Over the last several months I’ve been traveling a lot, mainly in connection with the release of the book What Good Is God? I’ve also done radio interviews from my home in Colorado and written blogs for the likes of CNN.com and The Huffington Post. Those last two assignments gave me a window into just how much hostility the topic of religion stirs up.
In answering the question, “What good is God?” I respond that I note positive benefits on three levels. 1) On an individual level, faith can help transform the lives of the needy, such as prostitutes, alcoholics, Dalits (Untouchables), and leprosy victims—the stories I tell in my book. 2) The community of faith also responds with comfort and practical help to those in need: both in natural disasters, such as an earthquake in Haiti or a hurricane in New Orleans, and in human ones such as the mass murders at Virginia Tech and Mumbai. 3) Finally, the gospel spreads like yeast in bread, as Jesus predicted, affecting whole societies. Google the websites that rate countries on freedom, prosperity, freedom from corruption, charity, or gender equality, and virtually all have in common a strong Christian heritage. To take a striking example, what changed Sweden from a tribe of pillaging warriors—the fearsome Vikings—into the civil, generous society we see today?
I had no idea that such assertions would whack a hornet’s nest of protesters. Hundreds of people must cruise the Internet daily looking for anyone who says something good about religion. What an idiot I must be! How can I possibly suggest that religion ever does any good! Don’t I know about the Crusades and the Inquisition? Religion does little but delude people, strip them of money, and further violence and ethnic division.
Here are a few samples of those comments:
–God makes waffle batter fluffy. His only power. Little known fact.
–Religion and a nickel will get you a cup of coffee.
–The question for evangelical ministers isn’t whether there is or isn’t a God or whether God matters. The question for their flock simply is; WHERE’S THE MONEY? SHOW ME THE MONEY!
–The guy looks like a wacko, like all evangelicals…
–if there is a god, he sucks. no good god would allow some of the things going on around us to exist. conseqently, if the there is no god we would have no one to blame. assuming there is a god he doesn’t do any of us any good at all.
Some got more personal, such as the writer who posted about me, “He needs his neck broken, I think. Too bad he didn’t die before writing such a pathetic book. What a waste of paper and medical resources.”
Lest you think these sentiments represent a radical minority, consider that before a debate on “Is religion good or bad?” between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens in Toronto , the organizers commissioned a poll of 18,000 people in 23 countries. Final results: 52 percent of those surveyed concluded that religion does more harm than good. (The nation with the most appreciation for religion, 92 percent, was Saudi Arabia; the nation with the least appreciation for religion, ironically, was Sweden, at 19 percent. Ah, what short memories have those Swedes.)
As I’ve often written, in my fundamentalist past I saw the toxic effects of religion gone bad. And in my career as a journalist I’ve met my share of characters who seem more suitable for Worldwide Wrestling than for spiritual leadership. In fact, the Huffington Post responses caught me off guard because I’m far more accustomed to hearing from Christian flame-throwers who judge me soft or heretical.
Yet I must acknowledge that some of the oddest characters I’ve met, the larger-than-life ones with a surplus of ego and a deficiency of sophistication, are those who have accomplished most in the work of God’s Kingdom: organizing relief work, feeding the hungry, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus. That pattern simply replicates what the Bible shows so clearly: God used Jacob with his slippery ethics, David with his moral lapses, Jeremiah with his morosity, Saul of Tarsus with his abusive past, Peter with his bodacious failures.
Thinking back over the Christian personalities I’ve known, as well as those featured in both Old and New Testaments, I’ve come up with the following principle: God uses the talent pool available.
To adapt an analogy I heard recently, when the Pueblo, Colorado, Symphony Orchestra plays Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—don’t blame Beethoven. On the other hand, the only way many Coloradans will ever hear Beethoven is through that struggling ensemble. Unlike Christopher Hitchens and the defenders of non-religion, I can still hear strains of the Good News wherever I go in the world, which is why I keep writing about it.
Oi, Philip.
Aprecio o seu trabalho como escritor há muitos anos. Você tem uma sensibilidade impressionante para fazer com que os ensinamentos de Jesus se tornem parte das nossas vidas.
Deus o abençoe muito.
Marcelo
São Paulo, Brasil
Philip,
Your book has provided so many “Aha” moments about how to be an actual participating Christian in the “today” in which we live. The non-religious attackers on your material have conveniently closed their eyes to the parts of history where Christains have elevated the downtrodden and changed the world in the last 2000 yrs because of the powerful love of one God-person. As always, your books make a difference in my thought life and hopefully in my everyday living out life.
I assume you may never read this, but I see no way to send an e-mail. Growing up in a devout Christian family in the 50’s and early 60’s, I was shocked to find myself in love with the girl down the hall at college instead of the perfect boyfriend I had just found. I am now a 60-something woman, and I have more than 4 decades to contemplate what it is like to grow up as the golden girl in a Christian church, to discover oneself suddenly an outcast, and to know that embracing ones true nature is as blessed by God as any other God-given human trait. I have read many of your books at my mother’s house, and it came as a shock this morning as I googled something else on the Internet and found your comments on homosexuality. It strikes me as so sad and self-righteous to see people, even including you, saying love the sinner, hate the sin. Each of us who loves a person of the same gender was created with that nature. It is only a choice for certain people. I long ago ceased caring what supposedly-Christian people thought about homosexuals, because I saw that cultures takes a long time to change, that ministers used Biblical passages to support owning another person as a slave, that all manner of things in the Bible are ignored — particularly the same verses in Leviticus used to condemn homosexuals — and that cutting ones hair, eating pork, wearing red, all kinds of things are culturally accepted now in Christian churches. So I am grateful that my mother, a true Christian, weighed all she had been taught when I shared with her my awful secret, and she chose love, not judgment. I believe really only the two greatest commandments, “Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Whoever does read this comment before deleting spam, I let you know that it is immaterial to me whether you accept me or allow me in the military or allow me to marry. All these things are cultural judgments, and God don’t make no junk. I am, however, sorry, to have to constantly separate myself from people who represent themselves as Christian, when I know Christ would make a comment about lilies of the field, moats in ones eye, love as the greatest gift God could ever give.
I, too, am a fan of your books. I was thrilled to receive your latest this Christmas. The fact that God chooses (uses) human people like those you mentioned, as well as you and me, gives me tremendous hope. If only the best of the best were chosen (if there truly are any), then what would become of us, the fallen, the broken, the human? No, ‘My ways are not your ways…’ When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples he knew full well who they were, when he shared his Body with Judas, he knew full well what lay ahead. God is not frightened by our actions (our sins), he can bring good, healing, love out of any situation.
Andie
First and formost, Phil Yancey’ is one of my favoirte authors. His books are very thought provocative. Each has been an easy read.
I believe the question “Is religion good or bad?” is tied more to how people practice their faith than to the intrinsic nature of religion.
When I read about Mr. Yancy’s assertions stirring up a hornets nest of protest, I thought the verses in Matthew 19 where the rich man asked Jesus what good thing he should do to have eternal life.
21Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 22But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 23Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus simply spoke the truth to a man who vauled wealth and possessions above all else. When the rich man balked, Jesus didn’t cajole or debate; He simply told him like it was, and the rest was up to him – just like it is for the rest of us.
On the one hand I feel sorry for the hornets. On the other, it’s their God given choice.