RD / Religion Dispatches
Conservative Christianity and Its Discontents By _Randall J. Stephens_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/contributors/randallstephens/) and _Karl
Giberson_ (http://www.religiondispatches.org/contributors/karlgiberson/)
March 13, 2012
How did Rick Santorum roll over Mitt Romney in all those primary states?
Where did the energy come from? While pundits still insist that he won’t
topple the moneyed Mitt—whose campaign still generates about as much
excitement
as the winter sport of curling—Santorum is holding onto the spotlight long
enough to put religious populism front and center.
Santorum’s red-hot religious enthusiasm is a big part of his success. Sure,
there have been enough gaffes on the hustings to make Dan Quayle blush.
But... one person’s gaffe is another’s bold truth. And few have been as bold
as the former Pennsylvania senator. When not attacking president Obama for
his “war on religion,” Santorum likes to take on so-called secularists,
and climate scientists. “I’ve never supported
even the hoax of global warming,” he said in February, calling it more “
_political science_
(http://http//www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/09/santorum-global-warming-is-political-science/)
” than science.
Teaching the Impossible
And what about higher education; the liberal, secular source of so much
that Santorum _finds disgusting_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/5744/santorum’s_war_on_satan..._er%2C_on_higher_education/)
?
For those select few who do get an education, rather than _working on a
road crew_
(http://http//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/santorum-obama-is-a-snob-because-he-wants-everybody-in-america-to-go-to-college/201
2/02/25/gIQATJffaR_blog.html) , what should be taught in the classroom? “
Darwin’s theory of evolution should not be taught as absolute fact in the
science classroom,” he has _mused_
(http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2005/09sep/evolving.cfm) . On law and history
Santorum squares off against what he sees
as a separation-of-church-and-state dogma. Earlier in his campaign he
_assured voters_ (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/washington/) that
“
God gave us laws that we must abide by.” Since much of this runs counter to
how courses are taught in American colleges and universities, Santorum
offered a solution in an informal _interview_
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KN7WfIZh690#!) in
October, 2011: “Just like we have
certifying organizations that accredit a college, we’ll have certifying
organizations that will accredit conservative professors. If you are to be
eligible for federal funds, you’ll have to provide an equal number of
conservative professors as liberal professors.”
Perhaps such a university, in the name of fairness, would include
paleontology courses taught by someone who believed that dinosaurs were
contemporary with humans and that fossils unearthed today are of animals
drowned in
Noah’s flood.
Could such a university be accredited? The short answer is yes. A handful
of fundamentalist colleges and universities across the country incorporate
such views into their science curriculum. Knowledge denial, though, can easi
ly find other, more subtle ways to reach willing audiences, and even creep
into the classrooms of credible universities. One strategy, endorsed by
Santorum and heavily promoted by anti-evolutionary groups like the
Seattle-based Discovery Institute, is to falsely claim that there is a actual
scientific debate going on about evolution and urge educators to “teach the
controversy.”
There is, of course, no such controversy in the scientific community.
Homeschooling parents, evangelical teachers at private schools, and
instructors at unaccredited religious colleges and Bible institutes share a
common educational paradigm (as _Julie Ingersoll_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/contributors/julieingersoll/) has detailed
here at RD –Eds). Outside
the normal conversations about what counts as established knowledge, they are
vulnerable to messages like that of the Discovery Institute and they are
cheered that a godly candidate like Santorum is speaking for them. What are
teachers to make of a claim by a scholar with scientific credentials who
assures them that evolution is controversial—especially if that scholar is a
religious believer who holds a PhD and shares their faith commitments?
Anti-intellectualism is deeply rooted in American evangelicalism, reaching
even into the classrooms of popular schools, like Cedarville University and
Liberty University (the largest evangelical university in the world),
where students are taught that the earth is 10,000 years old. _Millions of
evangelical youth_ (http://www.tracs.org/member.htm) grow up hearing that
there is a real debate when it comes to human origins. They also come to learn
that homosexuality is a sinful lifestyle choice that can be repaired with
prayer. They are taught that secular historians are suppressing the vision
of the Founding Fathers and that America was supposed to be a Christian
nation.
Controversies that should have died decades and even centuries ago are kept
alive by organizations invested in the answers of yesteryear, often
because those old answers, say stalwarts, came from the Bible and are believed
to
have been laid down by God. These answers informed the thinking of a
long-gone society that, through the rose-tinted glasses of those nostalgic for
a
better time, looks moral, family-oriented, and respectful of God’s laws in
ways that the present age is not.
Knowledge Denial
Ken Ham’s _Answers in Genesis_ (http://www.answersingenesis.org/) project
is dedicated to the proposition that God wrote the Bible himself and that
all knowledge needs to be based on a simple literal reading of that ancient
book. As the organization’s name suggests, the book of Genesis is filled
with “answers” that God provides to many important questions: How old is
the earth? What is the proper relationship of males and females? What is
marriage? Why were animals created? Why are there so many languages? Where did
humanity originate? Why do people behave the way they do?
Some suggest that Ham’s alternative theories are benign.
“With regard to those evangelicals—and for that matter those
ultra-orthodox Jews—who believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old
and either
that there were no dinosaurs or that they lived alongside human beings, my
reaction has always been: So what?” _writes_
(http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/281178/are-evangelicals-or-university-professors-more-irrational-de
nnis-prager) conservative radio host and columnist Dennis Prager in a
response to our _recent NYT op-ed_
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/opinion/the-evangelical-rejection-of-reason.html)
on the evangelical rejection of
reason. “[W]hat real-life problem is caused by people who believe otherwise?”
he asks, as if knowledge is only relevant when it has a practical value
for everyone alike.
Answers in Genesis argues that starting assumptions, rather than data and
theories, determines whether a researcher believes the earth is six
thousand or four-and-a-half billion years old. Who can be sure, anyway? Ham
encourages students to ask their teachers “Were you there?” when those teachers
suggest that the earth is very old, or that dinosaurs predated humans. As
Ham would say, God, of course, was there and told Moses what happened “in
the beginning.” That’s the “answer.” Professionally constructed dioramas in
Ham’s Creation Museum show dinosaurs looking over Eve’s shoulder.
Similar knowledge denial occurs on questions of gender roles and human
sexuality. Organizations like James Dobson’s Focus on the Family claim that
homosexuality is an inherently perverse and sinful life choice that can be
reversed. Gay adolescent evangelicals consistently experience their sexual
awakening with alarm, denial, and self-loathing—with parents and other
authority figures seemingly aligned in condemnation, and unavailable when
needed
most. But the so-called “reparative therapy” such youth are steered toward
has been shown to be not only _utterly ineffective_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/5374/participant_discredits_the_original_ex-
gay_study/) but also psychologically damaging.
The American Psychological Association has stated definitively that “
homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not
changeable.” The American Medical Association and the American Academy of
Pediatrics, along with numerous other professional organizations, have adopted
similar stances.
But still young people, including those that frequent the clinic run by
Michelle Bachmann’s husband, are encouraged to seek deliverance from their
condition. The emerging acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage, claim
many evangelical leaders, reflects the moral decay of society, not an open,
more accepting world. Or, as Santorum _told viewers of Fox News_
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRuFaDe_C6k&feature=player_embedded#!) : “There
are all
sorts of studies out there that suggest just the contrary, and there are
people who were gay and lived the gay lifestyle and aren’t anymore.”
Amateur Hour
As conservative Christians adopt a counterview on sex and gender, they
learn alternate versions of history, too. Populist historians within
evangelicalism, like the prominent Texas Republican, David Barton, promote the
idea
that America is slouching toward Gomorrah. America is God’s chosen republic,
Barton asserts: the nation has been an explicitly Christian country from
its earliest days and needs to reverse its sinful migration away from its
biblical roots. Professional historians, by contrast (including leading
evangelicals like Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden) emphasize the
plurality of beliefs in early America and highlight the distance between the
past and the present. Yet, how does the man or woman in the pew, faced with
choosing a curriculum for church or home school, know who is presenting
history more accurately?
The amateur historians, biologists, and social scientists who produce
alternative curricula for evangelicals speak as beleaguered culture warriors.
They offer winsome personal testimonies and refer to the Bible so often that
it can sometimes seem as though their ideas actually come straight out of
the Bible. They seem trustworthy—in contrast to their secular and often
agnostic Ivy League counterparts. We have used the term “_anointed_
(http://www.amazon.com/Anointed-Evangelical-Truth-Secular-Age/dp/0674048180) ”
to
reflect evangelical experts’ remarkable ability to come across as messengers
from God.
These anointed leaders advance their alternative knowledge claims by
casting doubt on the relevance of “secular” credentials, scientific consensus,
and even higher education in general. Some of them wave away the conclusions
of professionals, academics, and credentialed experts as the mutterings of
eggheads with their own egghead agendas.
Glenn Beck, one of Barton’s most enthusiastic promoters, can hardly utter
the word “professor” without sneering and making air quotes with his
fingers. Many evangelicals, skeptical that a PhD after a name gives any
reasonable authority, have come to sympathize with and even celebrate Fox
News’ most
well-known anti-intellectual Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly, who pitted his
understanding of science against that of Richard Dawkins in a recent show, is
fond of scoffing, “sorry, professor, not buying it,” suggesting that
expertise is really just opinion.
A number of thoughtful evangelicals are alarmed at the surging
anti-intellectualism within their ranks. And there are many academic
historians,
geneticists, psychologists, and other intellectuals within the Christian
tradition who do not deny the knowledge claims of their respective fields. Such
believers, however, are viewed with suspicion if they do not speak the
language of biblical inerrancy, anti-evolution, and conservative politics
embraced
by other Christians.
Take Francis Collins, for example, one of America’s most well-known
scientists and an enthusiastic evangelical Christian. Despite having directed
the
Human Genome Project and ascended to the head of the National Institutes of
Health, Collins’ credentials mean absolutely nothing to millions of
evangelicals who prefer to get their science from Ken Ham, who has no stature
of
any sort in the scientific community.
Many conservative evangelicals reject Collins because he believes in
evolution, and does not read the first chapters of Genesis literally. In his
bestselling _The Language of God_
(http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-God-Scientist-Presents/dp/1416542744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331567849&sr=8-1)
,
Collins recalls speaking at a national gathering of Christian physicians and
having some of his audience walk out “shaking their heads in dismay” when he
confessed to being an evolutionist. People have stormed out of Southern
Baptist churches when they discovered he accepted evolution. Others have come
to the microphone after a talk and implied that, in accepting evolution,
he was “under the influence of the devil.”
Collins regularly gets critical commentary from non-believers like Jerry
Coyne and Sam Harris, but, _as he has said_
(http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2009/julaug/evolutionthebibleandthebookofnature.html)
, the “nastiest
” messages come from fellow Christians, “infuriated that someone who
claims to be a believer could say these things about the truth of the
evolutionary process.”
Highly publicized comments made by recent GOP candidates suggest that the
stakes are incredibly high. Rick Perry made it clear during his short run
that he was not on Collins’ side. At a campaign stop in New Hampshire in
August he told a child that Texas teaches creationism along with evolution.
(Though that, in fact, is _not true_
(http://www.texastribune.org/texas-people/rick-perry/video-perry-answers-childs-question-about-evolutio/)
.) Perry’s
Texas has long drawn the spotlight in these faith-driven culture war
battles. Conflicts over what kind of history should be taught in public
schools,
recently waged in Texas and Virginia, are no longer secular struggles.
These skirmishes pit good against evil.
The Bible as Measuring Rod
Conflict between generally accepted ideas and “insider-approved”
evangelical alternatives has roiled the evangelical world for decades. Thirty
years
ago the pop philosopher and culture warrior Francis Schaeffer (in the news
most recently as _an influence_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4892/bachmann_and_religion:_it)
on Michele Bachmann) went
head to head with several evangelical historians within the academy. It
started when Schaeffer wrote an anti-secularist battle plan, A Christian
Manifesto (1981), intended to get Christians engaged in politics. Evangelicals
must “own” America’s Christian heritage said Schaeffer. The nation was
founded on the principles of the Bible and the Reformation, he argued, and the
founders “understood that they were founding the country upon the concept
that goes back into the Judeo-Christian thinking that there is Someone there
who gave inalienable rights.” Those principles had vanished in the 20th
century and the government now rested in the hands of materialists and
humanists.
Within a year A Christian Manifesto had sold approximately 300,000 copies,
winning the enthusiastic endorsement of Jerry Falwell, who distributed it
to viewers of his television program.
Evangelical historians dismissed Schaeffer as a propagandist. He was
clearly not a scholar, Mark Noll told Newsweek. Writing in Christian Century,
one historian called Schaeffer to task for reading contemporary politics back
into the 18th century. The founders’ civil religion may have drawn on the
ideals of theism, but this hardly made the country they were founding into
a Christian nation.
Unfortunately Schaeffer’s views survived and are now alive and well in the
messages of David Barton and the late Peter Marshall—the two most popular
historians for _homeschooling_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/julieingersoll/3843/homeschooling_and_american_exceptionalism)
parents,
Tea Partiers, and evangelicals in general. Barton—whose education consists of
a bachelor’s degree in Christian education from Oral Roberts University—
dismisses his critics, suggesting that the peer review process and the heavy
interpretive component of professional history make it unreliable. He
dismisses complaints about his credentials by referring to the unvarnished
truth of the primary sources he employs, just as fundamentalists invoke their
literal reading of the Bible. The Bible is the measuring rod.
(And as Paul Harvey _discusses_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/5777/it’s_barack_v._the_bible%2C_says_barton/)
this week on RD,
Barton has been busy stoking the fires of culture war this season, calling
Obama America’s most “biblically-hostile” president.)
Biblicist watchdog Georgia Purdom _recently summed up_
(http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/10/04/exposing-the-anointed)
this Bible-centric
approach in a review (or indictment) of our book. She explains that her
organization valiantly goes “against the grain of the secular academic
establishment while we stand on the authority and trustworthiness of God’s
Word
from the very first verse (as opposed to word of finite, fallible man).”
The intellectual trajectory of American evangelicalism is not encouraging.
High-profile evangelical scholars like Duke Divinity professor Stanley
Hauerwas, Francis Collins, theologian N. T. Wright, psychologist David Myers,
or the historian Mark Noll often seem like guttering lamps struggling
against powerful anti-intellectual winds determined to extinguish them.
The anti-evolution Discovery Institute, to take one example, spends much of
its energy attacking Collins, who has neither the time nor the resources
to respond. Influential conservative donors pressure evangelical college
administrators to fire “liberal” faculty, creating a brain drain that leaves
their respective communities even more intellectually impoverished.
Meanwhile, the turnstiles at Ken Ham’s creation museum turn briskly.
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