A Toy Story

2 Comments February 22, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

As a life-long pacifist, it might seem strange that I find myself waxing sentimental over a military-themed toy. You see, I just found out that G. I. Joe is turning fifty. For those of us who grew up in the 1960s, G. I. Joe was the acceptable “boy doll” (now, technically, “action figure”) that all the guys had. Some of us had several. We didn’t have much money, but Christmas always gave an opportunity to accessorize Joe with either the latest developments (life-like hair in a buzz cut, pull-string vocalizations, “kung-fu grip”) or the many vehicles that could be purchased separately. As the Vietnam War wore on, Joe turned his interests to science and humanitarian causes, but boys like to anthropomorphize as much as girls do, and Joe continued to get himself into many bizarre adventures. At least in our apartment he was known for fighting dinosaurs, robots, medieval knights, and even General George Custer. Joe was a fighting kind of guy. He had guns and gear and shoes that were almost impossible to remove when you wanted to change uniforms (only when Mom was out of the room). So G. I. Joe has been around for half a century now. I can’t remember childhood without him.

G. I. Joe often had near fatal encounters in our home. One of them, the talking one with life-like hair, suffered a severe war wound that left his bottom half completely dissociated from his top. I don’t think we kept the lower abdomen and legs—there was something slightly unnerving about plastic buttocks—but I did keep his top half, the talking bit. It shocked me when my Mom asked if she could take him to church. We were a “Bible believing” family since it was the days before people much talked about Fundamentalists. My mother was a Sunday School teacher. (Thus my early amazement at the magic of flannelgraphs, still primarily used for religious teaching.) We didn’t believe in evolution, and we certainly thought war was a bad thing. I did wonder, though, why Mom wanted to take a toy to church, particularly a dismembered, violent one.

Being the son of the teacher did have some perks. I knew enough to read my Bible and learn the lessons, but we were not given sneak previews for Sunday School. Seeing the trailer might make actually attending superfluous. So when Joe went to church I learned why: people are not animals. The pull-string voice box, although the sounds emerged from holes in his perforated chest, was proof. People talk, animals don’t. We didn’t evolve after all. The other kids were seemingly impressed by my evangelistic Joe. Who would’ve thought that “G. I. Joe, U.S. Army, reporting for duty” could have ever converted a lost soul? On Ebay, I see, some of these vintage talkers can fetch up to $600. Mine, I’m sure, ended up in a landfill somewhere in rural Pennsylvania where, I have no doubts, he is still preaching to the other toys about the dangers of evolution.

The ultimate adventure…

Eleventh Hour

2 Comments January 20, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

Religion, as many a charlatan knows, makes a very good investment. History has demonstrated time and again that the confident huckster can easily siphon the money from the gullible in the name of God. What follows does not make any assertions about the character of the people involved. It is, however, a fascinating story.

Cyrus Ingerson Scofield did not have an exactly stellar career. He was raised Episcopalian (which may explain some of it), but upon being drafted into the Confederacy during the Civil War, deserted to become a lawyer in St. Louis. Scofield was forced to resign from his law post because of “questionable financial transactions” which may have included forgery. He was a heavy drinker and abandoned his wife and two daughters. The year of his divorce he remarried. Then he had a conversion experience. Conversion is the ultimate clean wiping of the slate. Any life of dissipation may be excused following a religious experience, eh, Augustine? And furthermore, in the sanctified state the motives of the former reprobate are never questioned.

Scofield went on to join the Congregational Church and to grow wealthy from his Scofield Reference Bible, still a perennial seller, despite his lack of formal theological training. This notoriety was largely because Scofield had adopted another unlikely scheme, dispensational premillennialism. This end-time scheme grew out of the work of John Nelson Darby and later evolved into what would be called Fundamentalism. The idea was that the Bible contained an esoteric roadmap to the future, culminating in the book of Revelation, whereby the blessed could figure out exactly how the end of the world would unfold. As a child I bought a literal roadmap to the end of the world, but having survived several such putative apocalypses, I have grown a tad skeptical about the efficacy of my chart.

Any number of religious leaders have a background of self-promotion and more than a whiff of Phineas Taylor Barnum about them. A converted soul, however, is never to be questioned. Cyrus Scofield adopted Archbishop James Ussher’s dating scheme for the creation of the world in 4004 “BC” and placed it in his reference Bible, forever putting the cast of scriptural authority to a date that would come up in court cases even through the twenty-first century in Dayton, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas, Dover, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, wasting tax-payers’ money on a myth of biblical proportions. Often creationists use “stealth candidates” who don’t exactly tell the truth before school board elections. I don’t doubt the depth of the convert’s belief, but I smell money here. And once upon a time literalists believed that it was the root of all evil.

The reason most Creationists cite 4004 is Scofield…

Blessed Art Thou?

Leave a comment January 15, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

“Con man” derives from the disparaging use of the term “confidence man,” as applied to those whose promised deliverables never appear, if they ever existed at all. History is filled with roguish con men who populate movies and popular biographies. Among their ranks have been hawkers of spiritual wares, but the institutionalization of religious profiteering is fairly new. Even growing up in a Fundamentalist setting, I don’t recall ever hearing of the “prosperity gospel.” Although I can’t in good conscience accept the distorted theology of the literalists, at least I can say that they are mostly an honest bunch with a high threshold for supernatural interference in daily life, if sometimes rationally challenged. The prosperity gospel is far more insidious.

Kate Bowler’s Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel was my first attempt to deal with the phenomenon academically. Bowler traces the movement to strains that appeared earlier than I might have guessed. Nevertheless, its fruit is rotted on the tree of greed, and it has nothing to do with historical spiritual seeking. One of the few things over which the Bible doesn’t equivocate is the corrupting influence of wealth. The needle has been jammed into the eye of the gospel in this confidence scheme. “Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.” How did this become transformed into “bring your family jewels if you don’t have cash; our accountants can liquidate your heritage for the extreme comfort and obscenely expensive lifestyle of your ‘pastor’”? In a church of 10,000 how much does your pastor care for you? I would never join a church where the shepherd did not know my name.

Bowler does an admirable job maintaining academic neutrality in Blessed. She explores the central concepts, copied from the very entrepreneurial ledger of the root of all evil. Nevertheless the prosperity gospel remains terribly hollow, shallow, and callow. The mere suggestion that wealth equates blessing in a world where millions suffer for lack of basic needs is unconscionable. One could even be justified in saying “wicked.” What kind of god takes food from the mouth of a hungry child to give it to those who have more than enough? I grew up knowing some want. I also grew up knowing that my grandmother had religiously supported a millionaire who said, “expect a miracle” week after week and then claimed the Lord would take him if he didn’t raise 8 million dollars in the first three months of 1987. Meanwhile the Evangelist still enjoyed great wealth for two more decades when he heeded the call home. All the while those far more worthy perished for lack of bread and clean water. This is neither prosperity nor gospel. Of this I’m utterly confident.

Shaky Ground

Leave a comment December 27, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

For the past few years I have been drawn to the spiritual memoirs of women. I suspect a deep disconnect prompts this interest. Religions—in this case primarily the monotheistic traditions—put a premium on fairness and justice, yet treat women as somehow outside these mandates. Women nevertheless respond to the human religious impulse somewhat more seriously than most men. This leads to a dissonance that surfaces in women’s memoirs. Carolyn S. Briggs’ Higher Ground: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost proved somewhat of an epiphany for me. In this story of an Iowa girl’s encounter and seduction into a Fundamentalist faith that never quite managed to smother her rationality, I recognized many aspects of her adopted religion from my own tenure in literalism. The real strength of Briggs’ account is her vivid recollections of how her own Fundamentalist mind worked. For many of us who’ve gone through that spiritual wasteland, dredging up those memories can be a harrowing experience. What shone through in Higher Ground, however, is how the fantasy-prone literalist imagination loses its tenuous hold on reality while promising deliverables that are always pushed off into the future. It is not a faith for the here and now.

The non-denominational, yet Calvinistic, Briggs’ church home convinced the author, for some years, that she was inferior to her husband. There can be no doubt that this is “Bible-based” teaching, for the Bible is the product of a patriarchal age. Literalism grows more oppressive with the passage of time, for despite neo-con posturing, society is better for many than it was in the “good old days.” Fundamentalist traditions seek to reestablish the mores of the first century two millennia later, as if a simple transfer were possible. Society has offered progress for women while literalism is rife with regress. This double standard led to the loss of one of their own because over two thousand years much water flows under the bridge and brig.

Higher Ground is not an easy memoir to read—the accounts of those who experience repression seldom are. Religion is generally a conservative force in society, even if based on radical principles. The sayings of Jesus, for example, remain revolutionary even today, but they are often hidden behind the (male constructed) facades of organized religious movements. In school we teach our children that the sexes are equal, in Sunday school the opposite. Fundamentalism is not, however, in any danger of dying out. As Briggs demonstrates eloquently, the very thought process of a rational person is altered by it. Briggs leaves us guessing at what happened after the story ends but she has nevertheless contributed yet more evidence that demands a verdict. Until the judgment of fair and just can be rendered, religions will repeatedly be called to the witness stand.

Duck, Dynasty

2 Comments December 22, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

The Fundamentalist mouth has no filter. I’m a bit surprised by the furor raised by Phil Robertson’s comments about race and sexuality. Did A&E not realize that it was dealing with a Fundamentalist family on Duck Dynasty? I’m frequently amazed at how Fundamentalism is exoticised by the media as some quaint, back-woodsy phenomenon. Do they not realize that similar views are held by several members of congress and the pre-Obama presidential incumbent? By the numbers, Fundamentalism is a powerful force, but, like our universities, the media can’t be bothered to try to understand religion until a large demographic is suddenly threatened. A&E supports equality across sexual orientations, and, as it should go without saying in the twenty-first century, races. Prejudices, however, run very deep. Perhaps it’s just not so surprising to me, having been raised in a Fundamentalist environment. There was nothing exotic about it. It was, as we understood it, simple survival.

Phil Robertson has been suspended from his own show for comments made off-air. Wealth does not necessarily make one a better person. In fact, the figures trend in the other direction all too often. If instead of just promoting books written by the stars of the anatine series, the studio executives read those books they might have foreseen something like this coming. The Fundamentalist mind, I know from experience, tends to see things as black or white. Despite the camo, gray is a loathed color. Rainbow is even worse. The Fundamentalist psyche is not encouraged to try to see things from the other’s point of view. There is only one perspective: the right one. And when asked a straightforward question, a straightforward, if misguided answer will be given. It’s the price of fame.

The Robertson family, according to CNN, has closed ranks with their founder, claiming he is a godly man. There’s no irony here, folks. Fundamentalism isn’t into irony or subtle possibilities. Religious rights and freedoms are being press-ganged to the aid of those who long to speak free. Not about ducks, or guns, or calls. But about the naturalness of white skin and heterosexual love. And the Bible as the only possible source of the truth. The media often treats Fundamentalism as if it were a game, turned on or off at a whim. In reality it is a comprehensive worldview in which the inmates are commanded to speak the truth. The filters are not on their mouths, but are in their minds. Until we can learn to take them seriously, no duck anywhere will be safe.

Even the Roman Empire didn’t last forever…

Meaningless Words

Leave a comment November 21, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

I’m glad to be back in New York City. It’s a funny place. A walk down the street can be an education. When I saw this shirt the other day, I had a thought—what happens when words lose their meaning? I’ve been fascinated by the concept of “bad words” since I was a kid. Although I never uttered them, I wondered why they were considered bad. That thought gets stretched out a big longer in this instance, to wondering whether overuse destroys the power of the swear. Although most religions claim taboo words are made that way by god(s), some psychologists have suggested that the function of swearing lies precisely in its ability to shock. If so, what happens when the shock wears off? We may need to come up with new words for copulation to take the place of the f-bomb. And it’s not just naughty words that are at risk.

I saw a report a while back that made reference to “Libertarian fundamentalist Jimmy Wales.” Wales is at least the co-, if not sole, founder of Wikipedia. The libertarian label didn’t surprise me, but the fundamentalist part did. Wales is no conservative religious believer. Of all people fundamentalists are the least likely to support a wiki concept where the final version is never nailed down. It would be like reading a Bible where the words keep floating around the pages, shifting combinations, changing meanings. Of course, the concept of words even having meanings is a matter of debate. A colleague of mine used to remind me, “words don’t have meanings, they have usages.” He was technically correct. Even the f-bomb, when uttered in other languages, as sophomorically portrayed in many a movie, has an entirely different usage.

Dictionaries are filled with archaic words. I don’t recall the last time I saw eftsoons in print, or iwis, or maugre. Have they lost their meanings, or just their usages? In any case they live on in written language history. Overuse of a word leads to calls for restraint among literary types, as when the word “awesome” got out of control a few years back. The case for the f-word is somewhat different. When I walk through the streets of the city it is obvious that it is one word that is in no danger of dying out. The gerund, or more properly, adjectival form ending in -ing, is freely interspersed in blasé sentences with complete abandon. For some people it appears to fill the mental pause generally reserved for “uh” or “um.” When it ceases to shock us, it will become just another Howard Stern of the lexical world. And some tee-shirts, I expect, will be available quite cheaply then.

Sun Devils

Leave a comment October 17, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Unbelievable. The unrelenting sun of Arizona is unbelievable. Even a “cloudless day” back east is only an approximation. Here it is literal. And like all things literal, it attracts the Fundamentalists. I spent the day on the campus of Arizona State University, the country’s largest university by enrollment. Outside the student union, a couple of bands were banging away in the heat, but when I passed by in mid-afternoon they’d been replaced by a street preacher. He was nattily dressed and provocative. When I first walked by he was talking about students being either “a wicked homosexual, a wicked pot-smoker, or a wicked feminist” and went on to throw in some choice words such as “Obama-loving sinner.” Nobody seemed to be paying him much mind. I went on to a couple of appointments and when I passed that way again, at least ninety minutes later, he was still at it. Now he had a small crowd. Students virtuously challenged him as he claimed that he was without sin, “yes, I am Christ-like” he said to one question, and proceeded to tell anyone that challenged him that they were not children of God and that they should run to Hell because they would enjoy it so much.

The more I watched this charade, the more trouble I had believing that the preacher was sincere. He quoted, out of context, of course, chapter and verse. He literally thumped his Bible. His hatred for anyone who disagreed with him was plainly evident. I felt embarrassed on so many levels. This is a state university, and the man had a clear agenda of hatred and intolerance. I was here to meet the religion faculty. Everything students were being taught in their classes was being shot down by an ancient book that had relevance only by being quoted out of context. And all of this on a campus whose mascot is the Sun Devil. Devils abound on campus, but the worst, it seemed to me, preached loudest.

Somewhere along the way to enlightenment, this kind of Christianity slipped the rails to become its own self-righteous force. What right had this man to tell students they were wicked? To me they seemed hospitable, peace-loving, and kind to the stranger in their midst. The preacher, self-fascinated, claimed to be without sin. I guess that gave him the scripture-sanctioned right to cast the first stone. Good thing he wasn’t in the crowd when Jesus rescued the woman caught in adultery. When a few students pointed out his flaws in reasoning, which were many, others applauded before he flew back to his out-of-context biblical backbone. More quoting, more thumping. The sun was out in full force in Arizona, but somehow it failed to fall on one man who proclaimed himself better than all others.

Heat’s Up

1 Comment October 1, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

I must admit being perplexed. Days ago, although many of us have long known it to be true, climate scientists announced unequivocal evidence that human activity is responsible for global warming. I have perhaps been naive in my supposition that the “full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes” approach of some fundamentalist groups that welcome anything that speeds along the apocalypse, has played a major role. Maybe it was because so many politicians openly sided with such groups that that I supposed the two concepts to be connected. I suspect, however, that it may be something much more insidious. How can any intelligent person refuse to admit the facts when the consequences are nothing shy of catastrophic? How can elected officials turn a blind eye to the desolation of their own planet? It must be more than simple ignorance. But what?

Those in my generation—however we are currently classed—have been declared to be those attempting to make up for the excesses of the “me generation.” I’m not sure who the “me generation” is, but I know when I see individuals who allow their personal gain to endanger everything that has come along since the Sumerians invented the wheel, I feel a little queasy. What could the Zeitgeist have been that infected so many minds with such a godlike sense of entitlement? We call the younger demographic the “entitlement generation,” but when I taught them in college, they were much more environmentally conscious than many elected officials. They at least could see beyond their own wallets. They take pride in recycling.

It would seem to me that even if (and it doesn’t) the Bible suggested that the world itself would end to bring about a better one, we assume too much divine prerogative when we proactively destroy the only ground upon which we stand. Has any religion ever been so truly shortsighted? And that’s asking quite a lot, if you think about it. Or is religious faith just an excuse to gather wealth at the expense of others? Does God want you to be rich? If so, it would seem, God would also want you to act responsibly. According to a report in The Guardian, there is no longer any question that the climate blame lies with us. Perhaps now that the smoking gun is on the table we will do the right thing. But then again, I admit to being perplexed. Maybe it’s just my generation. Or maybe I’m just hopelessly naive. I’m entitled.

Hemlock and Crucifixion

5 Comments August 24, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Rhetoric is dying a slow, painful death. In this world where literalism reigns, the use of words to elicit an illicit truth deeper than the factual is no longer recognized. We see it both in the humorless antics of the New Atheists and in the ravings of the Fundamentalists. Writers have always known—serious writers at least—that truth is so much more than an objective ticking off of what really happened. The post-modernists may seem insufferable at times, but they have taught us that true objectivity is false, a mythic holdover from imperialistic thought processes that believed here, in this single mind, bias does not exist. We all have biases. Except me, of course. Rhetoric again.

I do not get many comments on this blog. Usually it takes someone to disagree with my ramblings to gussy up the energy to dispute what I write. I try not to distort facts, but facts are rare commodities these days. George Orwell is not really dead, I mused as I stood by his gravestone in Sutton Courtenay. Should someone deny that I was there how should I prove it in this day of Photoshop and pixelated truth? And that wasn’t even his real name.

When I regularly taught, students would ask me what I believed. What I believe, I would respond, is not important. I am teaching a subject, a field of study. When is the last time you asked your chemistry professor what she believed? Would it matter? Of course, thoughts, I’m told, are only chemical reactions that lead to electrical charges. Miniature storms inside our skulls. Literally. Rhetoric folds its hands across its metaphorical chest and lays quietly, awaiting the pall.

Socrates had his method. He ended up an enemy of the state. Jesus told parables. He also ended up an enemy of the state. Rhetoric, make no mistake, is a dangerous game to play. The hearer, or the reader, hears or reads what s/he wants to hear or read. And in a literal world, people would rather not have to read too deeply, for truth, it is believed, lies plainly upon the surface. There used to be a word for such a surface reading, but should I write it here I would be guilty of using rhetoric. And rhetoric awaits the delivery of the flowers but few are the black-garbed mourners. It is best not to disturb the dead.

Photo credit: Eric Gaba, Wikicommons

Five Man Electrical Band

2 Comments August 7, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

I grew up looking for signs. If you sincerely believe the Fundamentalist worldview, then we are all part of a great, divine dramaturgy in which we have expected roles to fulfill. The script (Holy Scripture) is a little vague on the individual details, but if you know where to look you can find signs. They may be obvious and literal or subtle and ambiguous. The faithful, however, know they must seek them out and take their chances. I grew up in a decidedly blue-collar world. In my head, though, it felt like I was meant for something more. My career ambition was to be a janitor, but my reading and the counsel I received from those who knew more than I did suggested I might have a higher calling. The concept was unfamiliar at first, but compelling. I had to be able to read the signs. I remember hearing about seminary for the first time. If I was going to be a preacher, I had to go to seminary. The summer before starting college, I sat on the dilapidated front porch of my step-father’s house and taught myself to draw the Greek alphabet. Signs were rare, but when spotted, definitive.

Seminary came to define my existence in a way that I couldn’t foresee. I started college with the idea that, all things being equal, I’d end up at seminary. Still, I was drawn to the life of a faculty member in a liberal arts setting. Eventually, I recognized it as my calling. Getting to seminary proved more difficult than I’d imagined. It wasn’t the grades—it was the expenses. I was in debt and I knew that bank barons did not forgive us ours as we forgave others theirs. In seminary, signs came to take on differing interpretations. Maybe I was correct about ministry or maybe not. Looking closely, I could see that the script had marginal notes, and that it wasn’t even the original manuscript after all. I’d learned original languages only to become more confused about the signs. When I left seminary I knew one thing for certain—I didn’t ever want to teach in one.

My first professional job, of course, was teaching in a seminary. It was not a matter of free choice as much as free economy in free-fall. In the early ’90’s recession, jobs were few and signs completely distorted. When impolitely asked to leave my seminary position after a decade and a half, I was type-cast as a bit-player. The washed-up seminary teacher. I began to see signs along the highway for seminaries trying to recruit potential clergy. This was no longer a calling, but a job option. Don’t enjoy the rat race? Why not try opting out? The pay won’t be as good, and society will come to despise the very doctrines you’ll be taught, but at least it’s a living. I still see such signs. And I’m still not sure if I’m reading correctly. And even today, I notice with appreciation when a floor is expertly stripped, cleaned, and waxed.

First World Religion

Leave a comment June 12, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

H. P. Lovecraft’s contemporary, and sometimes inspiration, Algernon Blackwood has recently come to my attention. Like Lovecraft, Blackwood was an early twentieth-century writer of supernatural tales. Raised with a father of “appallingly narrow religious ideas” Blackwood came to write stories involving strange religious characters and occult themes. I recently read his famous story, “The Willows,” for the first time. The entire premise is built around a sacrifice required by strange gods on an isolated island in the Danube River. Much of Lovecraft’s literature, as is readily apparent, builds on the Old Gods. Lovecraft was an unflinching atheist, but he knew that the divine had the ability to frighten in a way that the purely material often does not.

The early twentieth century exerted an enormous influence on the religious landscape of the modern world. Although my historical specialization is much earlier, it is clear that the events of the First World War forever changed the way that religion was viewed. Historically, those not involved in the fighting of wars had often been insulated from them. With the advent of technology that allowed military devastations to be photographed and swiftly disseminated, people around the world realized what an atrocity war actually is. Not glorious. Not triumphant. And despite the abundance of piety in foxholes, no deities evident anywhere. It is well known that horror of war at least partly led William Jennings Bryan to advocate a more fundamental brand of Christianity to counterbalance the “evils” of evolution that led to such nasty ideas as eugenics and social Darwinism. It is no accident that the Fundamentalist movement began to take hold with the revelations of the First World War.

Ironically, today many use creationism as the excuse to challenge all religion as a misguided set of antiquated principles that have no place in an enlightened world. The sad truth is that those who immediately dismiss religion out of hand don’t realize that the creationist concern arose precisely for the same reason: the horrors that science was unleashing upon regular, simple religious believers. The two viewpoints, however, can live together. Although many of the writers of the early twentieth century had no room for faith in their accounting of reality, they did believe in its effectiveness in creating fiction that had to be taken seriously. Atheists, perhaps, but not angry ones. Perhaps the angry ought to spend some time amid the willows to evaluate more fairly the ambiguous role that religion play has played and continues to play in an uncertain world.

Curing Fundamentally

2 Comments June 4, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Despite the many problems with Richard Dawkins’ religious reasoning, he correctly notes that children are religious because they are taught to be. (That’s actually further than Dawkins is willing to go, since in The God Delusion he states that children are not religious at all, but are only claimed to be so by parents.) Belief is something that we are only beginning to understand, but it is clear that children are taught their religion, generally, by those who raise them. By the time most of us finish high school or college, however, we have learned that religion is limited to a relatively brief segment of our otherwise busy, secular lives. Over the years I have met many people whose religion I have studied in more depth than they, mainly because it was of little interest to them. God made no sudden appearances in their lives, the miraculous never occurred, and so life is business as usual. Religion was for Sunday morning (or whenever).

I was raised as a Fundamentalist. Although my readers may clearly see that I am no longer one, I do know that this bundle of neurons in my head has been made what it is, at least in part, because of that early training. Now a neuroscientist is suggesting that such thinking might be a curable mental illness. In an article in the Huffington Post, Kathleen Taylor, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, suggests fundamentalism may be a treatable disease. Looking over the secular headlines, there is no doubt that much of the misery in the world is caused by religious literalists acting out their fantasies in deadly ways. The suggestion that they might be treated for mental illness, however, raises profound—exceptionally profound—questions. Since I work in a city of millionaires and billionaires, I ponder how it is that extreme selfishness is not counted a mental illness. The desire of an individual to acquire far more wealth than one person can ever use seems to be an illness. Aesop might call it being a dog in the manger. No one is suggesting their brains be reprogrammed.

The even larger issue is who has the right to decide “the new normal.” Richard Dawkins may be correct that children reflect the religion of their parents, but as soon as adults declare what religion is acceptable we find other adults colonizing new continents, with the attendant misery that such migration entails. Where do we draw the line? If Fundamentalism programmed out, will Baptist neurons be allowed to remain? Methodist? Presbyterian? Mormon? The issue raised by Dawkins must be placed in context; if parents decide on a child’s beliefs do other adults have the right to decide on what is the correct belief? (Orthodoxy means precisely that.) Is a strict rationalist mentality what we want? A life without Hayden, Picasso, or Charlotte Brontë? What would Mr. Spock do? Will the real Randle Patrick McMurphy please stand up? Our rich fantasy lives are what make us human. If we are going to program out religious freedom perhaps the brave, new world is already here.

Chick Trick

1 Comment April 21, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Yesterday was our local town’s Earth Day clean-up day. I have always thought we lived in a clean town, and generally it’s true. When you look closer, however, the litter becomes all too obvious. Now, I know the purpose of this exercise is to get rid of pollution—my family filled five trash bags in the morning’s jaunt. As I reached for a bit of paper, I instantly recognized that I had found a half-torn page of a Jack T. Chick tract. Jack Chick is an old school Fundamentalist who draws some of the scariest cartoon evangelistic tracts imaginable. He is personally responsible for many of my childhood nightmares and phobias. Even as an adult, I still find myself believing, at some level, the tripe he serves up at the food of salvation. Children, you see, are extremely vulnerable to suggestion. Chick unremittingly claims we all deserve to burn in Hell, literally, and that only those who buy his version of Christianity can avoid it. He scares me. Instead of putting the torn comic strip in the trash, it went into my pocket. I needed to exegete it.

As a child I purchased every single Chick tract available from our local Christian bookstore. I was terrified of Hell and absolutely wanted to make sure I had double-covered every single base. A Chick tract can be read in a matter of minutes, but they can stay with you for decades. The one I found yesterday was one I’d never read. It consists of part of pages 5 and 6 of a black-on-black violence story involving a seriously looking tough guy called Ice Man. As the story opens, in media res, a photograph of “the preacher’s boy” is on a cell phone. Ice Man is seriously pissed off, and on page 6, in a drive-by shooting with an assault rifle, blows the young man away. His death, as in most Chick tracts, is violent, but bloodless. Chick spares most of the blood for the cross, where, sometimes it trickles eerily down over the repentant sinner.

If I might be forgiven for some textual criticism, in which I might be guilty of a modicum of eisegesis, let me guess that the preacher’s boy had been suggesting that Ice Man change his sinful ways in the previous lacuna. In a fit of Icy rage, the PK becomes a sacrificial victim. Most likely, by the end of the pamphlet, Ice Man will have come to realize the evil of his ways and will end up on his knees. Depending on Chick’s mood that day, he may even end up dead. One thing is certain, the story will attempt to scare a youngster to a life of righteousness. The area where we were gathering trash is on the relative “wrong side of the tracks” for my little town. Some real violence does occur here, but it is mostly out of sight. Having grown up with Chick tracts guiding my every thought, I wonder if somebody got the message before it was too late. I see this torn page as a small sign of hope.

Evolving Leadership

1 Comment March 16, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Simple answers are seldom correct. Unfortunately many people will accept a simple answer rather than try to sort through the complexities that life in the universe provides in such abundance. I was given cause for hope by an interview that I saw on The Upworthiest. Zack Kopplin, a student only nineteen years old, is taking on the creationists in the south. It’s not an easy thing to do. As Bill Moyers points out in this interview, 46% of Americans believe in creationism. In a land where everything is a matter of choice, it seems, science is just one of many options. Also, Fundamentalist clergy are among the most gifted spin-doctors ever to have evolved. By pairing evolution and atheism and values that are dangerous to their beloved lifestyle, the message goes out from thousands of pulpits that evolution is a lie and that the Bible is a science book after all. And people, easily led, will follow. For many decades scientists and religionists alike refused to even address creationism, supposing illogical thought would eventually die out. What they were actually witnessing was a match thrown into a kindle-dry forest after decades of drought.

Even the case of Zack is a demonstration of this. When a law passed in his native Louisiana making it easier to teach creationism in the public schools, those who knew better did nothing. It took a nineteen-year-old to try to change the law. One could argue that full-grown scientists and other professionals have too much to do to waste their time on such foolishness. The problem is, as Zack is keenly aware, the creationists are well funded, strategic, and insidious. Fueled by self-righteousness, and supported by at least 16 years of presidential administrations that approved of creationism as a form of science, this movement is as much a threat as the NRA is to a peaceable kingdom. Maybe more of a threat because nobody takes them seriously. There is a plenty of history documenting the growth and development of the creationist movement, and, as Zack knows, it is not a fad. Most serious scholars just don’t bother to read it.

Creationism thrives by its own sense of victimization. Science offers us no cuddly deity who will make everything right at the end of a life of toil and turmoil. That is fine for science, but we must never forget that people are people. We need something to hold onto. It is this that creationists understand. Instead of calling it delusional, perhaps scientists need to step back and realize that it is a profoundly human need. That doesn’t make creationism right—not by a long stretch—but it might help to understand why it just doesn’t seem to go away. Instead of ignoring, science must address creationism. And so must those with serious training in religion. Creationism doesn’t survive close scrutiny by either scientists or religious specialists, but it sure does offer a feel-good ending. Until we admit that they’ve done their homework, those who oppose creationism are going to find themselves being led by nineteen-year-olds with a sense of what’s really at stake. And that’s complicated.

Yes, they will attack the prophet

Grown up Fish

Leave a comment February 14, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Embryonic recapitulation. That’s what it used to be called. I didn’t learn about this in biology class, but rather in the Creationist literature that challenged the very concept. I suppose those deep evolutionary roots are what led me to read Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. Not that anyone who’s considered the facts can question evolution, but this book nevertheless took me back along my own evolutionary descent from Fundamentalism to a reluctant rationalism. I recall the frequently repeated Fundie catch phrase, “no transitional forms.” Probably what they were looking for was a mermaid-like creature that was half reptile and half bird, divided down the middle. Even at a tender age, while accepting their rhetoric, I wondered why archaeopteryx didn’t qualify. A flying feathered lizard? Sounded pretty transitional to me. Shubin opens his fascinating account with the discovery of Tiktaalik, a transitional form in every sense of the word. Here is a fossil that shows the tell-tale limbs and organs of moving from fish to amphibian. Yes, Virginia, there is evolution.

Shubin doesn’t stop there, however. He traces the various features of human bodies back to our piscine ancestors. From gills to gonads, we are bipedal, air-breathing, mammalian fish. No surprises there, really. One gets the sense that Shubin’s book wouldn’t be such a wonder if there weren’t organized Creationists out there constantly challenging the obvious. All living things on this planet are clearly related. Some of the cousins may be very, very distant, but we are all part of the same family. This threatens Creationists and others who need to feel different, special. People are related to God, they suppose, in ways that mere animals are not. Biology gainsays that concept, so no matter how much evidence we might marshal, the Fundamentalist is duty-bound to reject it. We’re trying to break up a personal relationship here, after all.

While Shubin does a wonderful job of explaining whence our biological features, I was nevertheless heartened to read him referring to the essence of being human. Some scientists reject “essence” as a vague concept that can’t be examined in a laboratory. That may be true, but we all know what an essence is. As a concept it too has explanatory value. It would be very difficult to read Your Inner Fish and come out doubting evolution. At the same time, Shubin realizes that people write books, and fish do not. That’s not to say that we’re superior to our fishy family, but that we are different. We have our own essences. That doesn’t mean we were created this way—maybe we’ve just evolved with them. Either way, Shubin is charming romp though 3.5 billion years of our history.