Think about someone you know well—a friend or relative, say. Now list the attributes that make them unique. You could give the physical attributes that would help me find them at the airport—gender and age, height and weight, hair color and style, and so on—but you know much more than that.

You might know how they shake hands and if they like to hug. You might know their favorite music and sports, their favorite foods and food allergies, which TV shows they like and which they hate, their annoying habits, the names of their pets, their medical issues, where they went to school and where they’ve lived, and their past jobs. You may have helped them through a tough patch in life or vice versa.

You recognize their voice and their laugh. You have funny stories you could tell at their retirement party and poignant stories for their funeral—or vice versa.

If you have a “personal relationship with Jesus,” can you say the same thing? Can you list attributes about Jesus? If so, do you imagine that they’re the same as those of other Christians? If not, why call this a relationship?

Christians today only know Jesus from the artwork. But give your Jesus a haircut, a shave, and modern clothes. As Richard Russell (whose essay inspired this post) observed about Jesus, “You couldn’t pick him out of a 1-person lineup.” Jesus is nothing but a costume.

The many flavors of “relationship”

Consider a sequence of relationships, starting with the strongest.

• 1. Start with the one described above, an intimate, long-term relationship with a family member or close friend.
• 2. Now we begin to degrade the relationship. Consider a less-intimate relationship with someone you’ve met face to face. This might be neighbor, co-worker, acquaintance from a party, or just the parent of one of your kid’s classmates who you recognize but whose name you’ve forgotten. You have strong evidence that you met someone, though you have few intimate details.
• 3. This is a voice- or text-only relationship such as a pen pal or online friend. Though these relationships can be intimate, no one would consider them equivalent to a face-to-face relationship. They can be spoofed (I wrote about the unfortunate Manti Teʻo here).
• 4. Finally, drop even this channel of communication so that there is no objective evidence of any intelligence on the other end of the relationship except a mirror of yourself. You can fool yourself quite easily (and if you’re responding, “No, I can’t!” then you see how unassailable your own flawed ideas can be). Maybe there really is an intelligence that refuses to communicate any way except this one, but this is indistinguishable from an imaginary friend or delusion.

We know what person and relationship mean. We can look them up. “Relationship” #4 is unlike any actual relationship with an actual person. My guess is that we’re seeing what has been called Shermer’s Law: smart Christians using their substantial intellect to defend beliefs they adopted for indefensible reasons. They might be Christians who adopted that worldview from their environment, but as adults, they know that “cuz I was raised that way” is no intellectual justification for their Christian belief. They can’t admit to having an imaginary friend. Instead, they handwave that they have a relationship with an actual person, no less real than their relationship with buddies at the gym or book club.

We see this definition fiddling with other positive words—good, just, and merciful, for example. These are great words to apply to their favorite deity, but, given some of God’s shenanigans, Christians must “improve” the definitions. Sorry—that’s not how words are used.

Perversely, relationship #4 is the one that apologist William Lane Craig insists is the strongest and the least in need of evidence (I’ve written more here). Only in religion, where every day is Opposite Day, could a lack of evidence be heralded as a virtue.

The only reason you keep [claiming
your “deep, personal relationship with Jesus Christ”]
is because it’s the slogan of the club
that some con artist or charlatan has suckered you into believing
you really want to be a member of.
— Richard S. Russell

This post was inspired by “That Deep, Personal Relationship with Jesus Christ” by Richard S. Russell.

Image credit: Don Addis

Christians are modern people, about as intelligent as any other group, and yet they jump into a world of ancient mythology and act like it’s real. They’re like trekkers who dress up as Vulcans or Klingons at a Star Trek convention. Or as Imperial Storm Troopers or Wolverine at Comicon or Dragon*con.

The difference, of course, is that faux Vulcans or Klingons know that it’s just for fun. They might spend lots of time and money on their costumes. They might learn to speak Vulcan or Klingon. But at the end of the conference, they put conventional clothes back on and reenter conventional society. They realize it’s pretend.

In a similar way, Christians leave church and reenter conventional society. Some know (or suspect) that the mythology isn’t real, like a trekker who’s in it for the pageantry and camaraderie, but many Christians do live the mythology.

Wisdom from M*A*S*H

This reminds me of the M*A*S*H television episode where Radar O’Reilly tells Sidney the psychiatrist that he has a teddy bear and wonders if he’s crazy.

“Me and my teddy bear are very close,” Radar said. “I mean … sometimes I talk to it.”

“Does it ever talk back?” Sidney asked.

“No!”

“You know how many people write letters to Romeo and Juliet and think that ‘I Love Lucy’ is real?” Sidney said. “Those people are living nice, safe lives, with towels and sheets. They’re not up to their ankles in mud, blood, and death the way you are.”

Sidney predicts that Radar probably won’t need the teddy bear once he leaves Korea. In Radar’s last episode, this prophecy is fulfilled.

You can get through life thinking that “I Love Lucy” or some other TV sitcom is real, or that food is produced at the grocery store, or that electricity is made somewhere on the other side of the electric plug but with no idea of how. You can imagine that 9/11 was a government conspiracy, that the Apollo moon landing was a hoax, that homeopathy works, or that we live in the end times.

Or that God exists.

Society’s increasing complexity insulates us from unpleasant reality

During medieval times and before, people did know where food came from (and horseshoes and wagons and cathedrals and any other element of their lives) because if they didn’t participate in that industry personally, they’d at least have seen how it was done.

Though they had a thorough grasp of the simple technology of their world, they also believed lots of nutty stuff, religion included. But, of course, they didn’t have an alternative. They didn’t have modern science to explain away the superstition and poorly evidenced explanations.

Medieval society was harsh and unforgiving, but modern life coddles people. It’s society with air bags and training wheels. Though they have little excuse, people can hold their unsupportable beliefs with little penalty. You want to imagine that that illness can be cured with prayer? Go for it—society will be here to catch you if you fall.

They can see science and technology deliver nine times but still doubt it the tenth time, and they can see religion fail nine times but still expect it to succeed the tenth time.

Society insulates Christians from reality as if they were Klingons at a convention. I just wish that, like the Klingons, they realized that it’s all just pretend.

God is really just the manager of a call center
with shitty customer service.
— hector jones, commenter

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 5/29/12.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

What Would Jesus Do?

The WWJD acronym became popular in the nineties as a way to imagine Jesus approaching a particular problem or opportunity. Would Jesus smoke that joint? Would he skip his homework? Would he stop to help that person? Many young Christians wore a WWJD bracelet to keep the question in mind.

The problem is that this question delivers contradictory answers. Ask Fred Phelps what Jesus would do, and he would’ve said with confidence that Jesus would be preaching, “God hates fags.” Ask Harold Camping, and he would’ve said that Jesus would be warning people about the coming end. Pro-lifers think that Jesus would be picketing abortion clinics. Televangelists say that Jesus would want you to donate lots of money.

Many conservative Christians think that Jesus would reduce taxes, encourage Creationism in public schools, push laws against same-sex marriage, and deny climate change. Many liberal Christians think that he’d celebrate the scientific consensus, support healthcare provided by society (another word for “government”), encourage sex education to minimize unwanted pregnancies, and helping the neediest people.

Pick any contentious social issue—abortion, same-sex marriage, gun rights, euthanasia, our obligations to the needy, and so on—and you’ll have millions of thoughtful Christians taking each of the many contradictory positions.

What good is it?

WWJD is a useless slogan because it’s ambiguous. It’s a synonym for “In your most moral frame of mind, what would you do?” The Jesus of the Bible is a ventriloquist’s dummy who says whatever you want him to say.

BOB: Say Jesus, I was thinking of putting a little extra in the offering plate on Sunday for the food bank.

JESUS (in squeaky voice): Good thinking, Bob! After all, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

BOB: And speaking of church, I thought that Frank from across the street was a decent guy until I found out that he’s a Mormon. I think I should give him the silent treatment from now on.

JESUS: You’re right there, Bob! Remember that “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.”

The problem is pretending that Jesus really is feeding you lines. Dropping this pretense may feel like tightrope walking without a net, but “Jesus” in this case is just a synonym for “conscience.”

If “WWJD” were to become a synonym for “use your best judgment to find the most moral solution to society’s problems,” what’s not to like?

Two hands working
can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
— Unknown

Photo credit: sonofgodresources.com