I recently listened to a TED lecture given by the atheist/pop philosopher Alain de Botton entitled “Atheism 2.0″. You can hear his talk here.
Of course, I cannot share de Botton’s assumption that God does not exist nor his implication that the fact of God’s non-existence is somehow “obvious.” Rather, what interested me about his presentation was his insistence that atheism has lost something valuable in its pursuit of “facts.” While he acknowledges and believes that atheism is “true”, he is concerned that religion is better equipped pedagogically to influence the hearts and minds of the masses.
The irony here is that the resources and practices he cites are to a large degree being systematically abandoned by evangelical churches in the name of: reaching the unchurched! What are these resources? A few that he mentions include: observance calendars, rituals, rhetoric, and repetition.
The Christian Calendar
De Botton explicity mentions the observance of feast days as a remarkably effective way of ensuring that important teachings are given their due attention over the course of a year. Atheists, he says, assume that if something is true they will “run into it”. A calendar, conversely, protects against the neglect of vital teachings by continually bringing to our attention diverse aspects of our faith (or, in his case, non-faith).
Ritual
Here the example used is that of a Buddhist ceremony to celebrate the moon. De Botton laments that while atheists and secular society are good at describing what the moon is, they have lost something valuable in their inability to celebrate it. De Botton, though he doesn’t use the word, is connecting to our need for mystery. One reason rituals are so powerful is because they often acknowledge that we are dealing with truths that are ultimately beyond our finite comprehension. For the Christian, this sense of mystery should produce a sense of awe, humility, and gratefulness that God graciously condescends to meet us through symbol and ritual.
Rhetoric
Here de Botton specifically mentions African-American Pentecostal preaching services. He recognizes the power that is resident in well-crafted and well-delivered speech. Unfortunately, preaching often gets a bad rap in evangelical circles, despite the fact that the proclamation of the Gospel is God’s appointed means of bringing men and women to faith. Much of what passes for preaching today is actually what de Botton describes as “lectures”, which atheists are good at!
Repetition
One key to learning is constant repetition. This used to be assumed in Western education as parents and teachers expected young children to memorize as much as possible so that they would have a large store of material to work with as they learned to collect, assimilate, and organize the material. Repetition and memorization are very much out of favor today in both popular-education philosophy and the church.
De Botton is not aware, it seems, that the religious resources he covets for atheists are actually being abandoned by the religious! No doubt, all these resources can be used in negative ways and no Christian should blindly accept any practice without assessing its faithfulness to the Gospel. However, we should also be careful that we do not throw away precious resources the Church has collected over time in a vain attempt to reach a world that, at least in De Botton’s view, is greatly in need of those very treasures.
#1 by Rob Sutherland on January 26, 2012 - 7:22 am
I was listening to an interview with philosopher Jacob Needleman discussing the religous roots of American Democracy. He mentions that in the late 18th century there were few churches, but most literate and even illiterate men and women could quote blocks of scripture on demand. He compared that to today where there are many, many churches, but 85% of the US population think that “God helps those who help themselves” is a verse from Scripture.
What you’re discussing here centers around education. To know why we do things – Ritual – why we celebrate things – Calendar – and how to talk about what we believe – Rhetoric – requires education and thought. The modern church is often dismissed by the non-churched as being blindly obidient to some higher power. But that isn’t what the church should be. I wouldn’t recommend blindly following anyone. We must reason together with God. God isn’t just about emotion, but also thought and reason.
Great post and thanks for sharing. I don’t know much about the Christian calendar and don’t think of myself as following Ritual – although we all have our own rituals. I desperately see the need to know why we do these things. I see the need to teach my kids about these things so that they are able to give an answer for what they believe other than that’s what Mom and Dad say and my teacher at Church.