Indiana is moving forward with legislation that would allow public schools to teach Creationism in public schools. And they aren’t the only ones. Huffington Post has the report alongside surveys on teaching creationism/evolution in the classroom:

About 60 percent of high school biology teachers teach evolution in the classroom without taking a direct stance on the issue LiveScience reports
…
Only 13 percent of the teachers surveyed in the nationwide study published in the journal Science said they support creationism and teach it “in a positive light.”

Speaking on the legislation, Reba Boyd Wooden of Center for Inquiry Indiana offers some much-needed snark:

“They’re not on equal footing. We could say, okay let’s teach the stork theory of reproduction or let’s teach another idea about gravity. I mean, it’s not science.”

While we’re at it, if you’re going to teach ancient Mesopotamian creation myths as if they are on par with science, why stop at Genesis? I say we should teach the Enuma Elish, the source for Genesis 1. It’s way more badass and involves an epic battle between the Babylonian gods. I would be absolutely horrified if my seminary started teaching creationism- I can’t imagine how infuriated I would be if I had kids in public schools teaching creationism.

No wonder only 40% of Americans believe in evolution. Their teachers (not to mention their pastors and churches) can’t bring seem to reconcile with science.

it is truly a testament to groupthink that we can even have this discussion in 2012.

Slavoj Zizek has been hinting at a book on Hegel for forever now. It seems like it about to happen. From Zizek’s new Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadows of Dialectical Materialism :

“You know what Einstein did in his relativity theory? He started with curved space as the effect of matter. So, let us say that curved space occurs because something brutally from the outside, like a trauma, intervenes into it. Then he turned it around and claimed that it’s the other way; the only thing that effectively exists is the curved space. And that this transcendent matter curving the space is just our misperception of it. In a parallel way I would claim that, in a Hegelian way, the truth of transcendence is a radical gap in immanence. In this sense I would conditionally, if you ask me at gunpoint, be for immanence. But again I have to resist Kant paradoxically as a philosopher of immanence, where the distinction between transcendence and immanence is projected back into immanence itself.”

Peter Thompson has a great review.

read it

Update: Pete is also speaking in the Fayettville area this Sunday (Jan. 29th).  Click here for details.

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For my friends in the Little Rock/Conway area, just a heads up that philosopher Pete Rollins is speaking at UCA a week from today (Jan. 31st). I posted his recent lecture here at Fuller and a review of his recent book Insurrection. His lecture at UCA is titled “The Idolatry of God: Christ and the End of Religion.”

from UCA:

Peter Rollins, a popular writer, lecturer, storyteller and public speaker, will give a talk at UCA on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, at 7pm in the Ballroom of the Student Center. This lecture is entitled “The Idolatry of God: Christ and the End of Religion,” and it is free and open to the public. Rollins is a representative of a newer emergent Christianity, and he is the author of a number of books, including How (Not) to Speak of God, The Orthodox Heretic, and his latest book which is Insurrection: To Believe is Human To Doubt, Divine. Originally from Northern Ireland, where he founded a community called Ikon, a faith group that has gained an international reputation for blending live music, visual imagery, soundscapes, theatre, ritual and reflection to create ‘transformance art’, Rollins now lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. He has a PhD from Queens University in Belfast, and he has presented all over the US and around the world. According to Dr. Clayton Crockett of UCA’s Department of Philosophy and Religion, Rollins “is the most exciting and compelling voice of contemporary Christianity who is willing to push institutional Christianity beyond its present forms.” His website is www.peterrollins.net.

If you are interested in the direction of Pete’s work, you should meet Dr. Clayton Crockett and ask about his work while you are there.

They’ll eat you children too, if you aren’t careful.  

From Tony Jones:

What do you get when you mix a bunch of YouTube videos, interviews with a few ultra-conservative Christians, and some scary Danny Elfmann knock-off music? This:

from Richard Kearney’s Anatheism:

‎”God is revealed après coup, in the wake of the encounter, in the trace of his passing.” (p. 22)

“…interconfessional hospitality toward other faiths is not just an option for Christians but an imperative.  Christian caritas, as a refusal of exclusivist power, is a summons to endless kenosis.” (p. 55)

“the great stories of Israel are, I am suggesting, testaments to the paradoxical origins of religion in both violent conflict and peaceful embrace.  This, in effect, makes every dramatic encounter between the human and the divine into a radical hermeneutic wager: compassion or murder.  You either welcome or refuse the stranger.  Monotheism is the history of this wager.” (p. 22)

“Ana-theos, God after God.  Ana-theism: another word for another way of seeking and sounding the things we consider sacred but can never fully fathom or prove.” (p.3)

I’m beginning to read through material for an upcoming class on American fundamentalism taught by George Marsden, who is the guru on this topic. I used some of his work in a previous study on fundamentalism, and I’m pretty excited to further wrap my mind around this phenomenon. One of our class texts is The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan O. Hatch, an exploration of populist evangelical Christianity from the 1^st Great Awakening (1740s) through the Second (early-mid 19^th century).

A major theme of the book is that evangelicalism in this period was driven by dumbing down theology to respond to democratic, anti-elitist (or anti-clerical) sentiments among Americans. The Revolution did more than instill democratic political beliefs- those same values were inscribed into the religious movements that grew in its wake. At times, that radical egalitarianism was great (egalitarianism at this point in history refers to equality of the learned and the unschooled rather than, as it means today, issues of gender discrimination). Methodists and Baptists converted massive numbers of slaves and a number of emancipatory movements came out of these traditions (in contrast to Presbyterians who were not so quick to evangelize or free slaves). But the darker side to this egalitarianism and anti-clericalism in evangelical movements was that theology and tradition were absolutely trashed in favor of appealing to the common, uneducated man. The language of a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” a sinners prayer for salvation, and a strong emphasis on unschooled individuals reading the Bible without need for rigorous theology came out of this period. Those with any training or expertise were openly spoken of as the enemy. The most flamboyant and charismatic circuit preacher garnered fame- which was certainly a goal of many- but to be charismatic, you had to convince the hearers that the message was simple. So, the message became very simple.

Religion is reducible to sociology every bit as much as politics is reducible to sociology. This is where Hatch was particularly helpful in describing just how far these anti-elitist egalitarian tendencies went, extending even into law. Rural farmers, angry over complex legal codes, called for “a system of laws of our own, dictated by the genuine principles of Republicanism and made easy to be understood to every individual in community.” (p. 28). Even more simply, one figure wrote, “Any person of common abilities can easily distinguish between right and wrong… more especially when the parties are admitted to give a plain story, without any puzzle from lawyers.”

So we didn’t need theological or legal expertise. It turns out we didn’t even like medical expertise.

Disillusionment with the medical field led to self-proclaimed herbal experts and cure-all potions. Samuel Thompson was challenged by the medical establishment on his dubious medicinal methods and defended himself by calling the normal science “speculative.” Speaking for the spirit of the age, Thompson opined, “people are certainly capable of judging for themselves.”

Hatch sums up this anti-elitism by saying, “In the end, each person had the potential to become his or her own physician,” (p. 29). And theologian, for that matter- part of the challenge to discussing theology is helping people to realize how shaped they already are by covert assumptions. This discourse into law and medicine helped me understand what has seemed to me such a peculiar piece of American religion- every person gets to be their own favorite expert. It makes more sense when you think of this as a core component of American identity. The very idea that people should be able to read the Bible and understand all the theology they would ever need, without any aid of the rigorous tradition that has unfolded over time, is as American as apple pie.

It’s not so different from how christians today tend to choose their beliefs off the shelves at Barnes and Noble.

I’ll probably post a few more thoughts on fundamentalism as the class progresses.

Should progressives and liberals cut relations with more conservative and traditional Christians? If you think the answer is a clear and obvious “no,” you aren’t paying attention to the debate going on in the ivory towers of academic theology.

On an excellent recent post by Bo Sanders, “Extremely White Male and Incredibly Homophobic,” Bo Eberle wrote an analogy that was really helpful to me:

It’s almost like a certain part of the population climbed out of the hole and took the ladder with them. I don’t have any answers, but there has to be some more go between, and initiative from the progressive end of the spectrum.

This week I posted on the number of pastors that believe in Creationism and that the newest NIV will be even more anti-gay than before. I along with most of my friends at Fuller (and any at Claremont) would tell you these beliefs are absolutely ridiculous. But I run in a sharp, intellectual crowd of progressive thinkers. It’s really easy for us to feel that, once enlightened, it is now beneath us to interact with extremely popular beliefs (however lacking in base they may be). A very sharp blog I follow recently advocated cutting ties with anti-gay bigots in the same way that progressive Christians cut ties with regressive Christians during the Civil Rights movement. And while I like that sentiment in a way, I am neither in a position to do this (it would mean cutting off many friends, family, and so much of American religion in general) nor do I think it is a good way to win a conversation. I’m all for boldly and unapologetically stating our positions. I’m all for calling out bigotry, especially when based on unsound reasoning and motives of church politics that the average believer may be unaware of. I’m all for calling certain beliefs “anti-science.” But I can’t justify cutting ties over bigotry or backwards beliefs.

“Pulling up the ladder”- it’s a great way to ensure we lose.

So glad someone made this.

Could have also included something about TEDtalks, deconstruction, and cigars

My reading group is about to dive into Richard Kearney’s Anatheism: Returning to God After God.

Amazon’s blurb:

Has the passing of the old God paved the way for a new kind of religious project, a more responsible way to seek, sound, and love the things we call divine? Has the suspension of dogmatic certainties and presumptions opened a space in which we can encounter religious wonder anew? Situated at the split between theism and atheism, we now have the opportunity to respond in deeper, freer ways to things we cannot fathom or prove.

Distinguished philosopher Richard Kearney calls this condition ana-theos, or God after God-a moment of creative “not knowing” that signifies a break with former sureties and invites us to forge new meanings from the most ancient of wisdoms. Anatheism refers to an inaugural event that lies at the heart of every great religion, a wager between hospitality and hostility to the stranger, the other—the sense of something “more.” By analyzing the roots of our own anatheistic moment, Kearney shows not only how a return to God is possible for those who seek it but also how a more liberating faith can be born.

Kearney begins by locating a turn toward sacred secularity in contemporary philosophy, focusing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Ricoeur. He then marks “epiphanies” in the modernist masterpieces of James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Virginia Woolf. Kearney concludes with a discussion of the role of theism and atheism in conflict and peace, confronting the distinction between sacramental and sacrificial belief or the God who gives life and the God who takes it away. Accepting that we can never be sure about God, he argues, is the only way to rediscover a hidden holiness in life and to reclaim an everyday divinity.