Bad Christians, Good Christianity

There exists today a modern brand of atheism that runs something like this: Christianity has long been a wicked influence on the world; it has been a tool of tyrants, has oppressed men and women (especially women) since its inception, has been an enemy of science, reason, progress, and tolerance.  It has caused men to rise to tyranny, yet made others too weak to fight tyranny.  It caused the crusades, the inquisition, the religious wars, as well as being a generally pernicious influence on human behavior.   

Such an atheism is not intellectually rigorous.  Its proponents, like the late Christopher Hitchens, typically know little about even science, less about actual history, and least of all about real theology.  Modern science developed in the Western world because of Christianity and not in spite of it.  Men, believing the universe to be the product of an orderly mind and not random chance, knew the world might be rationally investigated.  The positive effects of Christianity in history have been documented by various historians and scholars (1), as well as its positive effect on human behavior even today (2).

Nonetheless, the problem with the “new atheist” position lies deeper than a poor understanding of the positive effect of Christianity on the world.  The heathen’s argument runs something like this, “if Christianity is true, then Christians would be sinless.”  Since Christians are not sinless, Christianity must not be true.  It would be tempting to dismiss the heathen’s argument as an instance of the ad hominem fallacy.  Obviously to attack a person as a bad person is not to say that their beliefs are untrue.  But the argument is even worse than that.  

The atheist wrongly assumes that if Christians are bad, then Christianity must be bad, but, to argue that ‘if Christianity is true, all Christians would be sinless,’ is like arguing that if doctors existed there would be no sick people. Doctors exist, however, because there are sick people, and thank God they do.  Christianity exists because there are spiritually sick people, and thank God it does. G.K. Chesterton put it this way when he said, “when the world goes wrong, it proves the Church right.  The Church is justified not because her children do not sin, but because they do.”  Doctors exist because man needs cure from physical disease.  Christianity exists because man needs cure from spiritual disease.  A naturally sick man falls from the ideal of health and needs a cure.  A spiritually sick man falls from the ideal of moral goodness and needs redemption. 

I once spoke to an atheist who claimed that the high ideals and indeed, commands, including love of enemies and turning the other cheek (3) of Christianity were falsified because they were too hard to follow.   But this is clearly absurd.  That men do not perfectly follow high moral standards is not proof that the standards are bad, but that people are.  That many people fall short of health is not proof that health is a vain ideal, but that people are sick.  

Nonetheless, there was something right in the skeptic’s claim.  When faced with a moral ideal one cannot follow, he can only do one of two things.  He might abandon the ideal.  Certainly, this is a popular option in modern culture.  Faced with a difficult law, the skeptic denies the law.  Then, having denied God’s moral standards, man becomes nothing except a collection of appetites.  Hence, obesity rates are high, drug abuse, various forms of unchastity including contraception, premarital sex, and divorce are high.  

Still, there is one other option left to a person.  On falling short of high moral standards, he might react by denying the standards.  He might act instead, however, by seeking forgiveness.  He might decide that it were better to fail at following a high and holy moral standard than to be content with success at a mediocre one.  God can make saints from sinners, but He can do nothing with a man who rejects Him entirely, just as a good doctor can cure a disease, but can do nothing with a man who refuses treatment and even denies himself to be sick. 

(1) Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (1997).

Thomas Madden, “The Real History of the Crusades” http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/the-real-history-of-the-crusades

(2) Arthur C. Brooks, Who Really Cares, (2007) 

(3). Christopher Hitchens for instance, ridiculed the idea of love of enemies say, “I’m not going to love them. You go love them if you want. Don’t love them on my behalf. I’ll get on with killing them, destroying them, erasing them. And you can love them. But the idea that you ought to love them is not a moral idea at all. It’s a wicked idea.” (emphasis mine).

http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/05/love-your-enemies.html

Excuse Me Sir, You Look Like a Sinner

Bright Maidens topic: To Admonish the Sinner

Bright Maidens facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/BrightMaidens 

I am always amused at one of the last scenes in Guys and Dolls, when the gambler Sky Masterson has managed to force a dozen or so of his fellow gamblers to attend a prayer meeting at the local save-a-soul mission by winning their souls in a dice game.  The leader of the mission looks out at the riff-raff gathered in her mission and announces in delight, “I have rarely attended a meeting in any of our branches which could boast of so many evil-looking sinners.”  She might just as easily have been addressing a college fraternity, Las Vegas, or the United States Congress.

Admonishing the sinner is never easy and it is a duty that many shy away from.  We do not want the sneers, the accusations of intolerance, narrow-mindedness, judgmental behavior or other assaults that come our way.  Even the Catholic Church herself often seems to try to avoid this duty, when she hesitates to invoke Canon 915, which bans public figures from the Holy Eucharist, who profess themselves Catholic even when they live in a state of fornication or who publicly advocate abortion.  And, of course, when was the last time any of us saw a good excommunication?

There are several reasons why admonishing the sinner is difficult, and a couple that it is downright dangerous.  First, it is hard to tell a person that they are sinning when they do not believe in sin.  If one asked an average college student, for instance, if they believed in objective morality, that student would almost certainly reply that objective morality does not exist because different cultures and people have thought different things.  Passing the disastrous lapse in logic by—obviously that a person does not believe in a thing is not evidence that it does not exist—the consequence of this is that such a person can hardly believe in sin.  How can it be wrong to break a law if one does not exist?  If there are no rules, then one cannot violate the rules.  

Second, people do not like being told that they are sinners.  I am the same way.  When my wife complains about my driving, my first reaction is to say, “I know,” or “Yes dear, I did indeed see that enormous truck about to plow into us, I was just making sure that you did.”  Many people are too convinced of their own unique specialness; many in our generation and later generations have been told that they are ever so special from youth.  This hardly invites a person to consider their own sinfulness. 

Third, many today do not believe in the devil.  Believing in sin is much easier when one believes in a father (by way of imitation not creation) of sin.  Today, however, we hear little about the devil even from the pulpit.  And a presidential candidate can be dismissed by the popular media as unfit for office because he believes that the devil is attacking America.  

Next, admonishing the sinner can be downright dangerous.  A person could become angry.  One could forever ruin a relationship with a family member by refusing to attend her re-marriage ceremony to a divorced man.  It can be dangerous for other reasons, including to our own spiritual welfare; this is perhaps the greatest danger.  In admonishing the sinner, a person might forget that he is one himself.  He might find himself the sort of hypocrite of whom Our Lord said “many will say to me “Lord, Lord,” who will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Or else, “remove the splinter first from your own eye...”  To this I suggest the following caution, that the only person who is a good Catholic, is the one who knows that he is a bad Catholic.  

Nonetheless, to admonish the sinner is our moral duty, to God and to the sinner himself.  We are all responsible for each other’s salvation.  “Go and make disciples of all nations...”  To shy back from this duty is like the woman who refuses to confront her husband’s alcoholism because of the fear of the immediate inconvenience to her, or immediate discomfort to her husband.  Yet, there is no alternative.  Admonish the sinner and while doing so, “remember man that thou art dust,”  and “go and sin no more.”