horses, and being beheaded by a sword or axe. The guillotine was seen as humanitarian because of its efficiency and quickness. And the desire for a more humanitarian way of performing executions came from the enlightenment.

But if we want to look at the ant-Christian reaction by those in the revolution, we must first see the role that the Church played in subjecting much of the 3rd estate to poverty. So we have consider how much of the French Revolution's rejection of the Church was due to a rejection of theism and how much was due to a rejection of how the 1st estate controlled society. Sometimes, context is important.

Likewise in Germany, we could say that the Church earned another assist in the development and use of the gas chambers mostly on Jews but also on others. Remember that for centuries, Germany held a Church inspired "eliminationist" anti-Semitic attitude. This was significantly inspired by Martin Luther's pamphlet called, "The Jews And Their Lies" (in particular see the end of page 39-47 of http://www.resist.com/Instauration/OtherPubs-20120723/TheJewsAndTheirLies-Luther.pdf). While Luther called for the elimination of the Jews in Germany, Hitler added the means and drew inspiration from Hitler. And even without Hitler, for centuries the Church practiced a harsh anti-Semitism such that by the 1800s, Jews started to organize the current Modern Zionist enterprise.

And don't forget that the Church gave us the inquisition, the burning of witches and heretics at the stake (Geneva), and even the persecution of fellow believers (see the Puritans' persecution, including the killing, of Quakers). Then we have the Church's support for the ethnic cleansing of America's indigenous people from America and a partial support for slavery. We can count that if we don't wish to include European wars over religion or claiming that the Christian God was on the side of their country (see WWI).

One more point, if socialism is defined by proletariat rule, then the totalitarian rule of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are disqualified from being called socialist. The kind of state that Marxists envisioned as being in control was partially democratic. It was democratic in the way the representatives were selected. But it was not a fully democracy because only the workers and soldiers were qualified to be representatives. But to the opportunistically simple-minded, state control equals socialism even when the state that is  in control is not socialist. 

What this blogpost serves as an example of by its externalization of evil and whitewashing of faults is that of a cult. According to this post, only those outside the movement can be evil and have faults. Those true conservatives who are believers could never abuse others or push for war.

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March 11


To Joe Carter's blogpost featuring Milton Friedman's comments on how business can be the enemy of free markets. This appeared on the Acton blog.


The good thing about what was said is that a Free Market economist stated a role for government. That government needs to keep others from having excessive power. That requires gov't to have an adequate size to do so. Those who worry about the size of gov't, if they are consistent, will worry about the size of all other entities including those in business.

The bad thing is the assumption that the free market is always good. It seems that the free market is like the Pope; it speaks infallibly. Unfortunately, comparative advantage and free markets can rob people of being self-suffienct--Haiti is an example here in terms of food. For doesn't history teach us that one way a country can build its productive resources is through protection?

ONIM For Jan 13, 2014

Christian News

• Egypt's Suffering Christian Community Praised For Restraint Despite Repeated Attacks -- Christian Today (UK)
• Clean Water: An Unlike Obstacle To Bible Translation -- Christian Today (UK)
• Why Egypt's Christian Families Are Paying Ransoms -- Christianity Today
• The Problem With Trying On Atheism -- Christianity Today
• Is The $17 Trillion Debt Immoral? -- Christianity Today
• Pope Francis: True Priests Have Relationship With Jesus -- The Christian Post
• Are Israel's Christians Arab? New Legislation Set To Distinguish Muslim And Christian Arab Populations -- The Christian Post
• Gambling With God: Ryan Bell's Atheist Bet -- Religion Dispatches
• The Irony Of The American Studies Israel Boycott -- Religion Dispatches

World News

• Right Before Oil Train Explosion, Obama Enables Quicker Access To Fracking Permits In ND -- Desmogblog
• Profits Over People: Philadelphia's True Priorities -- From The Teacher's Desk
• Racism Accelerates Aging In African-American Men, New Study Suggests -- Huffington Post
• Grad Employees Re-Unionize At New York University -- Labor Notes
• Impunity And Coverup In Turkey -- Human Rights Watch
• Tap Water Fix In West Virginia Still Days Away, Official Says -- Chicago Tribune
• Big Data + Big Pharma = Big Money -- Propublica
• Washington Leading The Way In The New Nuclear Arms Race -- Mint Press
• Is Extreme Weather Linked To Climate Change? -- Democracy Now
• Will New Jersey's Traffic Scandel Jam Gov. Christie's Presidential Hopes For 2016? -- Democracy Now
• Al-Qaeda Syrian Unit Executes Dozens Of Rivals In Raqqa -- Reuters
• Israelis Pay Last Respects To Warrior-Statesman Sharon -- Reuters
• Mystery Deepens Over Canada's H5N1 Fatality -- Extinction Protocol
• Japan Scientists To Create Controlled Nuclear Meltdown -- Extinction Protocol
  

Pick Of The Litter

• None For This Week

ONIM For August 19, 2013

Christian News

•  Fracking Could Alleviate Suffering Of Poor People, Church Says -- Christian Today (UK)
• Interfaith Charity Promotes Respect For Cultural Diversity Among School Pupils -- Christian Today (UK) 
• Business As God Meant It To Be -- Christianity Today 
• The Shadow Of Schizophrenia -- Christianity Today 
• What The 'Six Types Of Atheists' Mean For Christian Outreach -- Christianity Today
• Christians And Churches Are Attacked In Egypt -- The Christian Post
• Egyptian Christian Leader Pleads For Prayers -- The Christian Post
• Are You Your Brain -- Religion Dispatches
• Essay On Hunger Game Camps -- Religion Dispatches
• The Christward Collective -- A New Alliance Conversation  -- Reformation21
  

World News

• The Moral Imperative Of Activism -- Popular Resistance
• Judge Finds Stop And Frisk To Be Unconstitutional -- Popular Resistance
• Civil Disobedience As Law Enforcement -- Waging Nonviolence
• Bahrain Under Lockdown -- Human Rights Watch
• Russia Tightens Custom Rules To Force Ukraine Into Union -- Reuters
• Murdering The Wretched Of The Earth -- Truthdig
• NSA Spying Broke Privacy Rules Many Times -- AP
• Climate Change Findings That Spell Doom -- ZNet
• Egypt's Revolutionary Socialists Comment On The Cairo Massacre -- Znet
• Pepo Escobar on Egypt's Fate -- ZNet 
• Rick Perry To Be Investigated -- Dallas News

There Are 50 Shades Of Gray But Only 6 Types Of Atheists

George Yancey, a sociology professor from the University Of North Texas, has just teamed up with David Williamson to write the book, There Is No God: Atheists In America. What we are commenting here on is an opinion piece of his that appeared in Christianity Today called, What The 'Six Types Of Atheists' Mean For Christian Outreach. The classification of these six types come from the work of Christopher Silver, a researcher at the University Of Tennessee At Chattanooga. 

The stated purpose for discussing the different kinds of atheists is both ethical and evangelical. It is ethical in that Christians should extend to atheists the same courtesy that they expect from others. In short, just as Christians do not want to be stereotyped, neither should they stereotype others. It is evangelical because Yancey emphasizes that we should share the Gospel with others and should do so in ways that are appropriate to the situation and to the people we are talking to.

The six different kinds of atheists are: the Intellectual, the Activist, the Seeker-Agnostic, the Anti-Theist, the Non-Theist, and Ritual Atheist/Agnostic. The names of the different types pretty much summarizes what each group is about except, perhaps, for the last group. The Ritual Atheist/Agnostic is one who holds to the same non-beliefs about God that atheists do but do attend worship services in order to meet non-spiritual needs.

Yancey uses a passive-aggressive model to organize the different kinds of atheists into two groups. Aggressive atheists consist of the Intellectuals, the Activists, and the anti-Theists. They are classified as aggressive because of the almost search and destroy mentality they exercise toward Christian beliefs. Part of this is because they, according to Yancey, believe in the "rightness of nonbelief." We could add that they also think that, in contrast to belief, nonbelief makes a positive difference in the world. 

On the other hand, we have the passive atheists. They have a "live and let live" disposition toward believers according to Yancey. In other words, they do not feel as threatened, if at all, by the faith of others. We could add that though they themselves don't believe, they would have an easier time attributing positive characteristics and contributions to society to believers. The passive atheists consist of the Seeker-Agnostic, the Non-Theist, and the Ritual Atheist/Agnostic. 

One of the good things about this opinion piece is how Yancey identifies with the atheists, something we should learn to do with all who are different from us. He relates to them in that, like himself, atheists can realistically see themselves as having a "status inconsistency." Yancey says that that is true about himself because he sometimes enjoys male privileges but then he has to deal with the problems caused by the status society still assigns to him because of his race. The inconsistency that Yancey sees the atheists as suffering through is that while enjoy more privileges and power because they tend to be White, they are also "under the suspicions," as Inspector Clouseau would say. They feel mistreated by society.

What causes the hostility between the aggressive atheists and Christians? There is not a simple answer here because the animosity that can flows both ways to the extent that aggressive atheists and Christians sometimes provide mirror images of each other. Each will accuse the other of having a worldview that leads to dangerous and destructive decisions and both will claim that the other is immoral. Perhaps, this is why Yancey referred to some atheists as being "fundamentalists" in their own right. 

Now, what will be written here will probably extend past Yancey though I do not know how much it will do so. I have not read enough of him to know for sure though I plan to read more of his work in the future.

The worldview held by many aggressive atheists is one that is discovered and ruled by science and reason. It is the worldview of the modernist. The worldview of the Christian, the Conservative Christian to be precise, is that of the pre-modernist. It is the one that is ruled by faith and revelation. The morality of the aggressive atheist is dominated by social and environmental issues--Yancey does say that atheists have their own morality. In contrast to that, the morality of the Conservative Christian revolves around personal decision making, it is an individual morality. Since each group judges the other by its own strong suit, each group finds the other so lacking that one could swear that both groups are deliberately working on cultivating phobias of each other which leads to the scapegoating of each other. Scapegoating is at the heart of many an unnecessary conflict.

In an interview with the Christian Post, Yancey points out that atheism, and here we could focus on aggressive atheism, is a reaction to the Christian Right and its politics. The politics of the Christian Right syncretically combines an embracing of the Capitalism du jour and American Exceptionalism with the whatever is in the Bible which survives from the merging. With a religion that stresses the individual, including salvation and morality, along with self-congratulatory politic values, is it any wonder why the Intellectual and Activist Atheists look down on the Conservative Christian? Both of these types of Atheists, especially the Activist, look outwardly--note that we didn't include the Anti-Theists in this group because they scored the highest for narcissism. The Intellectual and Activist Atheist appear to have more concern with what goes on in the outside world than in one's own inside world (see the post on Innie and Outie Christians).

At the same time, calling some Conservative Christians to pay more attention to the immediate and the outside world is to go against the grain. For Conservative Christians have been trained to focus on their own internal state, especially their spiritual state, and to minimize the importance of the here and now because it cannot compare with the eternal. For some Christians, this focus on the inner self has caused them to lean toward experiencing a self-inflicted, spiritual autism. Christians living in such a state become highly agitated by the external stimuli of the world around them and prefer to be able to shut it out. We should note that Conservative Christians are not the only ones suffering from some kind of self-inflicted, spiritual autism. Regular Americans who enthusiastically embrace consumerism suffer from a similar state. That is their happiness, which is born of materialism, becomes the focus used to shut out the rest of the world.

So while aggressive atheists upset Conservative Christians with their call to wake up and smell the world around them, Conservative Christians provoke some aggressive atheists by their call to minimize what is going on in the here and now to stare at their current spiritual state. Such a call can be interpreted as a resigning to the fates and an escaping to an idealistic, imaginary friend and world. Such calls the aggressive atheist to shirk their social responsibility to others and to justice. Added to that is the Conservative Christian's call for atheists to curb their all natural fleshly appetites. 

In the end, there are some Conservative Christians and aggressive atheists who talk to each other in ways that say one has everything to teach and nothing to learn -- a variation of one of my favorite Martin Luther King quotes. It is this very attitude that is at the heart of the conflict between some aggressive atheists and Conservative Christians as well as between many groups that wage actual war against each other.

There is another source of conflict between aggressive atheists and Conservative Christians that has not been mentioned yet. That source is the paybacks are not pleasant motif. Yancey acknowledges that we no longer live in a society where Christianity dominates society's mores and social conventions. And here, dominate is the key word because in the past, Christian values were coerced on all. This was not just because we had more people then who identified themselves as some kind of Conservative Christian, it was because Christian values were legislated in the laws. The aggressive stand that some atheists take toward Christians as well as our society's move away from Conservative Christian values can be seen, in part, as a response to a suffocating domination of society that Conservative Christians once exercised.

Yancey's point in this article is if the Conservative Christian wants to more effectively reach out to the atheist, then he or she must tailor their witness according to the situation and audience. We will add here that this means that the Conservative Christian must be willing to admit to the wrongs Conservative Christians committed in the past. This also means that the Conservative Christian must listen to atheists and consider whether we unnecessarily and even dangerously minimize the here and now. Such a consideration does not require us to compromise how we evangelize.

One final note, when one compares how I have probably extended past George Yancey's description of atheists with what Yancey writes and how he comes to conclusions, one can easily observe a major difference between us. Yancey is a real social scientist who uses a careful collection of data, statistics, and peer-reviewed methodologies, whatever they are, to make assessments while I am a blogger. My methodology requires that I read what others write and then reflect on that and my personal experiences. And to the extent that you agree with what is written here is the degree to which we share experiences.

ONIM For July 1, 2013

Atheism Is Delusional -- Christian Today (U.K.)

Why We Shouldn't Send Arms To Syria -- Christian Today (U.K.) 

Sex Without Bodies -- Christianity Today

 One Flesh, Two Faiths -- Christianity Today

David Barton Interview -- Christian Post

Christians vs Gays: The Damage Done -- Religion Dispatches

Student Reading For The Summer -- Reformation 21