| TED SPEAKS...ABOUT FUNDAMENTALISM |
The following piece by Montery Herald columnist, Mike McCurdy, was posted on the Herald's website on November 11th, 2005:
Fundamentalism
Denies Our Commonality
I took a short cab ride with a driver who was obviously engaged in prayer. I surmised this from the facts that he wore an Islamic knitted cap, mumbled alarmingly with eyes closed and careened wildly through traffic while fingering prayer beads.
In my mind I was the infidel passenger -- he the zealot bent on an early exit to heaven. I freaked. I asked him to pull to the curb. He complied. Now stationary, with one hand on the door handle, my curiosity returned and I formed the question, "Where are you from?" "India," his curt reply. "What part... er... city?" "The south. Jabba Doo..." something I didn't catch, he answered, then added, "There is but one God and Mohammed was his last Prophet -- you say God and we say Allah."
Mild enough assertion. I know there's something going on bigger than me, so I answer half-heartedly "Sure." This is his opening: "Have you heard of a book called the Koran?" "No, I've been living in a cave since birth," I thought but answered, "Sure." "Have you read it?" he inquired. "Some (I lied), but I haven't read all of the Bible, either," I add to temper my illiteracy on his favorite subject.
He whips down his sun visor -- taps the small worn copy of the Koran that he carries with him and states emphatically: "It is the only way to Heaven -- on the last day Allah will ask you three questions and the three right answers gain admission, while one wrong sends you to hell." (Sounds like "Jeopardy!" to me).
The way he tapped his little book scared me. I've seen preachers of every stripe tap books and proclaim, "This is the only way." I've heard figurehead presidents invoke the name of God in atrocious sinful acts of war and aggression. I've seen mindless zealots fly airplanes into buildings and watch the horrible aftermath on television. As a child, I sat incredulously in catechism class, hearing Sister Holy-Water proclaim: "Only those baptized in the church will enter heaven," while fingering the cross around her neck.
The guy on the cross said: "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and "The kingdom of God is within you," not, "non-believers go to hell!"
The notion that all the wisdom of the ages is contained in one book (any book) is lazy idiocy. "Fundamentalism" of any kind denies our commonality, our humanity. This Earth is a lifeboat and we're all in it. There is nowhere else to go! Grab an oar and pull with your brothers and sisters toward an uncertain future.
I see now that I am preaching -- I apologize.
The following is Ted's letter of response:
"The
notion the wisdom of the ages is contained in one book (any book)
is lazy idiocy." Mike McCurdy
Seems that anytime a columnist wants to get a rise out of his readers, he has only to make few digs about religion. You’ve probably received several irate letters by now. This isn’t one of them. As a writer myself, I prefer to give my thoughts time to ripen and chill before I dish them out.
First off, let me assure you that anti-fundamentalism diatribes don’t offend me, or rattle my personal convictions. I’ve heard them so many times, I almost know them by heart, the secular-humanism argument in particular. Hey, it’s a decent argument. I nurtured it myself for more than 30 years, during my feel-good periods, and considered myself an astute and original thinker in those days. When I was drunk or depressed, I tended more toward nihilism. Either way, I eased my conscience with the notion that nothing in this “lifeboat” had any significance or ramifications beyond the here and now. This was the nugget of enlightenment that I was most loathe to give up when I was first presented the Gospel.
Relax...I’m, not here to “convert” you to the Christian faith. I simply want to share (one writer to another) my personal feelings about fundamentalism, and to address, as objectively as I can, some misconceptions you and others seem to have about “the guy on the cross”, as you to referred to Him.
“FUNDAMENTALISM”, has gotten a lot of bad press in recent years, and for good reason, seeing how religious zealotry has shaped world events. It’s not surprising that “FUNDAMENTALISM” and “FANATICISM”—that other religious F-word—have come to signify pretty much the same thing in people’s minds. This is where a distinction should be made, I think, before an unemotional discussion about religion is possible.
To my mind, fundamentalism defines the strict interpretation and adherence to the fundamental tenets of one’s faith. That is, the original, unmodified text (Bible, Koran, etc.)—the doctrinal “constitution”, if you will—upon which a believer (purportedly) bases his faith. Fanaticism, on the other hand, is the perversion and/or extreme misapplication of those fundamentals—the extent to which professed believers, either willfully or out of ignorance, twist prophecy and doctrinal precepts out of context to justify their own evil agenda (“invoke the name of God in atrocious sinful acts of war and aggression,” as you put it).
Insofar as there are so many like yourself who view these “sacred” books as little more than a collection of fables and pseudo wisdom (“lazy idiocy”), I can see how the observance and propagation of said “fundamentals” could be construed as fanatical...and, yes, idiotic. So, without getting into the specifics of what makes you the unique individual and writer that you are—and by the way, you’re an excellent writer!—let me say that I understand where you’re coming from.
I do think, if you don’t mind my saying so, that to dismiss all religious doctrine as idiotic is just another form of laziness. I recognize it, having basked in it myself, as I said, for more than half my life. For me, cynicism was practically a religion unto itself. I got a lot of mileage out of it, and was not at all anxious for some holy-come-lately to coax me out of it.
An even lazier variation on the theme of believing nothing is believing everything.
There are uncommitted neutralists on the opposite end of the spectrum who assume that all belief systems are equally good, on the grounds that faith, in and of itself, is good. Faith must be good. Why? Well, because...uh...because faith is...um, part of what defines our humanity, sets us apart from animals. (Same could be said about greed and neurosis.) Faith in what? It doesn’t matter. Something, anything. The less specific, the more generic one’s belief, the better. May be nothing more than faith in one’s faith, hope in one’s hope. Don’t want to offend anybody, least of all oneself. Religion, like sex, is all well and good as long as the practitioner gets what he needs out of it, and doesn’t force it on people who don’t want it. And like sex, religion (or whatever passes itself off as “truth”) can be customized to suit one’s needs.
The most popular middle ground for seekers of wisdom, assuagers of consciences, manipulators of minds, and rationalizers of national policy, is to select only the fundamentals that appeal to them, and toss out the rest. Passages that they can’t abide or comprehend, they edit, modify and/or bend out of context to make them say what they want them to say. Then they try to pass off their bastardized “Believer’s Digest” version of the scriptures as divine revelation. As someone once said [in reference to New Age charlatans], “The fact that these pygmies cast such long shadows only goes to show how late in the day it is.”
You said, “‘Fundamentalism’ of any kind denies our commonality, our humanity.” On the contrary, fundamental Christianity actually affirms our commonality in that it emphasizes our universal separation from God—the fact that we have “all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory”. It is this spiritual bankruptcy into which man is born, and his desperate need of redemption which only Christ can provide, that places all of us into that same proverbial “lifeboat” you spoke of. The main difference here is that the Bible depicts a future that is not at all “uncertain”. Whether or not one accepts these teachings is a matter unto itself.
Again, I’m not trying to persuade you that my one book of choice contains the “wisdom of the ages”. I’m simply stating that a person can’t make an informed decision about it if he allows church history to confuse fundamental facts with fanatical froth. (Try saying that with a mouthful of crackers!) To judge the message of the Gospel based on the travesty that tyrants and zealots and “Sister Holy-Waters” throughout history have made of it, neither enlightens nor edifies.
...unless you’re like my dad (rhetorical “you”), who delights in venting his disdain for any religious “idiocy” or blatant incongruity that justifies his inability to accept that which he refuses to investigate. His attitude toward God and religion hasn’t changed in 25 years. So be it. I told him long ago that I respected his position and saw no reason for him to go on and on pressing me for answers to things he’d already made up his mind about. He, in turn, respects my faith (he says) and swears he’s at peace with being an atheist. And yet, he persists, to this day, in ringing around the same ideological rosy every opportunity he gets, no matter how cleverly I try to avoid these sparring matches. I love him dearly. But for the life of me, I don’t understand why this man, who just turned 90, still gets so bent out of alignment over things he claims he doesn’t believe in. Why does anybody?
As fundamental to the doctrine of sin and salvation, is the concept of free will. Don’t let church history persuade you otherwise. There is no religious or political institution on Earth, no military force, that can bend a man’s will toward God. There is no magic ritual (however slavishly or compulsively one practices it), that can pester a divine, all powerful sovereign into ushering an “infidel” into a heavenly eternity he neither desires nor believes in. Parroting scripture, or chanting a sacred prayer, or showering in “holy water”, doesn’t make a person holy, anymore than standing on one leg makes him a flamingo. You know that; I know that. Could the God of the universe be so superficial? So easily appeased by the “popish tricks and ceremonies” [Shakespear, Titus Andronicus] that people have aped and passed down through the ages? I, for one, can’t buy that.
That’s the reason I gave up on Catholicism when I was only 12. Even as a child, I couldn’t help seeing that my “sinful” acts and impulses had more substance than the wimpy Act of Contrition I was given to recite, or any of the formulas and legalisms that were supposed to...what? Cleanse my heart? Draw me closer to God? Win me brownie points in Heaven? In truth, I felt more at home with my “sin” than with the elusive sense of righteousness and well being I was supposed to achieve by obeying all the rules. The only “communion” that offered me any real comfort was between myself and my own conscience—you know, the Jiminy Cricket school of self-government—whereby I could run my life and judge my actions according to whatever moral standard seemed right to me. When you come right down to it, this game of rationalization and self-justification, is pretty much what most “religion” is about. What I see are systems men have devised by which they strive to make peace with their God, or with their consciences; standards of righteousness that can be adapted, modified, made as simple or as difficult as necessary, in order to satisfy whatever agenda, personal or corporate, one elects to follow. I’d venture to say that religion is to godliness what pathology is to health.
What makes Christianity fundamentally unique, once you divest it of all the legalisms and denominational amendments that men and institutions have piled on it through the ages, is that it’s based, not on a set of rules or traditions, nor on a man’s noble deeds—but on the person and atoning work of Jesus. As such, basic Christianity is not a “religion”, but a relationship with this very Jesus. His statement, “the Kingdom of God is within you,” taken in context of everything else he taught, did not mean that mankind was god-like by nature. He was talking about the deepest place, the heart of man, where God desires to reign, to “tabernacle with men.” It is man’s broken and contrite heart, not his standalone goodness, that touches the heart of God, Who indwells those who, by faith, receive His Son. Jesus didn’t call men to become theologians or philosophers, but to seek God with all their heart—to be “born again.” [John 3] A man can change his habits, but only God can change his heart.
That brings us to a sticky issue you brought up in your column. According to you, this Jesus never said "non-believers go to hell!" Is that what you really think, or were you being facetious? I mean, is this scriptural “loophole”, that you think you found, the entire basis of your argument? Is this your way of assuring readers, or yourself, that God doesn’t discriminate against good hearted folks who don’t believe He exists, or who credit Him with the same spiritual relevance as Santa Clause?
Well, I should point out that Jesus did, in effect, make that statement. He may not have used those exact words, but he did preach to his followers, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father, but through me.” [John 14:6] And: “He that believeth in Him [me] is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” [John 3:18]
It’s true Jesus had a lot of fine things to say about love and forgiveness and living in peace with one’s neighbor. Hardly anyone has a problem with this aspect of his teachings. But you can’t overlook the fact that this same person declared that He was one with God the Father—not once, but repeatedly and most emphatically, throughout his earthly ministry. One doesn’t need to dig very far or very long to see that. Of all of Jesus’ sayings, His claim to be God in the flesh, was central to His teachings. This is a matter of historical record, found not only in the Gospel accounts, but in the writings of Josephus, a non-Biblical historian who lived at the same time as Jesus. (Josephus, by the way, was not a believer.) Whether or not you accept Jesus’ claims as truth, of course, is entirely up to you.
The point I want to make here is that, before you start holding Jesus up as some great teacher, or incorporating His sayings into your own secular philosophy, you need to consider the source: Was He, or was He not, the promised Messiah? Was He, or was He not God’s Son? Was His sacrificial, atoning death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection, crucial for man’s salvation? Because if Jesus was merely a man who pretended to be God, if He was not who He, or the scriptures, claimed He was, then he was a liar and a lunatic (lower case “he”). I’m sorry, but what other conclusion could one draw? And IF that were the case, why should you or anybody lend credence to what this worse-than-ordinary person, this lunatic, taught?—any more than you would take me seriously if I went around claiming I was Jesus?
In other words, if you can’t accept everything about Jesus, why accept anything?
I realize how fanatical and exclusionary this all-or-nothing approach may sound. But it seems to me that when you discount the lordship of Jesus, nothing about the man has any validity. Once you reject the kernel of Biblical authority, all that remains is chaff and folklore. Not that there is anything wrong with folklore, as long as people regard it as such and quit passing off this reconstituted chaff as some profound, feel-good “truth”. What good is the message without the messenger? Without its author? Why celebrate “The Birth of Our Lord, Jesus” if Jesus isn’t your Lord, or if you don’t believe He’s anybody’s Lord? As far as I’m concerned, that creche under the Christmas tree, apart from what it represents, is just a pile of rubbish. You may as well toss it out, along with all those plastic angels and religious trinkets. Heck, toss out the tree too, while you’re at it.
If I had to name one crucial element that sets fundamental Christianity apart from the more liberal religions and secular ideologies, I would summarize it this way: The “believer” bases his eternal security on the personal conviction that Jesus was, and is, everything He said He was, everything the Bible says He was. The non-believer bases his assurance and well-being on the assumption that He’s not. I’ve already made my choice.
I see now that I am preaching—I apologize.
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