A legal defense of marriage

Here’s an example of a legal right, and a justification for its existence:

Society needs someone appointed to make decisions on everyone’s behalf, because we can’t get anything done if we need to consult the whole population about every decision. Since this person is making decisions for everyone, everyone should have a say in choosing who this person is. Therefore, everyone should have a right to vote.

We start with a societal need, and the rights endowed upon citizens are based on that need.

Here’s another societal need:

Society needs good future citizens. Thus, society needs children, and needs to promote the best upbringing for those children. Children require a mother and father. The best care for children is usually given by their parents, and this care will take many years and require huge investment. Thus the people involved need to feel secure as they invest time, effort and money into creating a family in which children can grow up. Thus, we create a legal framework where any man and woman (the most basic and universal requirement for parents) may enter into a legal contract that encourages them to invest in creating a potential home for children. Thus, any pair of one man and one woman may choose to get married.

From the state’s perspective, that’s pretty much it. That’s the legal justification for the existence of a marriage contract. The state needs kids, and kids need parents, and parents need legal protection as they invest in the kids.

Of course, there are plenty of ancillary benefits to marriage. But those are not relevant to the legal existence of marriage.

There’s also nothing in that description about love. Or attraction. Or sexual orientation. Because in terms of marriage as a legal institution, those things are also meaningless. There is no legal basis for a “celebration of love”, but there is a legal basis for providing a framework in which children can be created and raised.

Having a right does not mean that you have to execute that right, just that you have the option. Anyone also has the option not to get married.

Note: As this post discusses the legal justification for marriage, I am of course referring solely to the legal aspects of civil marriage. Religious justifications for marriage are better discussed independently of secular legal questions.

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Related posts:

Some thoughts on the redefinition of marriage

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Vale, Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI announced today that he will be stepping down from the papacy. As he wrote in his resignation letter:

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

“I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.”

I, for one, salute him for his dedication to his ministry, and the courage and humility that it took to do this. It’s an extremely demanding job, but it’s also a very high-profile one, and as such it must be difficult to keep viewing it as an act of love and service. But as in all things, not through our own strength.

He is the 265th person to hold the position, and the first of the Internet Age. Among the virtues that he brought to the office were a keen academic mind and intellectual rigour. In particular, his rejection of relativism is insightful:

“Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognising nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego.”

He has also masterfully combined a commitment to orthodox Christianity with an emphasis on “friendship with Jesus”:

“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to Him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? … No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation… When we give ourselves to Him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.”

Ave atque vale, Benedictus XVI.

The Heathen Manifesto – a quick review

Over in the Guardian‘s website, prominent atheist Julian Baggini has written a Heathen Manifesto in which he calls for atheists everywhere to stop insisting on a polarised society and try to listen a little more to what he calls the “moderate middle”, those who lack religious belief but are also turned off by the froth and vitriol of Dawkins et al.

As Baggini puts it in his introduction:

“This manifesto is an attempt to point towards the next phase of atheism’s involvement in public discourse. It is not a list of doctrines that people are asked to sign up to but a set of suggestions to provide a focus for debate and discussion. Nor is it an attempt to accurately describe what all atheists have in common. Rather it is an attempt to prescribe what the best form of atheism should be like.”

I rather like Baggini. More than many other atheist writers he is willing to conduct a reasoned dialogue rather than simply engaging in posturing and rhetoric. And I was very interested in his manifesto, so let’s go through it briefly. I’ve kept his headings to give this some sort of structure, and inserted my own comments at various junctures. Baggini’s manifesto is in italics, my own insertions are in normal typeface. Some sections have been trimmed for brevity.

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1 Why we are heathens

It has long been recognised that the term “atheist” has unhelpful connotations. It has too many dark associations and also defines itself negatively, against what it opposes, not what it stands for … “humanists” are a subset of atheists who have a formal organisation and set of beliefs many atheists do not share … “rationalist” and “bright” both suffer from sounding too self-satisfied, too confident, implying that others are irrationalists or dim.

…We need a name that shows that we do not think too highly of ourselves. This is no trivial point: atheism faces the human condition with honesty, and that requires acknowledging our absurdity, weakness and stupidity, not just our capacity for creativity, intelligence, love and compassion. “Heathen” fulfils this ambition. We are heathens because we have not been saved by God and because in the absence of divine revelation, we are in so many ways deeply unenlightened. The main difference between us and the religious is that we know this to be true of all of us, but they believe it is not true of them.

I accept that there are many unhelpful associations that the “New Atheist” publicity has brought to the term, but I’m not sure that it is quite time to ditch it. Baggini writes that heathens lack divine revelation, and deny the existence of any supernatural deity (see point 2), but this would imply that “atheist” is the most accurately descriptive term. Traditionally, “heathen” has denoted someone who holds to beliefs outside of Christianity, and as such is a positive claim. I’m not sure that Baggini quite navigates this distinction, and this is a theme that emerges a few times in the Manifesto.

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2 Heathens are naturalists

Heathens are not merely unbelievers: we believe many things too. Most importantly, we believe in naturalism: the natural world is all there is and there is no purposive, conscious agency that created or guides it. This natural world may contain many mysteries and even unseen dimensions, but we have no reason to believe that they are anything like the heavens, spirit worlds and deities that have characterised supernatural religious beliefs over history. Many religious believers deny the “supernatural” label, but unless they are willing to disavow such beliefs as in the reality of a divine person, miracles, resurrections or life after death, they are not naturalists.

One of the reasons that I like Baggini’s writing is that he is eager to define his terms clearly to avoid confusion. I am also impressed by his willingness to embrace naturalism as a belief, as a positive truth-claim about the world. As a Christian, I completely disagree with his belief but I respect him for stating it clearly and in a way that allows discussion.

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3 Our first commitment is to the truth

Although we believe many things about what does and does not exist, these are the conclusions we come to, not the basis of our worldview. That basis is a commitment to see the world as truthfully as we can, using our rational faculties as best we can, based on the best evidence we have … Hence we are prepared to accept the possibility that we are wrong. It also means that we respect and have much in common with people who come to very different conclusions but have an equal respect for truth, reason and evidence. A heathen has more in common with a sincere, rational, religious truth-seeker than an atheist whose lack of belief is unquestioned, or has become unquestionable.

I embrace this commitment wholeheartedly.

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4 We respect science, not scientism

Heathens place science in high regard, being the most successful means humans have devised to come to a true understanding of the real nature of the world on the basis of reason and evidence. If a belief conflicts with science, then no matter how much we cherish it, science should prevail. That is why the religious beliefs we most oppose are those that defy scientific knowledge, such as young earth creationism.

Nonetheless, this does not make us scientistic. Scientism is the belief that science provides the only means of gaining true knowledge of the world, and that everything has to be understood through the lens of science or not at all. There are scientistic atheists but heathens are not among them. Science is limited in what it can contribute to our understanding of who we are and how we should live because many of the most important facts of human life only emerge at a level of description on which science remains silent. History, for example, may ultimately depend on nothing more than the movements of atoms, but you cannot understand the battle of Hastings by examining interactions of fermions and bosons. Love may depend on nothing more than the physical firing of neurons, but anyone who tries to understand it solely in those terms just does not know what love means.

This one is a little tricky for me. The recognition of science vs scientism is important, and it is very valuable to have this stated clearly. What I’m less clear on is how Baggini can reconcile this with point 2, which very clearly claims that the natural world is all that there is. But if the natural world is all that there is, and science is the best means of discovering truth about the natural world, then surely the true meaning of the battle of Hastings is ultimately a purely scientific pursuit?

I’m glad that he recognises that there is more to the world and human experience than scientific analysis can deduce, but I’m not sure that he’s left any space in his worldview for that “more”.

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5 We value reason as precious but fragile

Heathens have a commitment to reason that fully acknowledges the limits of reason. Reason is itself a multi-faceted thing that cannot be reduced to pure logic. We use reason whenever we try to form true beliefs on the basis of the clearest thinking, using the best evidence. But reason almost always leaves us short of certain knowledge and very often leaves us with a need to make a judgment in order to come to a conclusion. We also need to accept that human beings are very imperfect users of reason, susceptible to biases, distortions and prejudices that lead even the most intelligent astray. In short, if we understand what reason is and how it works, we have very good reason to doubt those who claim rationality solely for those who accept their worldview and who deny the rationality of those who disagree.

Great points, ties in well with his earlier objections to “brights” and “rationalists” as suitable labels. Recognising the limits of our own reason is all too rare in human discourse. I try to maintain the same level of respect for reason and awareness of its limitations.

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6 We are convinced, not dogmatic

The heathen’s modesty about the power of reason and the certainty of her conclusions should not be mistaken for a shoulder-shrugging agnosticism. We have a very high degree of confidence in the truth of our naturalistic worldview. But we do not dogmatically assert it. Being open to being wrong and to changing our minds does not mean we lack conviction that we are right. Strength of belief is not the same as rigidity of dogma.

Again, a useful point. I have similar impatience with rigidly asserted dogma. I don’t share his high degree of confidence in the naturalistic worldview, but that’s a different matter.

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7 We have no illusions about life as a heathen

… Ours is a universe without guarantees of redemption or salvation and sometimes people have terrible lives or do terrible things and thrive. On such occasions, we have no consolation. That is the dark side of accepting the truth, and we are prepared to acknowledge it. We are heathens because we value living in the truth. But that does not mean that we pretend that always makes life easy or us happy. If the evidence were to show that religious people are happier and healthier than us, we would not see that as any reason to give up our convictions.

This is a brave statement to make, and I applaud Baggini for having the courage of his convictions. I respect that he values the truth so highly.

Personally, I feel that he has missed the boat a little; he acknowledges that there is no comfort or consolation in atheism and that religious people may be happier and healthier, due to the hope that they feel. Again speaking as a Christian, I would suggest that the hope, happiness and health are due to the comfort and consolation that follows from a relationship with God. But that’s just my perspective.

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8 We are secularists

We support a state that is neutral as regards people’s fundamental worldviews. It is not neutral when it comes to the shared values necessary for people of different conviction to live and thrive together. But it should not give any special privilege to any particular sect or group, or use their creeds as a basis for policy. Politics requires a coming together of people of different fundamental convictions to formulate and justify policy in terms that all understand, on the basis of principles that as many as possible can share.

This secularism does not require that religion is banished from public life or that people may not be open as to how their faiths, or lack of one, motivate their values. As long as the core of the business of state is neutral as regards to comprehensive worldviews, we can be relaxed about expressions of these commitments in society at large. We want to maintain the state’s neutrality on fundamental worldviews, not purge religion from society.

This is a bold vision, and I have no inherent issues with it, but honestly I don’t believe that humans are capable of actually achieving the society which he describes.

A major issue for me is that justice, morality and ethics are intractably bound up with the value system of the individual, which is overwhelmingly based on their religious convictions and worldview. I don’t see a practical way around this. So far, in the West, we have achieved largely secular states by taking Christian ethics and trying to strip the Christianity out of them to avoid offending anyone else. But the philosophical basis for those ethics is that very same Christianity, so I’m not sure this is a sustainable long-term option.

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9 Heathens can be religious

There are a small minority of forms of religion that are entirely compatible with the heathen position. These are forms of religion that reject the real existence of supernatural entities and divinely authored texts, accept that science trumps dogma, and who see the essential core of religion in its values and practices. We have very little evidence that anything more than a small fraction of actual existent religion is like this, but when it does conform to this description, heathens have no reason to dismiss it as false.

Apart from Scientism (and perhaps secular humanism), I can’t think of a religion that meets these requirements. It’s a nice conciliatory gesture, but I don’t think that this is really a significant point. Baggini is basically saying that, “You can be religious, as long as your religion is ‘heathen’ as defined in this manifesto.”

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10 Religion is often our friend

We believe in not being tone-deaf to religion and to understand it in the most charitable way possible. So we support religions when they work to promote values we share, including those of social justice and compassion. We are respectful and sympathetic to the religious when they arrive at their different conclusions on the basis of the same commitment to sincere, rational, undogmatic inquiry as us, without in any way denying that we believe them to be false and misguided. We are also sympathetic to religion when its effects are more benign than malign. We appreciate that commitment to truth is but one value and that a commitment to compassion and kindness to others is also of supreme importance. We are not prepared to insist that it is indubitably better to live guided by such values allied with false beliefs than it is to live without such values but also without false belief.

This is a more useful conciliatory gesture, but actually raises more issues than it addresses. Baggini acknowledges the value of religious values of social justice and compassion, and claims them as shared values, but doesn’t actually make it clear why those are important values from an atheist worldview. It is great to say that “commitment to truth is but one value and that a commitment to compassion and kindness to others is also of supreme importance”, and I can understand why all those things are important values in Christianity. What I can’t quite see is why compassion and kindness are important social values from a naturalistic atheist worldview.

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11 We are critical of religion when necessary

Our willingness to accept what is good in religion is balanced by an equally honest commitment to be critical of it when necessary. We object when religion invokes mystery to avoid difficult questions or to obfuscate when clarity is needed. We do not like the way in which “people of faith” tend to huddle together in an unprincipled coalition of self-interest, even when that means liberals getting into bed with homophobes and misogynists. We think it is disingenuous for religious people to talk about the reasonableness of their beliefs and the importance of values and practice, while drawing a veil over their embrace of superstitious beliefs. In these and other areas, we assert the right and need to make civil but acute criticisms.

And although our general stance is not one of hostility towards religion, there are some occasions when this is exactly what is called for. When religions promote prejudice, division or discrimination, suppress truth or stand in the way of medical or social progress, a hostile response is an appropriate, principled one, just as it is when atheists are guilty of the same crimes.

I agree with some points here, but the same problems from point 10 are evident. Baggini objects to religions promoting prejudice, division or discrimination, but it may be difficult to rationally explain what’s wrong with those things from a  purely naturalistic worldview.

I think Baggini is mistaken when he talks of “huddling”, at least as regards Christianity. I think that the perception of a huddle collective Christianity is more a theme in secular media than in reality, it’s certainly not something that I have experienced in my three decades of church attendance on five continents. For instance, I’m a Christian but I have little time for Young Earth Creationism (see this earlier post, for instance), and I am similarly impatient with liberal theology.

I also think that his sentence about the dichotomy between reasonable faith and “superstitious beliefs” is off the mark. There is an important distinction between orthodox theology and personal spiritual experience, it is the distinction between Newton’s mathematical equations and the experience of feeling a brick landing on your foot. Christian theology is rational, philosophically robust and intellectually coherent; a personal experience of God may be indescribable. I don’t see anything disingenuous about being able to clearly explain the former but not the latter.

I do appreciate his clear stress on acute but civil criticisms, and I hope that I can do the same when I disagree with those of other faiths.

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12 This manifesto is less concerned with distinguishing heathens from others than forging links between us and others

Our commitment to independent thought and the provisionality of belief means that few heathens are likely to agree completely with this manifesto. It is therefore almost a precondition of supporting it that you do not entirely support it. At the same time, although very few people of faith can be heathens, many will find themselves in agreement with much of what heathens belief. This is what provides the common ground to make fruitful dialogue possible: we need to accept what we share in order to accept with civility and understanding what we most certainly do not. This is what the heathen manifesto is really about.

Again, his stress on civil dialogue and open understanding of differences is laudable. I’m also delighted that Baggini has chosen such a time-honoured enumerated structure for his manifesto; 12 is a divine number…

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Related posts:

Lumpy atheism

Having the wrong conversation

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Nicolas Steno: bishop and scientist

Today marks the 374th birthday of Nicolas Steno, a pioneer in geology and anatomy in the 17th century. Steno (Neils Stensen in the original Danish) was born in 1638 in Copenhagen, and after completing his university education in Denmark he spent the rest of his life travelling throughout Europe and collaborating with prominent physicians and scientists.

While the common approach of scientists at the time was to appeal to the ideas of Aristotle and Pliny, Steno was determined to examine evidence for himself and draw his own conclusions. He was guided in this by his religious convictions about God as Creator of the natural order.

Stressing the importance of investigation and observation, he wrote:

“One sins against the majesty of God by being unwilling to look into nature’s own works and contenting oneself with reading others; in this way one forms and creates for oneself various fanciful notions and thus not only does one not enjoy the pleasure of looking into God’s wonders but also wastes time that should be spent on necessities and to the benefit of one’s neighbor and states many things which are unworthy of God.”

Steno made important advances in anatomy and physiology, most notably in muscle research. He determined that the heart was a muscle (it was thought by many at the time to be a generator of heat), and also demonstrated geometrically that muscles under contraction do not increase in volume (they just change their shape).

But his biggest contribution to science is in the fields of geology and paleontology. After studying the similarities between living sharks and fossilised shark teeth, he decided that the fossils were actually the remains of once-living sharks, now buried in rock. He was not the first to make this connection, but he did go on to define the fundamentals of stratigraphy, the branch of geology that studies rock layers (stratification).

Considering the question of how a shark tooth (or anything else) could become encased in rock, he decided that it must at one time have been surrounded by liquid while the layer below it was already rock. Known in stratigraphy as the law of superposition, this ultimately means that every layer of sedimentary rock must be younger than the layer below it, and this observation is the basis for all fossil dating today. Steno’s theory that the fossil record could be chronologically ordered by the rock layer in which each fossil is was found is fundamental to modern evolutionary theory.

As a follow-up, he also studied crystals and determined Steno’s Law of constancy of interfacial angles, which basically says that the angles between corresponding crystal faces are the same for the same mineral. Steno’s geological work was published in De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus, or Preliminary discourse to a dissertation on a solid body naturally contained within a solid in 1669.

In 1675 he was ordained into the priesthood, and in 1677 was made a bishop apostolic in the north of Germany. After 9 years of devoted ministry to the poor, he died in 1686.

Happy birthday, Nicolas – you are yet another great example of Christian faith informing ground-breaking scientific advances.

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Related posts:

Where God meets Physics

Faith is a part of life

Believing and understanding

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God and the “God particle”

The Telegraph has an interesting short piece from Alistair McGrath today. He looks at the parallels between the faith in the Higgs boson and faith in God, both based on explanatory power rather than direct experiemental observation. He concludes:

“Some tell us that science is about what can be proved. The wise tell us it is really about offering the best explanations of what we see, realising that these explanations often cannot be proved, and may sometimes lie beyond proof. Science often proposes the existence of invisible (and often undetectable) entities – such as dark matter – to explain what can be seen. The reason why the Higgs boson is taken so seriously in science is not because its existence has been proved, but because it makes so much sense of observations that its existence seems assured. In other words, its power to explain is seen as an indicator of its truth.

“There’s an obvious and important parallel with the way religious believers think about God. While some demand proof that God exists, most see this as unrealistic. Believers argue that the existence of God gives the best framework for making sense of the world…

“There’s more to God than making sense of things. But for religious believers, it’s a great start.“

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Read the rest of the article here:

Higgs boson: the particle of faith

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Happy Birthday, KJV

This year marks the 400th anniversary of a momentous event in the English-speaking world: the first publication of the Authorised Version of The Bible, commonly known as the King James Version.

The translation project was instigated by King James I as a way of reconciling some of the theological disagreements between high-church Anglicans and Puritans. The transition from Latin Vulgate texts to early English bibles had not been a smooth one, and in 1604 James called for a completely new translation, “as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek.” Published in 1611 after 7 years of diligent work by 47 different scholars, the Authorised Version was not just the most influential version of the Bible, it was one of the most influential works in the history of the English language.

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I should probably put in a brief caveat here: strictly as a translation of Scripture, the KJV isn’t my personal favourite. The task of converting the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts into a serviceable English equivalent is a continual challenge for each generation of translators, and the KJV tends more towards formal over functional equivalence than several more modern translations. Opinions will differ on this point, and that’s ok.

But as a work of literature, the KJV sits on the loftiest peaks in the English language. Seriously, this is the book that gave us all these expressions:

• How are the mighty fallen (2 Samuel 1:19)
• A still small voice (1 Kings 19:12)
• Eat, drink, be merry (Luke 12:19)
• By the skin of my teeth (Job 19:20)
• The root of the matter (Job 19:28)
• Be horribly afraid (Jeremiah 2:12)
• A fly in the ointment (Ecclesiastes 10.1)
• A drop in the bucket (Isaiah 40:15)
• A house divided against itself cannot stand (Matthew 12:25)
• Like a lamb to the slaughter (Jeremiah 11:19, Isaiah 53:7)
• A law unto themselves (Romans 2:14)
• A man after his own heart (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22)
• A thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7)
• Pride goeth before a fall (Proverbs 16:18)
• Put words in his mouth (Exodus 4:15)
• A broken heart (Psalm 34:18)
• Baptism of fire (Matthew 3:11)
• Feet of clay (Daniel 2:31-33)
• Let there be light (Genesis 1:3)

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Great orators such as Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln were powerfully influenced by the KJV for both idiom and cadence. The majestic structure of Martin Luther King Jr’s 1963 “I have a dream…” speech at the Lincoln Memorial draws heavily from passages in the King James Version. The sentence:

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

…comes directly from Isaiah 40:4-5 in the KJV.

Likewise, the beautiful imagery of:

“No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

…is drawn from Amos 5:24, “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

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In his 2001 book, In The Beginning, Alistair McGrath documents the creation and impact of the KJV Bible. He writes:

“The King James Bible was a landmark in the history of the English language, and an inspiration to poets, dramatists, artists, and politicians. The influence of this work has been incalculable. For many years, it was the only English translation of the Bible available. Many families could afford only one book—a Bible, in whose pages parents recorded the births of their children, and found solace at their deaths. Countless youngsters learned to read by mouthing the words they found in the only book their family possessed—the King James Bible. Many learned biblical passages by heart, and found that their written and spoken English was shaped by the language and imagery of this Bible. Without the King James Bible, there would have been no Paradise Lost, no Pilgrim’s Progress, no Handel’s Messiah, no Negro spirituals, and no Gettysburg Address. These, and innumerable other works, were inspired by the language of this Bible. Without this Bible, the culture of the English-speaking world would have been immeasurably impoverished. The King James Bible played no small part in shaping English literary nationalism, by asserting the supremacy of the English language as a means of conveying religious truths.”

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“Paradoxically, the king’s translators achieved literary distinction precisely because they were not deliberately pursuing it. Aiming at truth, they achieved what later generations recognized as beauty and elegance. Where later translations deliberately and self-consciously sought after literary merit, the king’s translators achieved it unintentionally, by focusing on what, to them, was a greater goal. Paradoxically, elegance was achieved by accident, rather than design.”

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There’s probably no Dawkins…

…now stop worrying and enjoy Oct 25th at the Sheldonian Theatre.

So read the signs on buses in the Oxford area at the moment, lamenting the sudden failure of courage from New Atheism’s leading apologist.

It seems that while Richard Dawkins is happy to have the occasional televised cup of tea with an English archbishop who is too polite to respond to his bombast, he is not quite so bold when it comes to debating religion with any serious Christian apologists. After lengthy prevarication, Dawkins has retreated securely into his shell and refused to debate William Lane Craig at the Sheldonian.

As the proposed debate was in his hometown, I don’t think travel costs were the issue. It’s really hard to see this as anything other than cowardice on Dawkins’ part.

Read more on the story here in The Guardian.

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Censorship and bad Apples

The media lines are all humming with outrage about an iPhone app. Not the one that lets you avoid police checkpoints if you’re driving drunk, nor the one that gives detailed instructions on abusing illegal drugs – those are still readily available on the App Store.

No, the biggest story at the moment is about a self-help app from Exodus International. It provides information to assist people who want to make a lifestyle change.

That’s about it.

But that’s not how the media are reporting it:

CBS News: Church head: “Gay cure” iPhone app not offensive

ABC News: Apple Pulls ‘Anti-Gay’ App After Pressure

Huffington Post: Apple Pulls Controversial ‘Gay Cure’ App

Washington Post: …Apple complied with increasingly vocal requests to remove the “gay cure” app.

CNET News: Apple pulls ‘gay cure’ app following protests

Forbes.com: Apple Boots ‘Gay Cure’ App

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The most alarming aspect of the coverage, I think, is the scare-quotes with which each media outlet is slavishly describing the app as a “gay cure” or “anti-gay” product. They’re all doing the same spin-job while pretending to report on the story. The Washington Post even admits in its article that the “Gay cure” nickname is inappropriate and nonsensical, but it’s in the headline nonetheless.

Jeff Buchanan, a senior director of Exodus International, said, “It’s being touted as a ‘gay cure’ app, and nothing could be further from the truth.” The organisation’s website clarifies their position further:

“Exodus does not claim to cure anyone.  That is not within our ability and certainly beyond the ability of our iPhone application, which simply provided mobile access to information available on our website. As complex human beings, sexual attractions develop for many known and unknown reasons and no one chooses those, but as sexual beings, we all make decisions about how to express ourselves. For those who consider the Bible to be life-giving truth, homosexual attractions and the desire to act on them are at odds with the desire to live a life that reflects the Christian faith and often results in moral tension.

… Exodus doesn’t believe there is a “cure” for homosexuality, adultery, arrogance, gossip or any other sin. There is, however, Jesus who paid the price for it all when He died on the cross. Then there is the daily, sometimes moment-by-moment, decision to live a life congruent with His teaching.

Our desire was simply to provide information to individuals exploring and looking for answers that are consistent with their own beliefs.  Apple already provides hundreds of apps specific to the GLBT community and has made the Gay Christian Network’s podcasts available on its iTunes store.  Our hope was to see equality represented on the same platform.”

Despite initially releasing the app with a +4 rating (i.e., “containing no objectionable material”), Apple did an abrupt about-turn in response to strong pressure from GLBT-activist group Change.org. An Apple spokesman today said that “[the app] violates our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people.”

Alan Chambers, head of Exodus International, said recently in an interview: “I can understand people having an opinion about something. What I can’t understand is why they would find it offensive. The way it’s been touted and the scare tactics used by the other side – if that’s what it was all about, I would have signed (the petition) too.” Speaking to The Huffington Post, Chambers said, “I would hope in a perfect world that Apple would allow this diversity, that they would respect the diversity of their customers. It’s alarming to see that people who are opposed to free thought and diversity are attacking and causing this type of trouble for organizations like ours.”

For me, the question is one of free speech – will you let other people express their opinions even if you don’t agree with them? The developers of that app weren’t insisting that it come standard on every phone or that everyone in the world be forced to use it. They were expressing their opinion: that homosexuality is a choice, and that they believe it’s a bad choice.

Whether you or I agree with that opinion does not diminish their right to hold it. It’s an issue of free speech and the right to hold and express opinions. Are you so intolerant that you can’t abide anyone who disagrees with you?

The petition from Change.org condemns the app in pretty strong language: “No objectionable content? We beg to differ. Exodus’ message is hateful and bigoted.”

Fortunately for Change.org, they can “beg to differ” because they are allowed to express their opinions freely. It is very sad that they cannot seem to extend this courtesy to those who hold differing points of view.

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Related posts:

The relativist creed

Religion, sex and truth claims

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Anne Rice and hypocrisy in the Church

The media has been all aflutter over the past weeks about the announcement by novelist Anne Rice that she’s “quitting Christianity, but not Christ”. As Rice posted on her blog:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than … [C]hristianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”

In short, it seems that Rice is frustrated to breaking point with hypocrisy in the Church.

Here’s the thing, though:

Jesus also hates the hypocrisy of Christians.

During Jesus’ earthly ministry he had a great deal to say to the scribes and the Pharisees, the “church leaders” of the day. Here’s Jesus as reported in the Gospel of Matthew:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. (Mt 23:1-3, NIV)

Jesus’ strongest condemnation was reserved for those who teach the truth but fail to live it out.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Mt 23:27-28, NIV)

Let there be no mistake: Jesus has no time for hypocrisy within the Church.

At the same time, Jesus instructs us to live a life delineated by firm principles. There are concrete instructions about correct behaviour as well as about correct motives and attitudes. And yet, the Bible teaches us that we are all flawed and will fail to meet theses standards. Jesus is compassionate towards those who struggle to live according to God’s will for their lives. But the vital step is accepting that we ourselves are flawed.

I suspect that anyone who has been involved with Christianity has had experience of hypocrisy. But I suspect that anyone who has been involved in any human affairs has had experience of hypocrisy. If we set ourselves any sort of moral standards at all, we will fail to meet them. Perhaps George Thorogood had the answer to hypocrisy: start off by claiming to be “Bad to the Bone”, and you’ll never fall short of your standards.

But these are not the standards that Jesus asks us to aim for.

I’ve been involved in the Church for a couple of decades, including several denominations and several countries. I’ve seen people failing to live up to their own teaching. More to the point, I’ve seen people failing to live up to Jesus’ teaching. (Shocking revelation: I am one of those people!)

But I’ve also seen a great number of people trying to live up to Jesus teaching. Sometimes they do a pretty good job, sometimes they do a terrible job. They’re never perfect, but they keep trying. They also keep admitting that they have failed and ask God’s help to keep trying.

This attitude of humility is perhaps the key to avoiding hypocrisy. Jesus didn’t rebuke the scribes and the Pharisees for failing to live up to God’s law: he rebuked them for pretending to do so.

Perhaps the most succinct expression of humility and acknowledgment of our own fallen nature came from the inimitable G. K. Chesterton. When invited by The Times newspaper, along with several other prominent authors, to write an essay on the topic “What’s Wrong with the World?”, Chesterton replied with a letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton

This is the essence of humility. It is an open admission of our failings, with no excuses or self-justifications. (Incidentally, Chesterton did later write a full-length essay on the subject, which I highly recommend).

As the apostle John writes:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1 John 1:8-10, NIV)

I understand Anne Rice’s frustration with hypocrisy in the Church, but I choose to respond differently. I remain within the Church, and if I feel that it has strayed, I will attempt to correct and support it from within.

More importantly, I recognise that I can also be hypocritical and corrupt, and I rely on my brothers and sisters in Christ to correct and support me in my walk.

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Related posts:

Serious, not fanatical

Living a good and/or Christian life

Modelled behaviour

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