Faith and politics part 4: Covid conspiracy crisis

 

Covid control conspiracy crisis

The majority of the world population when faced with Covid had grown up with every advancing medical science. Just a hundred years ago before antibiotics, when so many conditions could not be ‘cured’ only nursed people would be astonished to look forward to hospitals and medicine today. Meanwhile science and technology opened up so many things that we (at least in the richest countries) could barely imagine living without. 

I don’t like the idea of dividing populations into generations (I am a late Gen x-er apparently), the post war generations, baby boomers, whilst fearful of the abuse of science (nuclear bombs) largely saw science as positive and hopeful, that it will in time have all the answers. In the move away from religion was there a trend to see science as the new faith?

Well in the new millennium doubt came into the faith in science. We started to wonder more often whether what can be done should be done.  Not that the question was never asked before, but the voices got louder. At the same time we face the limits of science and medicine – antibiotic resistance, few answers for the dementia that more people live long enough to develop – and the implications of our previous technologies on the climate.

So now we move on from the proclamations that ‘God is dead’ to ‘Science is playing God’ and adverts that used to see someone in a lab coat as reassuring to a mindset that scientists are playing with fire and not to be trusted.

Enter a pandemic and a time when there is a need to follow guidance, and listen to the science. 2020 populations are used to deciding for themselves, and whilst most of us may follow the guidance as our choice to care for the community and limit the spread etc, others rebel against anything. This is magnified in the USA where the faith related anti-science was already more widespread, and then the vaccines…

Faith and politics part 3 : Flat earth and other theories

 

Flat Earthers and beyond

Yes this view is making a comeback - despite the earth as a globe being proposed centuries before Christ –an idea proposed by Pythagoras (6^th century BC) and affirmed by Plato (4^th century BC) and Aristotle suggested empirical evidence. Whilst around 240 BC the Greek Eratosthenes made a very accurate estimate of the circumference of the earth, by comparing shadows in different cities.

I confess that I was surprised about how early this understanding was, in my imagination it was a medieval insight linked to Copernicus – but it seems his addition was about the planets circling around the sun rather than Earth being the centre of the universe. The globe earth was well established among the learned and through the Middle Ages the churches and emerging universities took a globe world as a given fact.

It was in the 19^th century that stories arose that claimed the middle Ages European view was of a flat earth. And it was linked to the development of the myth of conflict between faith and science. In Britain Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1885) published theories of a flat earth and was a charismatic speaker. Others took up the baton in the years that followed. Things subsided although in 1956 The International Flat Earth Research Society was formed, in the face of the space race and images from orbit the claims of conspiracy and deception began.  In was under new leadership in the 1970s that the membership of the society grew to several thousand. Decline in the 1990s has been followed by another resurrection in the internet age with youtube channels focused on flat earth theories – fed by and feeding into to the rise of both anti science and anti government worldviews.

Of course the number of those committed to the flat earth viewpoint will still be small, more widely though the rate of conspiracy believers seem to be higher, with QAnon as a movement that seemingly binds together a wide range of different groups that were once seen as extreme. And when a former president makes unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud, and followers storm Congress, then this conspiracy becomes widely accepted and encouraged by key right wing communicators, and invites people into other conspiracies – especially in the uncertainty of covid times.  

Faith and politics part2 : Creationism to covid anti-vaxxers

 

So what does it matter if a small group of people spend their lives gathering donations to promote unworkable theories of how the laws of physics and biology can fit their need to prove a 6 day creation?   If it was just about that I would live and let live – people are free to believe and interpret their faith however they wish to – until it becomes harmful to others.

The climate in the American Bible Belt has become very literal in its expression of faith, here they have campaigns seeking to teach creationism in science classes, or even to have evolution taken out, here is the heart of Christian home school curricula that reduce science and claim that poetic language in various parts of the Bible are claims to scientific fact. 

The same people who promote creationism as the only valid Christian view of the beginnings of life, are part of the Moral Majority, the Religious Right – the process by which evangelical Christians have been recruited into co-dependency with the Republican party.   A journey that has led many of them to see Donald Trump as almost messianic, despite much in his lifestyle that would be condemned by their moral values. Meanwhile any Democrat is evil, despite Biden being in church much more often than Trump ever would – but then Biden is Catholic and many of them don’t consider catholics as part of their faith.

The attack on Evolution has morphed into a general anti science stance, enforcing the idea that scientists are trying to edit out God, and that science and faith are incompatible.  Science goes back to prechristian thinkers, whilst a lot of mathematics and astronomy was advanced by Islamic scholars whilst Christendom was said to be in the ‘Dark Ages’.   Time moved on and much of scientific study for centuries was linked to the monasteries – this people set aside from regular labour in the fields, more educated, scribes of the ancient Greek texts preserved by the Islamic scholars, and the desire to seek out more understanding of God’s creation – the world around them.  The idea that science is at war with faith is relatively recent, and yes Darwin’s theory was a landmark in that, though Darwin was a man of Christian faith.

So parts of the church responded by proclaiming that evolution and the geology of an ancient earth could not be true, leading them to cling more and more to a literal view of the earliest stories of the Bible.  They became sceptical of science, whilst happy to benefit from uncontroversial aspects -computers, internet, medical progress. This contradictory mindset has been ripe for those rebelling against the science of these Covid times – the anti vaxxers who protest against even others getting the jab; the anti maskers who complain that their rights are being infringed; the church leaders who see requests to avoid gathering in crowds as persecution from the atheist scientist cabal.

Christian literalism has contributed to situations where people are told what to believe, taught to fear science and to expect persecution from the big bad world. Leading to a context where to some it is seen as Christian to defy the scientific advice about covid. - leading to huge variations in state % of vaccinations. Okay no authority or country has had a perfect response to the pandemic, we all have to consider what is best at any point in this journey, and I am sure that hindsight will judge the flaws. However where vast parts of a population have already been conditioned to see science as bad, as anti-christian, then the ability of any authority to seek co-operation in protecting lives and limiting the spread of illness is neutered. This is what we see in the extreme parts of American evangelicalism, running churches that ban the wearing of masks, and prophesy about Trump– until he said he was vaccinated and boosted, when new theories grow.

So yes our view of Genesis may be a private faith matter, however the militant young earth creationists do affect others lives, and in Covid that has become very clear.

Faith and politics part 1 - The passion and fears of creationism

 

I am a Christian, a minister in the church, and I have a scientific mindset (from school I went to University for a degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology).   It is not for me to comment on anyone else’s relationship with God, but I do feel able to comment on what others say about God and how it relates to my encounter/view of God.

How did it all begin? The Bible gives 2 versions of creation – the first based on 6 day creation and where God proclaims all to be good, the second giving a story of the first man and woman breaking God’s command and giving a reason for the challenges of human life – working for a living out of the soil. 

Scholars who look at the texts, and the use of language in the Hebrew, including the words used for God (Yahweh vs Elohim), see that there are different voices in parts of the Old Testament – coming from competing traditions.

Since Darwin raised the theory of evolution parts of the church have reacted by insisting that these early parts of the Bible must be taken as literal truth. This was not the case for generations before that. Not to say that people didn’t take Genesis at face value, but there was no insistence that it had to be literal and many took it as a lesson in matters of faith.

Today there are those for whom the literal truth of Genesis is crucial to their faith, and billions are spent on producing resources (including visitor attractions) to proclaim this ‘truth’.   They seek to defend their position by claiming science backs them up, and in doing so they tie themselves up in ever tighter scientific knots.  They defend the young earth theory of 6000 years, in the face of geological and fossil records that date our world much older – in billions of years. Some will allow for a day being a thousand years but that only doubles the brief time.  

I recall as a teenager going into my biology class with a book debunking evolution and asked to sit out that lesson – and was in the prep cupboard.  I did do the reading for the exam however. I didn’t come from a strict creationist church but had absorbed a particular book that led me to these actions.  I wish I could go back to Mrs Evans and explain why that view was something I let go shortly afterwards.

The struggle for young earth creationists (YECs) is to make science fit a poetic/fable view from a book of theology. So yes all things created in 6 days, with dinosaurs arriving the same day as humans, and trying to merge in a different story about Adam and Eve. But then Cain kills Abel and is banished to wander the earth with a mark on him that he should not be killed – by whom? Who else is out there when they are the first children of Adam and Eve?

Then we come to Noah – how to defend a story as a global flood rather than a local event that passed down in tribal memories? YECs have to theorise how the earth can be drowned up to Everest when there is not enough water on the planet to do that, but their main focus is about how to justify the ability of the Ark to carry all the different animals. This amounts to reducing the massive number of species to a smaller number of ‘kinds’. But then they say that in the less than 6000 years those kinds can expand into many species, basically requiring an evolution at a massive speed that has never claimed by evolution.   (See here for a youtubechannel by a Primatologist)

Why do some Christians feel the need to insist on one specific understanding of the first 11 chapters of the Bible? And in parts of America to demand that creationism is taught in science, whereas in UK I have not heard of that, whilst creation may be part of the RE curriculum.

My impression is that those who seek to defend a literal 6 day creation and Noah’s flood are people whose faith in the Bible as a whole has become entrenched in the concept that every word of it is God breathed, by which they mean a form of automatic writing with God directing every word and all punctuation. They often (for English speakers) see the King James Version of the Bible as the first so most perfect English translation, despite it being neither the first in English, nor the most accurate. Many manuscripts have been discovered since KJV and the translation had political leanings to defend the status of the monarchy, it was also using a dated language even when new.

For those who see every word of the Bible as God dictated, the status of the New Testament and the stories and words of Jesus need the Genesis accounts to be literal truth too.  If one were to be not literal truth then the other would also fall, if creation was not 6 days then Jesus could not be their salvation.

 This seems to be the core reason for their desire to argue for a singular intepretation of the first Biblical chapters and the absolute fear of any other truth.  They have based the core of their faith on a word by word truth of the Bible, and in the young earth theories fall, then so does the basis of their faith.  They must therefore defend creationism with all they have.

This deep commitment to a single view of the scriptures, and a fear of any other point of view leads them to see only creationists as valid Christians, and the need to expend a lot of money to try and convert others to YEC and their ‘true faith’.  Even so it would be a matter for themselves, except that it has powerful impacts on politics within a powerful nation, that is for another post.

This is not the faith I find in my Bible, I find fables that speak of God’s ways, I find people trying to understand their relationship with their God, and through that I hear the voice of God, not through dictation, but through the experiences of other God followers.

 

Bullying - a curse beyond the playground

 Bullying is insidious. It is an attack by a thousand cuts. It belittles and undermines, it gradually wears the targeted person away until they are the shadow of who they once were.  Yet at the same time each action is seen as so small that alone they would not be considered significant. But cutting again and again causes deeper longer lasting wounds.

I cannot remember a time in school before I was singled out as someone to be teased.  There we go - words that undermine the intense power of bullying, 'just teasing', 'kids will be kids', 'it's only a joke'.

What decides who will be the focus of a bully? Someone different from the rest, someone perceived as weak, someone maybe seen as a threat that a bully wants to stop, it can be so many things. Maybe it also depends on the context of the bullying, childhood or adult, by those who should be your peers, or those with power over you.

Back to school, primary and secondary, right up to leaving the upper 6th. By then my year group bullies had either left or grown out of the worst, but younger year group lads had taken up the slack.

I wasn't beaten up, no bruises to show, and yes I am grateful for that, yet it also made it hard for me to complain or prove what was happening. It even made me feel I had no right to complain or be bothered.

Yet it is the verbal bruises that don't heal, 'no one will ever like you', 'no one will be your friend'. When you are told something day in and day out for years it gradually becomes your inner voice too. Even stones are worn away by the continual drops and flow of water.

Once a bully has the power then even things that would sound like a neutral act come with sinister messages. I clearly remember the day in my mid teens when this dawned on me. I had been encouraged to 'tell' on examples, but when a bully says hello to you in a way that is threatening, a reminder that they are there, the look in the eye etc.   But what can I report, that 'he said hello'?

And that brings us to bullying in the workplace, governments, or churches. Sometimes it is a targeted attack on individuals, sometimes it is an overall culture that is more indiscriminate in the aggression shown.

As with the Priti Patel, Home Office, case it takes great courage to speak out about bullying. You know that they will twist each individual cut, 'just banter', 'need to toughen up in this workplace', 'you are just being oversensitive' and the current fashionable one 'don't be such a snowflake'.

Yet again, as in so many contexts including too often the church, even with evidence accepted as valid no one has to take responsibility. In many organisations it is a case of no one wanting to rock the boat. In church contexts, which I see though those I know and also through union work, there is a lack of courage to challenge bullying behaviour even when it may have driven away several ministers in a row.  Or where a senior minister affects others.  Bullying can come from any side, and those targeted can be of any type.

There is malice intended in some cases, a deliberate targeting of someone or a certain group. But yes it can be unrecognised by even the bully themselves, this does not excuse behaviour and attitudes to others that consistently and significantly damages them.  If someone is left emotionally crippled and suicidal by your actions then you have responsibility for those actions, and those words.

And among the greatest lies ever taught to us as children 'sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me'. 

The truth is 'stick and stones may break my bones but names can break the soul'. 

There are many reasons I despair at our current government, but standing up for someone who has been found through independent review to have used bullying behaviours, shouting and swearing at workers in her team, is definitely one of them. But then I know all too well that we in the church structures have a plank in our own eyes too.  And that is cause to weep. 

Faith, and spiritual abuse

I am a church minister, I am part of the union for faithworkers and a rep, I have raised the issue of problems with the system to deal with discipline and complaints within the UK Methodist Church.  I have been part of a multifaith conference discussing spiritual abuse, where religious beliefs are a cover for un loving and even abusive attitudes.

Why? Because I have personal experience of bullying within my faith community, because I have known others to also suffer, because the systems to report this fall way, way too far short of facing up to those who bully in the name of faith.

I am a church minister, I have mental health struggles. I want to lobby for proper understanding of such issues. I have encountered those who gave me permission and acknowledged that mental heath wasn’t a failure. The student from another church in the circuit when I was at uni who spoke about being a Christian and depressed was the first step in that, and I cannot recall her name but spoke to me before I would ever have admitted to my own issues.

I have encountered a big barn church near here that sells a booklet written by its retired minister that says depression is self pity and that Christians should look to Jesus and reject psychology and psychiatry as of the devil (since Jung and Freud were not Christian).  Sorry but psychiatric care and medication are what enable my stability, and would they ever dare to say the same for physical conditions like cancer, even if those who discovered medications are not Christian? (And by the way psychology has developed way beyond Yung and Freudian ideas anyway).

Then I hear that decades ago, when alone in a distant place, someone close to me who was experiencing wobbles in their faith journey, and went to the person who was there to support and help was told that if don’t feel that fit the Christian mould then going to hell. Knowing that this person came home suicidal, that surviving attempts on their life they then lived decades feeling unworthy of God’s love….     All my understanding of spiritual abuse is clearly there; all the failures to understand not just mental health but the normal ebbs and flows, stresses and strains of life, all the failures I have experienced in the church, and through others’ journeys, are encapsulated in that one dismissal of a hurting person.   I wonder if that person who listened and replied in such a way went home feeling that they had testified to God’s Word and therefore had had a good day at work? Yet they left someone feeling that they could not be good enough for God and suicidal.

Matthew 18 v 6-7

⁶ “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. ⁷ Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!

 Sadly such millstone bearers are all too common in our churches and in our structures. And our structures are too scared to call people out – keeping the peace being held as more valuable than calling out injustice, bullying, causing others to stumble, and even to the point of collapse.

When we sit in our church buildings and wonder where the people are we need to ask ‘what sort of God have we revealed to them?’, ‘how have they been hurt by the church, by Christians?’ and ‘what in our life as church is strong enough for them to dare to trust us?’

I believe in God who has been part of my journey, through physical and mental health iussues. I give thanks for those who were there to say that I was not alone and without trying to fix me. I could not always sense God with me, but I was not judged in that uncertainty, others held me in their faith when I could not trust in my own faith, because I could not process my own chaos.   

Yet so many are not held as they are, but told they need to show their faith in a certain way. As with the person I referred to, this can leave wounds open for years, people spiritually abused by those that should be there to support them.  Sadly it is more common than we like to admit.  

 

What is truth?

 What is truth? So Governor Pilate asked Jesus when the crowd cried for his death with no evidence of wrongdoing.

It was also the text of my first ever sermon when I was a university student and training as a lay preacher within the UK Methodist Church. Normally you start by sharing parts of the service with your mentor but since I came to the planning meeting with 3 points I got given the sermon.

I can't recall what I had to say about it, though somewhere I may have a floppy disc with evidence.  However it is a powerful question that is very important today and in the light of the US election of Nov 2020 the issue of truth versus claims is critical.

By a coincidence of scheduling this past week as well as bringing the US election count brought the BBC programme about lies in history. How many of us 'know' that in the French Revolution Maria Antoinette said of the hungry masses 'Let them eat cake' - except apparently she didn't. And the storming of the Bastille was not a grand liberation of political prisoners but 7 random men, and that actually the revolutionaries worked with the monarchy and elites for a couple of years before killing them. 

So to the 2020 US election - despite the rampant claims of the Trump loyalists, that there has been fraud on a massive scale, no evidence has passed muster in any of their legal claims. Yet the reality seems meaningless to upto 20 % of the American population.  80% of Americans are reported to accept the result of a Biden win, which leaves 1 in 5 still in doubt despite the thousands of votes in favour in each crucial state. In past election reviews the number of votes changed/removed were in the tens or just about 100s whilst the vote in favour of Biden was in tens of thousands.  

But what is truth? Is it the people who shout the loudest? No smoke without fire and all that. If one person can cast doubt on the truth as recognised by every other channel, where is our sense of truth?  Is truth about evidence or who shouts the loudest? Is doubt overwhelming even when it is proven wrong? 

 What about those accused of wrongdoing? It is embedded in our understanding of justice that we are 'innocent until proven guilty', yet the culture of trial by social media is such that someone is guilty by any association with someone else who is vaguely linked to a crime. 

Surely truth has a value of its own - not about claims but about evidence, but then as history is written by the victors in their own image we now seem to have arrived at a point where 'current reality' is now written as 'those who shout loudest'.  Maybe it was ever so, but the wider range of the loudest voice through modern technology brings a louder voice, regardless of what is actually truth.