Just Imagine

I note that Cee lo Green has been getting in trouble with the musical purists for messing around with John Lennon's lyrics while singing "Imagine" on New Year's Eve. As you may know, Lennon's original, which has become something of an anthem for secularism, contains the line "imagine... nothing to kill or die for, and no religions too". Green decided to change this about a bit and, on live, national TV, sang: "imagine.. and all religions true."

I suppose the question is, which version is more unacceptable to orthodox Christianity? The first is clearly unacceptable. It is a straight denial of the existence of God.

Imagine there's no heaven.

It's easy if you try.

No hell below us,

Above us only sky.

Imagine all the people

Livin' for today.

You, you may say I'm a dreamer,

But I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one.

Very nice, I'm sure. A celebration of atheism. Not a bad tune, but the lyrics are beyond the pale for Evangelical Christianity. I remember someone asking if they could play the song at a wedding. They had never taken any notice of the words, they just liked the tune. The answer was, "No!" in case you're interested.

But it's worth wondering whether the bigger threat isn't posed by Cee lo Green's alternative. You can't tell from the clip whether he is singing "all religions true" or "all religion's true" (i.e. all religion is true). Either way, he seems to be advocating a radical inclusion that is equally offensive to Evangelical Christianity. If Green is really claiming that all religions are equally true, then he is ignoring their competing claims. This is the universalism that has infected the mainline churches and undermined evangelism. If all religions are true, then we have no business seeking to convince anyone of the claims of Christ. It is not possible for us to praise Jesus Christ as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" because Buddha is just as much a way to God. Every truth claim in the Bible becomes relative since we assert the metanarrative of universalism. Christ is not the way, he is, at best, a way. How dare we judge another person's religious experience?

Perhaps it is this non-judgmentalism that lies at the heart of Green's attempt to re-write Lennon's lyrics. I have a better idea. Just dump them. Neither atheism nor post-modern relativism can answer the longing in the heart. That longing can only be satisfied by Jesus Christ. No amount of re-writing is going to change that.

Freud's Unfinished Business

Here's an interesting snippet about everyone's favorite psycho-analyst, Sigmund Freud. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Freudian psycho-analysis. There are hidden meanings in just about everything. Indeed, many of our adult malaises are caused by the suppression of childhood memories, particularly if the memories we choose not to remember are of events that were traumatic. Freud's treatment often involved the uncovering of suppressed memories (some would say the invention of false memories), allowing the analyst to help the patient to deal with unfinished business.
Freud was brought up as an orthodox Jew. As a child, his father would often read to young Sigmund from a Philippson Hebrew Bible, illustrated with woodcuts. In Freud's father's Bible, the illustrations had been colored in by a child's hand, presumably by Sigmund. It was this Hebrew Bible that Freud's father presented to his son on his 35th birthday.


For all of his adult life, Freud was a militant atheist. He rejected Judaism. Even though his wife was Jewish, he refused to allow her to light Sabbath candles in their home. On one occasion, he threatened to become a Protestant rather than partcipate in a Jewish wedding ceremony. It was an empty threat. His philosophy would no more allow him to be a Protestant than a Jew. It was a position Freud held until the end of his life.
Ana-Maria Rizzuto writes that, when his father died, Freud began to collect small antique figurines. His study contained many; his desk always had a number of statuettes upon it. Freud spoke of his collection with great fondness; he even bequeathed it to his daughter, Anna.
Here's the interesting aspect of this story. Rizzuto tells us that the figures bore a striking resemblance to the woodcut illustrations in his father's Hebrew Bible.


Is it possible that Freud was using them as substitutes for religious devotion? Was the father of psycho-analysis suppressing his impulses? Did Freud have unfinished business? Perhaps the figurines represent the pleasure he had once experienced while hearing the stories of the people of Israel at his father's knee? Who knows! But, Freud taught a great deal about the human capacity for self-deception. It seems at least possible that Freud was deceiving himself. In his professional life he denied the possibility of God; but he surrounded himself with objects that reminded him of his religious upbringing. Did the arch-atheist have, deep down, a heart that longed for God?

Wishing Doesn't Make It True

Is our desire for God anything more than wishing Him into existence? It's an old argument that has been going the rounds since Ludwig Feuerbach. I recently came across the debate still festering on http://www.opposingviews.com/

In a way, I'm surprised that the debate is ongoing. Over a hundred years ago, Eduard von Hartmann pointed out the logical fallacy in Feuerbach's argument, but that doesn't stop the anti-God lobby from using it. Alister McGrath quotes von Hartmann in one of his books, "It is perfectly true that nothing exists merely because we wish it, but it is not true that something cannot exist if we wish it." Things do not exist simply because we desire them. But it does not follow that, because we desire something, it does not exist. Feuerbach's argument is a logical fallacy. What's the argument about?

Feuerbach wrote that religion is simply a projection of our wishes. We would like the world to be ordered, for the good to go to heaven and the evil to go to the other place, and so we wish it, and convince ourselves that it is true. In The Essence of Christianity (1841) Feuerbach argues that the idea of God arises from human experience. Human beings long for something beyond themselves, for immortality, for justice, for love. And so we translate our experience of longing onto an illusory plane and create the idea of God. In a sense, as Sigmund Freud was to argue, religion is a childish response to our dependence upon our parents. When we continue the culture of dependence into our adult lives, we substitute God for our earthly father. If only we would grow up we would realize that our search for spiritual reality is a study of our own experience. There is no external reality to be discovered.

Feuerbach has been very influential, though few remember his name today. Karl Marx adopted his critique of religion. Freud promoted it; in his The Future of Illusion (1927) Freud said that religious ideas are "illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind." It's an argument that is still rolled out with great regularity today.

You can't really argue with Feuerbach, or his disciples. He simply states his hypothesis as gospel, and that's the end of the argument. Religion is wish-fulfillment. Nothing more. With a condescending smile the popular psychologist encourages us to grow up and grow out of the delusion. Only then will we be free.

Feuerbach's arguments are predicated upon the assumption that all religious experience is actually human experience. Specifically, as Schliermacher wrote, religion is based upon the human experience of being dependent. This was a popular idea at the time but, as many have pointed out, Feuerbach ignores the doctrine of revelation. As Christians we don't have to rely upon our subjective interpretations; God confronts us through His Word. He is prior to and independent of our experience. We aren't just listening to ourselves. God speaks. More to the point He often says things that we probably we would not wish to hear, especially when He calls us to repentance, to turn from sin and to turn to Christ. How can it be wish-fulfillment when it would be easier all around if God did not exist, if there was no judgment to fear?

Most of the time, though, Feuerbach doesn't depend upon arguments. He just insists that he is right. Curiously, it's like arguing with a charismatic who claims a direct line to God. There can be no argument when all opposing viewpoints have been eliminated, a priori, as nonsense. Even the glib, self-satisfied smile is the same, "Of course you wouldn't understand."

What we understand is that just because an argument keeps being repeated, that doesn't make it right. When I was at Birmingham University a young girl, who used to attend the meetings of the Christian Union, suddenly stopped coming. Eventually we found out why. She was dating an undergraduate from the Department of Psychology. This genius had read a little Freud and decided that he had no further need of "the god hypothesis." And, because he wanted her to do away with her "bourgeois, oppressive, Victorian morality," he persuaded her that her religion had been a projection of her insecurity. She responded, not by slugging him, but by agreeing. Rejecting the moral code of her childhood she was free to debate philosophy between the sheets. I don't know what became of her. I pray that she woke up.

Of course, the irony is that she created a new reality on the basis of her wishes. She wanted to be found attractive to this young Lothario, (and for her brain not just for her looks), so she wished for a world in which her constraints evaporated. And they did. She mistook anthropology for theology. She thought that she had argued herself out of a need for God. But God is not dependent upon her needs, neither is He perturbed by her denials of His existence. She may wish for a world without God, but wishing does not make it true!

Why should we be expected to abandon the Christian faith just because Ludwig Feuerbach tells us that we are projecting our wishes instead of experiencing God? It's still a very unconvincing argument, no matter who tells you otherwise.

Doubting Doubt

A few weeks ago I read A.N.Wilson's splendid little book London: A Short History. This is really an architectural history of the capital city; I highly recommend it. I thought, at the time, that the author was not as scathing about London's spiritual heritage as I had expected. In fact, in places I found a wistful longing for the age of faith.

I had expected a tirade. Perhaps, like Ingersoll, Wilson would have lamented the ignorance displayed by a forest of steeples; or, like Cowper there would have been some oblique reference to "dark, satanic mills," that is, the non-conformist chapels of the early Victorian age. Instead I found Wilson praising Wren's efforts to rebuild London's churches following the Great Fire of 1666, or lamenting their loss during the Blitz. And this surprised me. Surely, this was the same A.N.Wilson who poured scorn on the Christian faith in God's Funeral, or ridiculed anti-intellectualism in Jesus: A Life?

Indeed, it was. An apologist for a post-Christian worldview, Wilson had moved from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism to scepticism. His views were widely read and very influential. So, why didn't he take any potshots at Christians in London?

The answer may be that A.N.Wilson was in the process of returning to the Christian faith. According to an interesting article in the New Statesman, Wilson has now turned 180 degrees, and has decided that Christ is risen. He atrributes this to "the confidence I have gained with age."

Good for him. It takes courage to admit that you have been wrong. It was courageous of him, in the first place, to renounce the faith in which he had been raised, and to concentrate upon his doubts. Too many people do this as an excuse for their behavior. In Bertrand Russell's autobiography he admits that one of the reasons he rejected the Christian faith, as a student, was that it was easier for him to get girls that way (and, presumably, to ditch the guilt). I've come across any number of people who have suddenly had doubts at exactly the time that they are tempted to abandon Christian morality. It's strange that they often speak so fervently of intellectual struggles, whereas in reality the struggle usually had more to do with another part of their anatomy. The sadness is, of course, that once renounced it's hard to return. Hard, but not impossible, as A.N.Wilson has now proven.

Often, those who really do doubt the central tenets of the Christian faith (as opposed to those who say that they do for ulterior motives), grow tired of living within a system that seems to be made up, entirely, of negations. There may be something exhilerating about saying, "I think Christ died on the cross, and his bones are buried somewhere in Palestine!" But with what is the resurrection faith to be replaced? Like those Victorian secularists who returned to the faith of their youth, A.N.Wilson has grown tired of nihilistic atheism. Now he says that those who doubt God are like "people who have no ear for music or who have never been in love."

I hope that Wilson will write a book about his return to faith, and that he will take the time and trouble to counter the arguments he used in some of his earlier works. Now it's time for the Holy Spirit to work on a few others - like Bart Ehrman and Richard Dawkins. Could it be that the tide is beginning to turn, and that Dover Beach will soon be covered once again?

See New Statesman article http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism

Also, more popular article in Britain's Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169145/Religion-hatred-Why-longer-cowed-secular-zealots.html

And, for those who need it: Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/writings/doverbeach.html

Angels in the Gloom

Anne Perry's book, bearing this title, is the third in her series following the Reavley family during the First World War. The main character is Captain Joseph Reavley, a chaplain who has received the Military Cross for bravery in rescuing the wounded at Ypres. He is sent home to recouperate, following an injury, and there becomes embroiled in scullduggery concerning a secret naval weapon that could turn the tide of war. Perry's presentation of the characters is largely sympathetic. It makes a pleasant change to come across a representation of a 'man of the cloth' which is not horribly caricatured. Unfortunately, she reverts to type in her description of Kerr, the village vicar, who is a sorry excuse for a clergyman - weak, bumbling, and totally ineffectual. It's easy to see, also, that Perry has a horror of warfare. She does not glorify bloodshed, as do so many others. Neither does she minimise the courage of the common soldier.

What suprises me about the story is the theological hinge concerning the existence of God. Kerr, who has never been anywhere near the Front, cracks under the strain of comforting those who have lost loved ones. He finds himself with nothing to say, beyond inappropriate platitudes about King, Country, and Glory. Reavely, on the other hand, goes as far to accept, on at least two occasions, that he is not sure about the existence of God. But then he goes on to state his rationale: It is not about us. When we bring comfort to the bereaved we are not to think about our doubts, but their needs.

In the end, though he may entertain reservations about whether or not God is there, or interested in the affairs of men, Reavley contends that he is absolutely sure of this: that the things for which Christ stood, like honor and truth and love, are true for all times.

I've never actually heard anyone expound this doctrine; perhaps it was more prevalent in an age which actually knew what Christ stood for. It sounds a little like the religionless Christianity that gained some adherents in the 1960's when, building on the works of Friedrich Neitzsche, Thomas Altizer and others wrote about "Christian Atheism." Altizer taught that it is no longer possible to believe in a transcendent god, but that the spirit of Christ is immanent wherever his people gather. In this way, we may continue to revere Christ, even without God.

(By the way, don't you just love the duct tape holding this guy's raincoat together?)

Here's the problem - and not just for Captain Reavley - Christ believed in God, indeed He understood Himself to be the only begotten Son of the Father. When the disciples came asking who He was He accepted Peter's belief, that He was the Christ, the son of the living God; neither did He rebuke Thomas who greeted his risen Savior as "My Lord and my God."

Maybe Anne Perry does not accept the divinity of Christ; apparently she is a Mormon. But even this does not solve the problem. Even if Christ was not "the image of the invisible God," that same God was still His primary point of reference. Jesus of Nazareth was who He was because of how He understood His relationship with His Heavenly Father. So, to take concepts like honor and truth and love, and to ascribe them to a godless Jesus, is do strip them of meaning. What does 'love' mean without the narrative of redemption? We can give the word any meaning we choose, but we cannot force our interpretation upon Jesus. And if we attempt to divorce elements of His teaching from His understanding of the nature of God, we do violence to the Gospel.

Is there a warning there for today's church? When our understanding of the Christian faith is more anthropological then theological, then it is fundamentally flawed.