Tua Culpa?

Mea culpa. My bad. Our Christian bad, said David Myers in the opening lines of A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists. Without exactly saying tua culpa, without trying to extract a comparable confession from his addressees, Myers asks them to do what he has done: consider evidence regarding their claims.

Currently, claim number one is the neo-atheist contention that religion is toxic, that it "poisons everything," in the words Christopher Hitchens. A single contrary instance would dispose of that "everything," but Myers argues for more. He says the weight of the evidence is contrary.

If religion is toxic, he asks, why does the data say consistently that it gives people a sense of well-being? According to National Opinion Research Center surveys from 1972 to the present, 43 percent of Americans who attend religious services weekly report being "very happy"--versus 26 percent of those who seldom or never attend. These findings are representative of others.

And if it's toxic, why does religion add to length of life? Even after controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and education, religiously active people experience greater life expectancy than others. The reasons include healthier lifestyles, less smoking, the support of fellow believers, and (see above) that sense of well-being.

Religious devotion benefits society as well. It is negatively correlated with crime and delinquency, and positively correlated with forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, and the giving of both time and money. In one Gallup survey, 46 percent of "highly spiritually committed" Americans were volunteering with the infirm, poor, or elderly, compared with 22 percent of the "highly uncommitted."

Has religion had destructive episodes? asks Myers. Absolutely. But on balance the above is hardly the work of a poison.

Myers goes on to ask a surprising question: why is skepticism a guy thing? His evidence: (1) The ten winners and fourteen runners up on the Skeptical Inquirer list of outstanding 20th century rationalist skeptics are all white males. (2) In the “science and the paranormal” section of the 2007 Prometheus Books catalog (it's the leading publisher of skeptical thought), there are 94 male authors and only 4 female. (3) Many studies report that men pray less than women and attend fewer church services. The same is true of whites in comparison with blacks. Conclusion? "Aggressive antireligious skepticism is predominantly a product of Euro-American White males, who often are expressing contempt for the beliefs of people quite different from themselves."

This, from one who "cherishes" skepticism and "cold" rationalism. The catch is that Myers also recognizes multiple forms of intelligence. Non-rational ways of knowing matter too, he says, and they are more prevalent among women. Research is showing that if you lose the emotional connection to thought, you lose judgment.

"Just the facts," says Myers in the manner of yesteryear's Joe Friday, and facts are the bridge he offers to skeptics and atheists. Behind his offer is the welcome recognition that they are not of a single type, any more than Christians are.

So who will respond to his "friendly letter"? If friendly types do (see Jonathon Haidt, for example), the results could be fascinating. No longer fundamentalist versus fundamentalist, enemies locking horns, unable to unlock, but data as Revelation meeting data as Reason. Some will complain, "This isn't Christianity" and some, "This isn't atheism." But a logjam will be broken.

The current issue of The Global Spiral, a publication of the Metanexus Institute, contains the complete review from which this post is adapted. Take a look.

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So the Christian Said to the Atheist . . .

Maybe, just maybe, we have broken the logjam. This past summer I told you about a book in which a pastor and an atheist joined forces to spread a message of "evolutionary" Christianity. Their collaboration resulted from a connection of a different type: the two, Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow, had recently married.

Now comes another book in the same spirit. David Myers, a Christian psychologist at Hope College, invites conversation and connection in a little volume called A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists. It's a ostensibly a response to Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation and other "culture war" books of that type, but it accords more with the Sermon on the Mount than any Christian response so far.

A member of the Reformed Church in America and a conservative on many fronts, Myers believes that everything must be subject to the test of "coming true." As Moses said, “If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and what he says does not come true, then it is not the Lord’s message.” Data, then, are God's words. Let the chips fall where they may.

And the chips fall on many issues in the culture wars. Gay marriage, for example. Says Myers: (1) There is mounting evidence that sexual orientation is a matter of nature, not choice; it's a biological disposition that is well in place by birth. (2) The data say clearly that enduring marriage makes for happiness, the health of children, and the integration of societies. (3) The Bible contains 31,103 verses, over 2100 of which mention poverty and only 7 of which speak of same-sex behavior. Of those 7, none are the words of Jesus and none address enduring same-sex partnerships.

So, we say to our fellow people of faith: Should we not put on our social radar screens the concerns that Jesus had on his? What would Jesus do? . . . Rather than advocating a sexual double standard for straight people (marry or be celibate) and gay people (sorry, you must be celibate), why not proclaim a single Christian sexual ethic? Why not yoke sex with faithfulness? Why not seal love with commitment?

Christians distressed by that conclusion just might pray for Myers--except for the last ten years of research on "intercessory" prayer. It has uncovered no "God effect" on healing: in a variety of settings, patients who were prayed for fared no better than patients who weren't. (A study involving in vitro fertilization appeared to be an exception until two of its authors were found to be involved in fraud.) The negative results did not surprise Myers, who had predicted them in a notarized document before any of the research began. In fact, he says, a positive outcome would have conflicted with his Christian view of God. "The Lord's Prayer, the model prayer for Christians that I pray daily, does not attempt to control a God who withholds care unless cajoled."

Myers's approach is simple and direct. You test, you take the results as the word of God, you move. What's notable is the direction in which he moves when results clash with "Christian" ideas: not away from Christianity but toward it--toward its core, that is, toward the true meaning of Jesus' message, the true meaning of prayer.

"Get the beam out of your own eye," Jesus taught, and that is the approach Myers takes in A Friendly Letter. He has data for skeptic and atheist eyes as well (I'll sample some next week), but he wants to start the conversation here, on the Christian side. "If we have abetted poverty, injustice, climate change, genocide, or pointless war, then for shame," he says. Mea culpa. "We are guilty."

The current issue of The Global Spiral, a publication of the Metanexus Institute, contains the complete review from which this post is adapted. Take a look.

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