Christianity confuses me!

[liv]

So, months ago, rysmiel asked me to go into detail about what it is about Christianity that I find so off-putting. I've been thinking about this in the intervening months, and I think I'm about at the stage where I can try to write it up.

I am aware that there are a number of Christians (of various flavours) reading this. This isn't a disclaimer, as such; if you want to take offence at this little essay, you're probably entitled to. To a very large extent, I'm shelving all I have learnt in over a decade of serious commitment to Jewish-Christian dialogue, and reverting to my eight-year-old self who got into trouble for complaining to my form teacher, But your religion makes no sense! I do want to point out, though, that I don't mean this in any way as a personal slight against any Christian individual. I am also very well aware that Christianity isn't monolithic, and I do already realize that you could almost certainly point to a Christian who doesn't do or believe any one of the items on the list.

A parable that I rather like: To-what-may-this-be-compared? A traveller comes to a foreign country. He peeks in through the windows of a building, and sees people moving about in a bizarre way. These foreigners are right weird, he concludes, as he goes on his way. Later, a second traveller arrives at the same building. Instead of peeking through the windows, he knocks on the door. The foreigners welcome him in and he finds himself in a dance hall. At the moment I'm being the first traveller; Christianity looks weird to me because I don't hear the music.

• Translated texts. OK, some Christians don't take the Bible seriously, which is fine. But those who do think that Scripture has authority really confuse me when they don't bother to learn the original languages. I don't get how anyone is prepared to take someone else's word for what a sacred text actually says.
  
  
• Vows. Christians seem to be positively encouraged to make vows, and religious vows at that, all over the place. Vows that are not time-limited, vows that they have no way of being sure that they will be able to keep, vows that are too general so it's not clear what one is vowing. And there seems to be almost an expectation that vows will be broken. The kinds of Christians who accept divorce still make marriage vows, for example. Christians even make vows on behalf of others, which I find a seriously unpleasant concept.
  
  I know several people who prefer to publicly name themselves oathbreaker rather than live in a way that would be untrue to themselves. I have nothing but admiration for people who are brave enough to make that decision, but it seems to me a very bad thing for a religion to create the kind of situation where this is likely to be a frequent outcome. There are even, apparently, formal religious structures for abjuring / renouncing / annulling vows, which does suggest that the system is geared for vows not to be kept. And as for encouraging children to make vows they are too young to understand, that's simply obscene.
  
  
• Original Sin. Yeah, this is a pretty obvious one. Stereotypically, the Jewish / OT view of God is perceived as being too focussed on Justice (as opposed to Mercy). So maybe I'm living up to the stereotype a bit here, but I'm inclined to ask, Will not the Judge of all the earth do justice?; how can one follow a God who would be so utterly unfair as to blame the whole of humanity for something Adam and Eve did?
  
  
• Faith. Following on a bit from the previous one, I find it offensive that someone can live a completely blameless, even a saintly life, making the world a better place, and yet be condemned because they have wrong ideas about some extremely complicated matters of theology. I have no problem in principle that I don't understand how something like the Trinity is supposed to work, but I do have a problem if this means I'm going to Hell, however wonderful a person I may be. The converse, that someone who is absolutely horrible and vile, but manages all the mental gymnastics to understand and believe all the ins and outs of Christian teaching, can be forgiven, is less problematic; forgiveness is on the whole a good thing. It does seem a bit odd that it's predicated on having exactly the right views about such things as the nature of God, though, especially since I'm kind of inclined to think that anything that can reasonably be called God is probably beyond ordinary human understanding.
  
  
• Proselytizing. This is the big one, for me. However many aspects of Christianity I don't understand, (and there are lots I haven't listed here, because I'm focussing on the ones that really make my skin crawl), in general my attitude would be, well, that's because I'm ignorant, and trying to understand the Divine is so complicated that it's reasonable that different religions are going to come up with different approaches to spirituality. But proselytizing goes completely against that pluralism which is far more fundamental to who I am than any particular position I happen to take on any topic. I don't like proselytizing in general, but religious proselytizing is the very worst kind, it's an attack on something which, for those who are religious, is the very foundation of their life and identity.
  
  I suppose this does follow from the previous bullet-point; if one believes that theology is all-important, then it makes sense to want to bring as many people as possible to the 'correct' beliefs and thus to salvation. But it's so appallingly, sickeningly arrogant. (I'm not talking about the fact that certain evangelists use really crass methods of trying to get converts, I'm talking about the principle of holding that as an aim at all.) It's really, really hard for me to respect a belief system that is based on such a total lack of respect for not only my beliefs, but for those of anyone who thinks differently from the believer.
  
  Please feel absolutely free to argue with me, or tell me that I've got the wrong impression of how Christianity actually works, or whatever. Discussion is good.

Comments

Re:

[nameandnature]

Is it possible to be too intellectual?

I know that's sort of sarcastic, but yes, if that is in opposition to a more experiential sort of faith. The conservative (rather than charismatic) threads within evangelicalism tend to be deeply suspicious of getting too carried away with feelings and the like. Currently, university CUs are rather annoyed about a charismatic CU alternative (not to say rival) group called Fusion. As Angela Rayner, who I know from uk.religion.christian, points out, this split is partly an intellectual vs experiential one.

people taking a very intellectual approach is going to lead to at least some people questioning those core beliefs and finding themselves in troubling dilemmas. On the other hand, I feel that a religion that's worth anything ought to be able to stand up to rigorous intellectual probing.

I found conservative evangelicalism an intellectual system, but a closed system. What I mean by closed is that it is possible to be part of an intellectual system and only engage it on its own terms, so that while you're busily deriving an awful lot of interesting stuff (which is kind of fun), you never really question the axioms of the system. I don't think those axioms do stand up, but then, I would say that :-)

If you start from a basically sexist perspective, your religious practice will likely be sexist.

True. Another thing that the very conservative strand was keen on was the idea that women should only teach other women (whereas men can preach and teach both men and women). While there are women who take this job seriously, it's easy to see how that attitude might lead to the women just letting the men do it.

that's not something that bothers me as much as it appears to bother you.

I think that's because my background taught me that Christianity stands or falls by the historicity of some events (the resurrection is the first among these). I was also taught infallibility of the Bible. It's not clear what that actually means, since evangelicals will acknowledge that there are different types of literature within the Bible, but I think it more or less means that once you've worked out what you think the original author was trying to say to his hearers (here's where the evangelical antipathy to post-modernism comes in), and translated that into how that applies to you, you must then do as you're told. If something is going to rule my life in that way, I'd like to know where it came from and why I should do what it says.

Evangelicals aren't actually Muslims, but you do see shades of the attitude that the Bible dropped from the sky one day. In a sense, the RCC's attitude makes more sense to me here, since they see the Bible as a part, albeit a foundational part, of an ongoing tradition of teaching by the church (the fact that I consider the actual ongoing tradition a little wacky is unfortunate, of course), by saying that the church retains the authority it had in establishing the NT canon. The Catholics on uk.r.c used to tie evangelicals in knots by asking them when exactly the church lost that authority (the obvious evangelical answer is somewhere between 300 AD and 400 AD, but no-one says that, for some reason :-)

[liv]

this split is partly an intellectual vs experiential one
I think that's very generally true about religion, actually. It's certainly a major split within Judaism, and one that cuts right across the obvious 'denominational' divisions. I suppose the ideal is to find a balance between the two extremes.

On a less abstract level, the links you give are depressingly familiar as examples of communal bickering. You could just change the names and you'd be talking about any rival religious groups. Gah, I hate that kind of stuff.

I found conservative evangelicalism an intellectual system, but a closed system.
Yes, I can definitely see where you're coming from with that. There are bits of Judaism that sort of designation would apply to. That sort of set up seems to me to be extremely vulnerable, precisely because it requires a lot of doublethink. Still, I have to like it better than a system which actively discourages critical thought.

A very interesting example of this intellectual vs experiential split:
Why do we say: 'Our God and the God of our fathers'? There are two sorts of persons who believe in God. The one believes because his faith has been handed down to him by his fathers; and his faith is strong. The other has arrived at faith by dint of searching thought. And this is the difference between the two; the first has the advantage that his faith cannot be shaken... But there is a flaw in it: it is a commandment given by man, and it has been learned without thought or reasoning. The advantage of the second man is that he has reached faith through his own power, through much searching and thinking. But his faith too has a flaw; it is easy to shake it by offering contrary evidence. But he who combines both kinds of faith is invulnerable.

That quote is from the Baal Shem Tov, who founded the Chassidic movement in the 18^th century, originally at least to shift the emphasis of Judaism towards the experiential side of the balance. He's being quoted in the Reform prayerbook, in support of the Reform view that one should take a critical view of the whole of Judaism, and not treat it as an intellectually closed system where one can't question the axioms.

[liv]

my background taught me that Christianity stands or falls by the historicity of some events (the resurrection is the first among these)
Ahh. Thank you for that comment, that makes a lot of things a lot clearer. I had never understood until now why it is that some Christians insist so heavily on a weirdly literal interpretation of Genesis 1.

infallibility of the Bible... once you've worked out what you think the original author was trying to say to his hearers
That's a really odd way of dealing with text. As I've said in a previous discussion, what's problematic about that for me is that you have to assume infallibility of yourself as well as the Bible, in order for that position to make logical sense.

you must then do as you're told
I think liberals would agree with fundamentalists that one ought to do what God says, but would differ on how far it's possible to know God's will, right?

If something is going to rule my life in that way, I'd like to know where it came from and why I should do what it says.
Do you have a problem with the idea that God directed human history to make the Bible the way it is? (Not meant to be a slanted question, I'm just asking.)

the attitude that the Bible dropped from the sky one day
This seems to me to be logically equivalent to regarding God as an Aristotelian Prime Mover, who started everything off and then took no further interest.

the RCC's attitude makes more sense to me here, since they see the Bible as a part, albeit a foundational part, of an ongoing tradition of teaching by the church
That sounds like something my Reform Jewish head can deal with, yeah.

[nameandnature]

I had never understood until now why it is that some Christians insist so heavily on a weirdly literal interpretation of Genesis 1.

It's mainly the resurrection of Jesus that's absolutely key, but as Andrew Rilstone points out, there has to be something true in the creation story for a Christian. Many Christians believe death came into the world through sin. If you're such a Christian then you've got to do some fancy footwork to address how evolution fits into that, whereas Creationism provides a solution that is simple, easily understood and wrong.

what's problematic about that for me is that you have to assume infallibility of yourself as well as the Bible, in order for that position to make logical sense.

Agreed :-)

I think liberals would agree with fundamentalists that one ought to do what God says, but would differ on how far it's possible to know God's will, right?

They'd also differ on how to find out God's will, I suppose.

Do you have a problem with the idea that God directed human history to make the Bible the way it is?

If God exists, he clearly could do that, but I don't see why I should believe that he did. Obviously the Bible that God ends up making in this way needn't be infallible, inerrant etc., right?

This seems to me to be logically equivalent to regarding God as an Aristotelian Prime Mover, who started everything off and then took no further interest.

That's got to be the ultimate cessationist viewpoint. What I'm thinking of, though, is not so much that these people are deists (since they still pray and expect answers), but that the Bible is axiomatic to the system.

The lack of communication from God was one of the reasons I left Christianity. I decided that the Bible wasn't the sort of communication I once thought it was, and that the evangelical jargon about having a "relationship with God/Jesus" was meaningless (I'm quite sympathetic to the view in this post to the UCCF forums). I was struck by the question of why God does not reveal himself as we're told he did in OT and NT times. The way this omnipotent deity creeps about the place unnoticed seems a little comical (an omnipotent deity can be as well hidden as it wants, but that does seem to go down Carl Sagan's invisible dragon route). In the end I decided there was too little revelation around these days for me to accept the large claims of Christianity.