Category: Cultural Observations

Posted on

Planned Parenthood and the Banality of Evil

By Jim Spiegel

Another video exposing Planned Parenthood’s practice of selling fetal tissue was released today.  You can view it here.  The video features a taped conversation with Mary Gatter, President of the Planned Parenthood Medical Director’s Council, recorded incognito by people with the Center for Medical Progress.  (In case you missed last week’s video, featuring Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services, you can check it out here).

I was as floored by this new video as I was by the one last week.  Both are excellent examples of what Hannah Arendt (in her study of Adolf Eichmann and the Nazi death camps) called the “banality of evil.”  This is the idea that many horribly wicked acts are performed not with malicious or sadistic intent so much as a blithe adherence to routine procedure within an institutional structure or political system which enables or perhaps even arranges for such evil.  Edward Herman sums it up this way:  “Arendt’s thesis was that people who carry out unspeakable crimes, like Eichmann, a top administrator in the machinery of the Nazi death camps, may not be crazy fanatics at all, but rather ordinary individuals who simply accept the premises of their state and participate in any ongoing enterprise with the energy of good bureaucrats.”

That seems like an apt description of Nucatola, Gatter, and presumably other operatives for Planned Parenthood—an organization that we all help to fund with our tax dollars.

Posted on

Post-Obergefell: What Might be Next for LGBT Activists and Marriage Traditionalists

By Jim Spiegel

Now that LGBT dreams of “marriage equality” have been fulfilled with last week’s Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, what comes next for LGBT activists?  In this New York Times piece, Jodi Kantor reports a “twinge of loss” that comes with this historic victory for their cause.  After all, theirs is a community that has defined itself in terms of its oppression and thus as an “outsider culture.”  While Kantor’s article merely contemplates this question, I think it is worth considering the likely next step for the LGBT activists: counter-oppression.  As we have seen over the last several decades, with each victory in the legislatures and courts, LGBT activists have only more aggressively sought further legal changes in their favor.  Should we expect them to proceed any differently now?  On the contrary, I think it is more realistic to expect that with the backing of federal law, they will be emboldened to ensure that their “oppressors” (i.e., proponents of traditional marriage) be made the new “outsider culture,” even if this must be done by force.

Hints of this direction appeared in another New York Times article a couple months back, this one authored by Frank Bruni.  In this op-ed, Bruni quotes gay philanthropist Mitchell Gold as proposing that church leaders should be made to “take homosexuality off the sin list.”  Bizarre as this suggestion is, Bruni declares that “his commandment is worthy — and warranted.  All of us, no matter our religious traditions, should know better than to tell gay people that they’re an offense.”

From www.cathnewsusa.com
From www.cathnewsusa.com

Perhaps this will be the next rallying point for LGBT activists—to fight for censorship of those who would question the moral legitimacy of same-sex relationships.  If achieved, this would entail severe proscribing of religious freedom.  Perhaps this is why four of the Supreme Court justices issued such dire warnings in their dissenting opinions in the Obergefell case, announcing the dangers this decision represents for religious traditionalists, with Judge Scalia even calling the decision “a threat to democracy.”  Strong, chilling words.

In a Time Magazine piece in response to the Supreme Court ruling, Rod Dreher has suggested that Christians “must now learn to live as exiles in our own country.”  What this amounts to, says Dreher, is taking the “Benedict Option,” as described by Alasdair MacIntyre in his prescient 1982 book After Virtue.  In other words, we must essentially go underground in order to preserve the values of our community.  The trouble is, of course, that things are very different for 21st century U.S. Christians than they were for 6th century Benedictines.  Socially, economically, and technologically, we are too entangled to achieve anything like a true Benedict Option.  To paraphrase the great boxer Joe Louis, we can run but we can’t hide.

What this means is that if LGBT counter-oppression is coming, we’ll simply have to face it—with as much courage and integrity as we can manage.  For many, such courageous resolve will be too demanding.  And this will undoubtedly mean a sudden realization that, well, the sexual pluralists were right after all.  For 4000 years of Judeo-Christian history all of the greatest ethicists and theologians in our tradition were mistaken about same-sex relationships, as are the overwhelming majority of orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims today.  With this admission, the forbidden conviction will be “off the sin list,” just as ordered, and gone will be any worries about persecution from legal authorities.

For others who stand firm, this may mean loss of jobs, the death of businesses, the end of educational institutions, jail time or even worse.  There is, after all, a price to be paid for certain convictions in a culture where the “oppressed” become the oppressors.  And where decades, even centuries of suffering under the tyrannical rule of a majority opinion can justify imposing even greater suffering on those who persist as proponents of that same opinion when it has become, at last, a vulnerable minority view.  Or so some may reason.  All for the sake of “justice,” of course.

Posted on

Dolezal, Social Constructionism, and the Loss of Meaning

By Jim Spiegel

There has been quite a stir over last week’s revelation that Spokane, Washington NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal had lied about her race.  Yesterday, Dolezal resigned from her post.  Check out her Today Show interview this morning with Matt Lauer.

What you see in this interview is a reductio ad absurdum of social constructionism—the view that human beings actually construct reality via language.

As I watched the interview, noting the ways that Dolezal has decided to revise the meanings of various terms for her own purposes, I wondered, why should we think we understand what she means by any of the words she is using?  Might she be redefining every single term she uses, in fact?  Maybe so, for all we know.  So the entire conversation becomes meaningless.

This is what happens when we decide that terms and concepts are completely open to redefinition.  Human communication becomes impossible.

Thursday jumped loudly over the moon.

Chorgle epp yot yiggle snood, de freem ort lop ding wid.

2 + 2 = 5

Posted on

Recent Articles on Religious Belief and (the lack of) Intelligence

By Jim Spiegel

Recently, Touchstone published an article of mine entitled “Dumb Sheep” in which I address the common accusation (at least among atheists and religious skeptics) that Christians are less intelligent than non-religious folks.

Coincidentally, shortly after this was published a former student of mine named Ryan Woods alerted me to a recent publication of his entitled “The Skeptic’s Smart-Person Problem,” which appeared in Marginalia.  This is a tremendous piece, which is as enjoyable to read from a stylistic standpoint as it is informative about the issues he discusses.

While I’m at it, let me recommend a couple other recent articles relevant to this theme.  Here is Paul Miller’s Review of Mark Noll’s contemporary classic The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.  Two decades after its publication, Noll’s book is still worth reflecting on.  And here is a piece by Andrew Byers’ entitled  “Is Christianity Anti-Intellectual” from Relevant Magazine.

Posted on

Reality Check Questions for a Narcissistic Culture

By Jim Spiegel

I’ve been reflecting on our narcissistic culture lately, and as I’ve considered that I am part of that culture and just as prone to self-absorption as anyone, I decided to create some self-probing questions as a sort of reality check.  And so, gentle reader, I share them with you:

  1. You know how you think that most of your troubles in life are not your fault?  Have you considered that you’re possibly wrong about that?
  2. Is your life really more difficult than most?  Or does it just seem that way because you’re self-centered?
  3. You know those sins of other people that you refuse to forgive?  Do you really think that you haven’t done things equally bad or worse?
  4. Think about your greatest accomplishment in life.  How much are other people actually impressed by that?  Do they even care?
  5. Think of all the times that you’ve been disappointed in someone because you discovered they weren’t as interesting or respectable as you initially thought they were.  Have you considered that many people have been similarly disappointed in you?
  6. You know how you keep hoping that your life will get easier?  The odds are that it won’t, and your life might actually get harder.
  7. Think about the average human being.  Have you considered that in thinking about that person, you’re thinking about yourself?
  8. And if you’re actually better than most people at some things, do you really believe that people like you more because of that?  Do you like people more when they’re more talented than you are?
  9. Consider how much you disagree with other people about so many issues, even really important ones.  Have you considered that the odds are good that you’re the one whose beliefs are false about many of those issues?
  10. Why do you care so much about the way you look?  Do you really think that other people care that much about your appearance?
  11. Have you considered that in just a few decades you’ll be dead, and probably just a few people will remember you and the things you accomplished?  And even if some folks do remember you fondly, what good will that do you?
  12. Have you considered that when the news of your death gets around, some people may actually be happy that you’re finally gone?

Have a nice day!

Posted on

Thoughts on the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act

By Jim Spiegel

Recently there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).  This act declares, “a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion…[unless it] (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”  The law is very similar to more than twenty other such RFRA laws in other states, as well as a 1993 federal law, which states, “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.”

A few days ago I participated in a panel discussion of the issue at Taylor University.  In addition to some substantive Q&A with the audience, those of us on the panel addressed several prepared questions.  Below are my responses.

What is the nature of ‘religious freedom’?  

Legally speaking, religious freedom is the right to practice one’s faith without interference or censure by the government or fellow citizens.  The First Amendment says Congress cannot “prohibit the free exercise” of religion.  Morally speaking, we may agree that such freedom should be granted by governing authorities just to the extent that practicing one’s religion does not violate the basic rights of other people.  (This is also essentially affirmed in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789.)  And it is here that things get messy.  For some religious practices could be construed as violating someone’s rights.

What do laws like the Indiana RFRA aim to affect as far as religious freedom is concerned?

Although the principal context of the 1993 Federal RFRA concerned government encroachment onto Native American sacred land, this law and similar state laws have more generally been taken to aim at protecting a religious person’s freedom to abide by their religion’s core moral convictions.  In more recent years, as regards the whole issue of same-sex marriage and religious folks affirming the traditional Judeo-Christian view of marriage, this has been taken to include not being forced to commit the sin of complicity with immoral acts.

What does this legislation actually allow? 

This legislation allows a person the freedom to practice their faith without “substantial burden” being placed on them by the government.  And, in the legal context, a business or corporation may be construed as a “person”.  In last year’s landmark “Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores” Supreme Court decision, it was decided that for-profit corporations may hold religious beliefs.

What is it about the Indiana RFRA as opposed to the federal 1993 version that has provoked such ire?

This question commits the fallacy of complex question.  Did this law in particular provoke “such ire” or were there other factors that initiated and fanned the flames of controversy?  Since there is the 1993 federal law and more than thirty states have similar laws and legal provisions, many believe it is the latter.  Some speculate that the Indiana law was simply chosen by LGBT activists for practical reasons to generate national public attention to this issue—perhaps to prime the pump of public opinion as the Supreme Court is currently deliberating a case pertaining to the same-sex marriage issue.  And much of the controversy also seems to have been media driven.

Does the language of this particular version legally permit the service discrimination of certain minorities beyond the circumstances of participation in religious ritual and ceremony?

I don’t see how it could, since there is nothing about being a minority per se that presents a challenge to any reasonable religious practice.  Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the RFRA has not, until now, been controversial or faced any fundamental court challenges in the 22 years of its existence at the federal or state levels.

Do individuals have the moral right to treat individuals differently due to their sexual orientation or gender identity if such treatment is based on religious reasons?

I don’t think there is any theological basis for moral discrimination against people.  But I do think there are strong moral-theological reasons for discriminating against certain behaviors.  For example, a refusal to participate in some activities may be necessary to avoid moral complicity with behaviors essentially proscribed by one’s religion—for instance, if I am asked to support a same-sex wedding by providing a service such as a photography or baking.  But notice that even this doesn’t amount to discriminating on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation so much as it discriminates against the action of performing a same-sex wedding or, more specifically, the lifestyle choices that such a ceremony celebrates and even religiously enshrines.  Keep in mind that when performed by a minister in a church context such weddings are religious ceremonies.  So to insist that any person, such as a baker or photographer, lend their professional support to this sort of religious ceremony is essentially to insist that they embrace or approve of a particular religious practice.  So, ironically, in such contexts the RFRA actually protects people from religion or certain religious practices.

Should we be concerned about the manner in which the Indiana government responded to social pressure, ultimately amending the bill in the wake of serious backlash from national business? Isn’t this undemocratic?

Some say it amounts to public blackmail.  I would say that, generally speaking, the freedom to exert such pressures is part of the democratic process.  But that doesn’t mean they are always reasonable or coherent.  In this case, there are reasons to think it is arbitrary, because so many states and the federal government have similar laws, and hypocritical, because so many business leaders who have protested already do business in states that have such laws.

Is the ability of large businesses to effect such change a dangerous precedent regarding freedom of expression in general?

I think the more dangerous precedent is how such hysteria and duplicitous public criticism of the RFRA has gone unchecked and critiqued by major media and journalistic groups.

The ACLU has remarked that this legislation is a “solution in search of a problem” – Is there good reason for this legislation to exist in Indiana at this time?

I think so.  The GLBT movement and its rhetoric has advanced to the point that those who even voice dissent on the morality of same-sex relations are demonized or ostracized without any discussion or debate.  We’re approaching a state of dogma (again, about the moral issue) in the American cultural centers of power (federal government, state and local government, major media, public education, and entertainment industries) that would terrify and astound (the great proponent of liberty) John Stuart Mill, not to mention the U.S. founding fathers.  Where there is public suppression of views, political oppression of people is never far away.

Today we seem to be moving toward a situation where public expression of the traditional Judeo-Christian view of marriage and sexuality are essentially censored (suppressed via public pressure), and this is creating by contrast a new form of heresy.  If you don’t tow the line regarding the new progressive sexuality, then you are a moral heretic (never mind that your view has been affirmed by the overwhelming majority of scholars and ordinary folks in the East and West, both down through history and in most of the world today).

Posted on

Why are Atheist Athletes Rare?

By Jim Spiegel

Last year, NFL punter Chris Kluwe made headlines because of his atheism.  The reason for his newsworthiness, as the writer of this Psychology Today report on Kluwe notes, is that “open secularity is rare in pro sports.”  This is something that has puzzled me since writing my atheism book several years ago.  Why are atheist athletes rare?

You can find all sorts of atheist lists on the Internet.  These include such categories as famous atheists, celebrity atheists, and top atheists in the world.  And it isn’t just atheist apologists that provide these lists.  There are also prodigious Wikipedia lists of atheists in various fields, including politics and law, science and technology, and arts and entertainment.

But try finding a similarly expansive list of atheist athletes.  Here’s the best I could do: 19 Famous Athletes Who are Atheist.  This is a classic case of exceptions proving the rule.  Pretty slim pickings.  I found it interesting, for starters, that they couldn’t even find one more to make it an even twenty.  (They should add Kluwe, since he’s not included.)  And it is supposedly a list of “famous” athletes.  Yet, as an avid sports buff, I only recognized five people on the list.  Moreover, some of these reach way back, such as to an Italian cyclist from 70 years ago.  And another is a WWE wrestler—isn’t that better categorized as acting?  After reading through this disappointing list, I discovered the Top 15 Athletes Who are Atheist.  But it largely overlaps with the list of 19 “famous” atheists above.

So why are atheists so rare in professional sports?  I have a theory, but to explain it I’ll need to start by discussing the primary rationale that atheists and religious skeptics give for not believing in God.  This is the problem of evil.  Lance Armstrong has been quoted as saying, “If there was a God, I’d still have both nuts.”  This statement encapsulates a common intuition about human suffering and religious belief, which essentially constitutes an atheistic argument:  God would not want humans to suffer significantly.  However, there is a lot of suffering in the world.  Therefore, God must not exist.  If you were to interview all of the atheists listed in the sites above and ask them why they reject theism, most if not all of them would cite suffering as a major reason.  But these men and women are not unique in their awareness of suffering.  All serious athletes are well acquainted with pain.  And here may lie the clue to understanding why atheist athletes are rare.

To do intense athletic training is to welcome a degree of suffering.  Athletes understand the usefulness of pain as a means to physical conditioning and mental toughness, which ultimately means success.  No pain no gain, as the saying goes.  Consequently, we should expect athletes to be less inclined to see suffering as antithetical to good ends.  And to become accustomed to linking these two things—pain and gain—is to gain a deeper existential awareness of how suffering is essential for growth in all of life, not just athletics.

This in turn will enable the athlete to recognize that God can work through painful experiences generally to bring about greater goods in people’s lives.  So he or she will be more ready to affirm with the prophet Isaiah that it is good how God gives us “the bread of adversity and the water of affliction” (Isa. 30:20).  And just as the difficulties and challenges one faces on the court, diamond or gridiron make one better, the athlete will be likely to affirm with the apostle James that our trials in life have a constructive end, namely to make us “mature and complete, not lacking anything” (Jas. 1:4).  Such an attitude might not create a perfect immunity to atheism or religious skepticism, but it certainly could prevent one’s faith from being undermined by the problem of evil.  And this might explain why atheist athletes are so rare.

Posted on

Problems with the Genderbread Person

By Jim Spiegel

A few years ago Sam Killermann (author of The Social Justice Advocate’s Handbook: A Guide to Gender) came out with his “Genderbread Person,” an edugraphic aimed at providing us with the complex “truth” about human sexuality, as he explains here.  The graphic went viral and has spawned much discussion and critique.  Consequently, Killermann has revised the graphic several times, and it is currently at version 3.3.  Here is one of the more recent versions.

Interestingly, very little critique of the Genderbread Person graphic on the Internet has come from traditionalists.  Since there are significant problems with the graphic that aren’t well represented on the Internet, I thought I would briefly point out some of these.  Some have to do with its substantive claims or implications, while other problems pertain to subtle, yet important, aspects of the way the concepts are presented.

First, I’m always wary when someone says things like “everyone thinks they understand X, but they don’t” and then they proceed to give you the correct analysis.  With his Genderbread Person graphic Sam Killermann does this.  In earlier versions the various factors (identity, expression, biological sex) were each presented along a continuum such that there was an inverse relationship between male/masculine and female/feminine.  In more recent versions (the multiplicity of which is itself telling), such as the current v3.3, these have been supplanted with spectra which keep these things independent.  Well, how do we know, in each case, that they really are independent variables?  Depending on the factor, there are some potentially compelling reasons to think that they are not (e.g., in terms of biological sex, the more “male” one’s genitalia, the less “female” they tend to be).

Second, the way it is laid out, biological sex appears no more significant than any of the other factors for determining “gender.”  This is more of a point of presentation, but it surely has a psychological effect on the reader regarding the relative importance of the various factors.  The old dictum “the medium is the message” is applicable here in certain ways.

Third, it could be argued that the graphic assumes an overly individualistic/atomistic humanist perspective on gender, as the factors that are presumably definitive of the concept are almost entirely inherent to a particular person, including his/her own thinking and behavior.  What about a separate social factor?  A cultural factor?  A theological factor?  Are none of these significantly relevant to our thinking about gender?  And, of course, we could go many directions in light of each of those questions.  (The Oxford Dictionary definition of “gender” actually prioritizes socio-cultural considerations to the exclusion of Killermann’s non-biological individualistic factors.  Many other lexicographical accounts do the same.)

Finally, there are numerous other questions to be posed about the graphic.  Does Killermann propose to report current usage/understanding of the term “gender” or to refine or reconceptualize current usage/understanding?  If the former, then that’s problematic because the graphic is at odds with so many lexicographic (dictionary) definitions of the term.  But if the latter, on what basis does he propose such a reconceptualization?  What research and studies?  And why trust that research or those studies?  I don’t see any empirical basis or reference to such on any of the Genderbread Person graphics.  Looking over his website, I don’t see any references to relevant studies, with the exception of a link to the Alfred Kinsey Wikipedia page. (And I trust we all know how notoriously flawed the Kinsey research was.)

Now someone could reply, “Hey, this is just a graphic—a handy heuristic device for prompting dialogue.  Of course, its imperfect.”  But hopefully you’ll agree that even such simple graphics ought not to be exempt from critical scrutiny, especially when they are ones that go viral (as this has) and can have a deep and profound effect on how people think and talk about crucial issues.

Posted on

Shame on You

By Amy Spiegel

There will be no clever intro. No easing into the subject with a gentle and mildly amusing anecdote. I will get straight to the point: If I have to read one more “Down with the Church” Facebook post by someone calling him/herself a Christian, I am going to beat myself to death with a hymnal. I refuse to read another hypercritical expose on how discussions of modesty are wrong or how those who hold a traditional view of homosexuality are evil. I don’t want to read another story about the “angry modesty police who escort the scantily clad from church buildings waving pitch forks and New King James Bibles.” No more “If you believe you should love the sinner but hate the sin, you are a homophobic bigot who should be burned at the stake.” Perhaps I exaggerate but seriously, people, enough already.

Now before you spit out your no-fat, fair trade latte in disgust, screaming about the need for reform and open-mindedness, I am not talking about genuine critique, based on love and concern for the future of the Body. To use a bit of the language I often hear thrown about in these Facebook firebombs against Christians, the Church is made up of broken individuals; flawed sinners. There is always going to be a need for correctives and those criticisms should be heard and if necessary, adhered to. What I am talking about is Christians throwing fellow Christians under the bus. Which seems a bit ironic, given that those doing the throwing are supposedly all about tolerance and hope for the lost.

So here’s my criticism: if the Church is for the lost, why don’t you love the lost after they are found? Say I come to church fleeing a life of drugs and prostitution. And you welcome me with open arms. Yay for you. That’s what Jesus would do, right? Sure. But let’s say it’s ten years down the road. Drugs and prostitution have been kicked and my tramp stamp tattoo is now concealed by modest capris and a kid on each hip. I volunteer in the nursery and sing in the praise band. Am I suddenly the enemy? Isn’t the Church about being engrafted into the body of believers? I am still a sinner. Still in need of grace and acceptance. What if I never left the fold in the first place? What if I have been a good girl all my life? That doesn’t make me better than anyone else but I am pretty sure it doesn’t make me worse either.

The church is supposed to be a place of love and acceptance. But in some cases, to love is not to accept. To love is to challenge and rebuke, with respect and kindness but nonetheless, love doesn’t sit on it’s behind while people destroy their lives, poison their minds and neglect the life of obedience we are called to. What kind of sins should we be rebuking within the church? All kinds. Greed, self-righteousness, and unkindness. But also lust, immodesty and vulgarity.

I am sure there are many Christians and non-believers who have experienced harsh and demeaning treatment at the hands of people in the church. But don’t those harsh and demeaning people deserve forgiveness and grace as well? It’s as if the only ones deserving of God’s mercy are those outside of the church. How did we come to the place in the American evangelical church where the only time it is “appropriate” to shame people is when they are part of the church? And where are all the stories celebrating the experiences of healing and comfort brought about by the church?

We as a church have been judgmental and self-righteous in the past, but what do you expect from a bunch of sinners? The failures of the church to live up to Christ’s standard don’t condemn her as hypocritical but rather confirm some of her core doctrines and beliefs. The errors of our past (and present) should bring us shame, but that shame should bring repentance and that repentance should bring us to the Cross. If Jesus will accept the church as His bride then I guess she ought to be good enough for the rest of us—warts, failures, tramp stamps and all. If you can’t accept her with her flaws, when then that’s a real shame.

Posted on

Hodgepodge

By Jim Spiegel

Here are a few articles I’ve found interesting lately:

1. Does pornography use case brain damage?  Or, in any case, is there a correlation between porn usage and abnormally low brain activity?  Take a look at this.  Not that we needed any more motivation to avoid porn.

2. “Tradition is an absolutely essential part of the Christian faith.  It is one of the highest authorities we have as a community of Jesus followers.”  That’s what Brandon Peterson says in his recent piece “Why We Cannot Give Up Tradition” which serves as a welcome counter to the anti-traditionalism so prevalent in evangelical circles.

3. What is Father’s Day like for boy raised by lesbians?  Robert Oscar Lopez knows the experience very well, since this is the situation in which he grew up.  Check out his fascinating and insightful reflections about it here.

4. What makes something funny?  That’s a timeless and even serious question.  Leading theories explain why certain things are funny but can’t explain why other things are not funny.  So Peter McGraw, founder of the Humor Research Lab, offers the “benign violation” theory to explain this and provide a unified account of humor.  Check it out in this Slate article.