How to Repeal and Replace Christianity’s Addiction to “Fake News” and “Alternative Facts” #tremendous #huge

 Bishop Spong’s reputation for expressing unapologetic, sometimes blunt, theological opinions is long-established. While some have accused him of being overbearing or egotistical, others have depended on him for a firm defense of a particular spot on the theological spectrum.

After a comment deemed potentially offensive to a particular Fundamentalist group, Jack was accused of sounding patronizing. He replied, “If they feel patronized that’s too bad.” Harsh. But how many times have we been tempted to say the same? Many Progressive Christians feel that they’ve moved “forward” and resent any expectation that their status as a Christian depends on their ability to intellectually and spiritually go “backward.” But because one of the characteristics of a more liberal perspective is to reject black-and-white thinking, Progressive Christians often struggle with confidently expressing the validity of their perspective without feeding into the divisiveness and incivility rampant in our culture.

So how does one remain steadfast in communicating a hard-won theological perspective without getting caught up in the stark us-vs-them environment in which we find ourselves?

Consider the newest additions to our collective lexicon: “fake news” and “alternative facts.” Although they’re recent additions to our everyday language, they seem strangely familiar. Why? Because they’re just today’s take on a very old problem: our tribal selves’ need to project our superiority over others, often doing so by harming or diminishing those who are not like us or who don’t believe as we do. The stubbornness of our most primitive and base instincts have been on full display in a thin-skinned egotistical fear-mongering Executive who not only promotes a nationalist fervor to be “number one,” but perhaps most insidiously, demonstrates an obsession with being “right” in every tweet.

When “fake news” first entered the lexicon in the 2016 Presidential election, it was used to identify intentionally false stories generated by fake news “mills” – often whole websites – devoted to creating sensational and made-up stories as “click bait” targeting easily-influenced low-information voters.

But in a matter of months, the term has been turned on its head. It is now used almost exclusively by Conservatives to divert attention from evidence-based reality in order to muddy people’s perception of current events. Recently, hardly a day went by that the President didn’t use the phrase “fake news” to try and invalidate any story that he simply [didn’t] like (even though his attempts at misdirection were glaringly obvious).

When Kellyanne Conway coined the phrase, “alternative facts,’ she feigned disgust at the elitist idea that anything like objective “facts” actually existed. Claiming that Press Secretary Spicer’s “alternative facts” were every bit as valid as everyone else’s “regular” facts, Conway availed herself of a practice well established among Christian Fundamentalists: appeal to an authority that is unfettered by reason or rational thought.

Blogging on Patheos, Chuck Queen, writes, “It is remarkable how gullible this administration considers the electorate to be,” and then suggests that Christianity itself is culpable in creating the environment in which this kind of gullibility is not only fostered, but celebrated. He writes that Fundamentalism,

As many Christians grow up, they are expected to believe that the biblical story of “Noah’s flood is actually a historical, factual account” – despite the impossible logistics and the appalling theology. Every day, countless fundamentalist Christians congratulate themselves for being able to suspend disbelief and embrace the “divine wisdom” of an all-loving and gracious God committing global genocide.

In analyzing people’s susceptibility to “fake news,” Christopher Douglas notes that this tendency has its historical origin in Christian fundamentalism’s rejection of expert elites.” While many Catholics and Mainline Protestants have taken the last 150 years of expert Biblical and theological scholarship to heart, Fundamentalism has proudly embraced the rejection of science and rational thought as a badge of honor – oftentimes creating whole universes of “alternative facts” (the so-called “Biblical Worldview”) to defend a literal 6-day creation, intelligent design, and Jesus’ literal virgin birth and physical resurrection.

So, as in our current political sphere, no matter how articulate Progressive Christians are in expressing the wisdom of Progressive Christianity, Fundamentalist Christians will simply never come around. Never. After all, their very identity is, in part, rooted in the ability to not only dismiss any evidence that contradicts their worldview (fake news!), but to double down on the veracity of their “alternative facts.” As objective and well-grounded as Progressive Christian apologists might be in pointing out the shortcomings of a Fundamentalist mindset, it will make no difference. Theological liberals can choose to continue the debate, but to what end? Any serious conversation is doomed before it starts, a casualty of the war between two irreconcilable tribes.

First task: own up to the fact that “fake news” and “alternative facts” are not the problem. They’re the symptoms. The problem is our addiction to a kind of dualism that sees the world divided between competing ideas of right and wrong, true and false. That’s not to say that right and wrong, true and false don’t exist, but obsessing over convincing those who won’t be convinced is getting us nowhere. Neither is isolating ourselves in our bunker and smugly settling for “being right.” What’s needed is a framework that transcends our primal us-vs-them mentality and reflects our conviction that we are evolving as a species.

Perhaps part of the antidote to our dualistic tendencies can be glimpsed in James Fowler’s book, Stages of Faith. In it, he develops a theory describing six stages through which all people move as their faith matures (or doesn’t).

In the first stage, usually associated with preschool children, basic ideas about God are shaped through a mix of fantasy and reality filtered through the authority of parents’ beliefs. In Stage 2, logic begins to shape one’s understanding of the world. Stories told by faith communities are often understood in very literal ways. While usually associated with school-aged children, some people (Fundamentalists) remain in this stage throughout adulthood.

Stage 3 is begun in the teenaged years as youth differentiate between various social circles and influences. A person in this stage usually adopts an all-encompassing belief system of some kind. Once comfortable “inside” this belief system, Stage 3 people can have a hard time seeing outside their box – often not recognizing that they’re in any kind of box at all. Many people remain in this stage for life (think conventional Mainline Protestants).

If people get to Stage 4, it often begins amidst the challenges of young adulthood. Critical thinking skills uncover reality “outside their box” – maybe even realizing (for the first time) that other “boxes” even exist. Disillusioned with long-held beliefs, some abandon their Stage 3 faith.

It’s rare for people to reach Stage 5 before mid-life. Living life confronts people with irresolvable paradoxes and the limits of “black and white” thinking – so those in Stage 5 often begin to see life as a mystery and, while abandoning old theological boxes, explore the depths of sacred stories and symbols across a variety of traditions.

Very few reach the universalizing Stage 6. Those who do often live their lives unfettered by petty doubts and live to serve – often risking their lives for others or principled causes.

Six stages. Each level a prerequisite of the next. Some people remain firmly in stage two or three, fiercely suspicious of any “new” information – and blissfully unaware that there could be so much more depth and breadth to their spiritual lives. Others move from one stage to another in a life-long journey toward spiritual understandings that people in previous stages can’t even comprehend.

And yes, those who discover they are being categorized in Stage 2 or 3 will be indignant and declare those of us who identify with Stage 4 or 5 as arrogant and patronizing (accusations Bishop Spong is well acquainted with!). The bottom line is that Fowler’s system isn’t judgmental of people in particular stages. They simply acknowledge that there ARE stages — and we’re all in different places along the way.

Once liberated from the dualism of being “right or wrong,” there’s no need to try and convince a Stage 3 person of anything. Simply be who you are where you are on the spiritual journey. Don’t be deterred from being a person on the way to Stage 6 for fear of offending someone in Stage 2. Just get on with it. We no longer need to feel the urge to give in to our tribal impulse to prove others wrong and ourselves right.

If we’re familiar enough with Fowler’s stages, we can endure a sermon that is theologically medieval and resist the urge to shout, “You’re WRONG!” Instead, we can simply acknowledge, “Wow, that was a seriously “Stage 2” sermon. There may even be an opportunity to demonstrate some Stage 5 compassion by empathizing with the pastor: “I know she’s a Stage 5 Christian, but the demographic of her church is Stage 3. That must be really hard on her spiritual integrity to preach to where people are rather than where she’d like them to be…”.

Think of how helpful a “Stages” labeling system could be. For the benefit of the consumer, whole churches or denominations could be designated as Stage 2, 3, 4, or 5 – saving people a lot of grief in choosing a faith community. Like English 101 or 102, Bible studies could be identified as Stage 4 or Stage 5. Perhaps truth-in-advertising would lead to announcements indicating “WARNING: Stage 2 Bible Study!”

Understanding the stages of faith can also help explain the absence of young people in “liberal churches.” Despite our obvious failure to present young people with an “age appropriate” path, it is some consolation to be reminded that reaching the later stages of faith are often more a function of chronology and life experience than “right information.”

At a 2016 conference in Queensland, Rev. Dr. Margaret Mayman said: “Just thinking new ‘right things’ will make us as useless as the fundamentalists.” So, let’s get over the arguments about who’s got “the truth” or the “facts.” It’s not a competition to be “right.” Adopting Fowler’s “Stages of Faith” (or a similar system) is essential in telling the story of our new Reformation. We need no longer be captive to the either/or-ness of our primal past. We are liberated from being held back by those living in the past and freed to evolve spiritually, transforming ourselves and, with any luck, the world. #tremendous #huge!

~ Rev. David M. Felten

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David Felten is a full-time pastor at The Fountains, a United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, Arizona. David and fellow United Methodist Pastor, Jeff Procter-Murphy, are the creators of the DVD-based discussion series for Progressive Christians, “Living the Questions”.
 
A co-founder of the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology and also a founding member of No Longer Silent: Clergy for Justice, David is an outspoken voice for LGBTQ rights both in the church and in the community at large.
 
David is active in the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and tries to stay connected to his roots as a musician. You’ll find him playing saxophones in a variety of settings, including appearances with the Fountain Hills Saxophone Quartet.
 
David and his wife Laura, an administrator for a large Arizona public school district, live in Phoenix with their three often adorable children.

What do you mean when you speak about idolatry among Christians?

Thank you for your question, Kay. This is a very important question for our time.

The late and great Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, had some blunt things to say about idolatry when he wrote that today many “half-religious people are engaged in “the greatest orgy of idolatry the world has ever known.” He goes on to warn that “it is not generally thought by believers that idolatry is the greatest and fundamental sin.”(1)

When hypocritical so-called Christian politicians use the name “Christianity” to further their agendas to kill safety nets for the aged and the poor and who oppose defending Mother Earth and sacred creation from onslaughts by multi-national corporations and Wall Street whose gods are the bottom line these very gods are idols. Such worship substitutes for honoring the real God—a God of justice, compassion and creativity.

When the president of CBS was questioned about why the media gave billions of dollars of free air time to the Trump campaign but no such support to the Bernie Sanders or even Clinton campaigns he replied that “Trump may be bad for America but he is good for the bottom line.” That is idolatry. (It is also in my opinion treason, a selling out of one’s country for the bottom line.)

Indeed, idolatry by its very nature, reduces God to an object—an object to be manipulated and used for our own interests (including getting elected, re-elected, or getting big money from big donors—somehow the Koch brothers come to mind—to further our selfish aims). Meister Eckhart talks about people who worship God like they do a cow—for the milk and cheese they can get from it.

Again, Merton comments on this form of idolatry when he says, “When God becomes object, he sooner or later ‘dies,’ because God as object is ultimately unthinkable. God as object…is hardened into an idol that is maintained in existence by a sheer act of will.”(2) Sheer acts of will but also, I would add, of projection. Projecting onto our own man-made God is an act of idolatry. Our making God over into our own image instead of striving to be shining with the Divine image in us and in our actions—this is idolatry. Study is important to resist idolatry. We need to learn on a daily basis who/what the real God is and is not.

Merton elaborates on the idols of our time when he comments on “the dangerous and potent idols” in the world today:

I would add that idols of consumerism—a fetish for things we buy and feel we need to buy or have bought—is part and parcel of today’s idolatrous scene as well. Indeed, our very economic system, to the extent that it creates and whips up consumer fetishes, is running on idolatry: That somehow the acquisition of more goodies will satisfy the deep hunger and longing of the human heart—even if such idolatrous buying results in other people going hungry or the earth itself being exploited, species rendered extinct, and climate change raising the seas, destroying cities and homes and the future for our great, great grandchildren. Such idol-worship fails to satisfy the heart. Idols are that kind of worship—unsatisfying. But dissatisfaction is at the heart of economic idolatry—it feeds the machines of advertising to keep us buying. And buying. And buying. The addiction of shopping is a special form of idolatry born of consumer capitalism.

Fundamentalism is a form of idolatry because it focuses on the literal as Bishop Spong reminds us in his solid study on Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy. This turning the literal into a god invites projection and with projection comes the worship of idols, i.e. man-made gods. Literalism also feeds the idols of fascism and empire-building because it focuses on external forces including “law and order” and military might at the expense of our inner wellbeing, the grace that community, celebration, joy, sharing, forgiveness, creativity, are all about. Such idolatry becomes a substitute for true religion. And there is plenty of that going around. Inner work is required to resist it.

We can also make an idol of rationality itself. Einstein warned about that when he declared that we should not overvalue the intellect for the intellect, he said, does not give us values; it only gives us methods. Values come from intuition he insisted and rationality should serve intuition. Yet we live in a society, he commented, that honors rationality and ignores intuition. This is one reason I elevate Rationality to being today one of the capital sins. Education has crashed on the rocks of rationality—rocks of idolatry. It needs a complete new start. Including for sure our seminary training which rarely includes training in how to be a mystic and teach others to be mystics, i.e. persons at home and accomplished with their intuitive (mystical) brains. This effort to create a balanced educational pedagogy where our left brain (intellect and analysis) and our right brain (mysticism and intuition) are both exercised and respected has been at the heart of my work as an educator for 45 years.

I am happy to say that a new school is being launched in Boulder, Colorado this year to carry on this pedagogy. Started by graduates of our University of Creation Spirituality, it is being called Fox Institute for Creation Spirituality and it will offer master’s degrees and doctor of ministry and work degrees and a doctor of spirituality degree along with certificate programs in creation spirituality. It is an effort to combat idolatry in our culture, our souls, and of course in our education. You might want to check it out.

~ Matthew Fox

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Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 32 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 60 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the FleshTransforming Evil in Soul and Society, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved and Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest

(1) Cited in Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2016), 204.
(2) Ibid., 237.
(3) Ibid.

 

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