Sullivan and Douthat debate Bad Religion

so I think you and I share one thing in common that we kind of wish that we come of age as Catholics in the 1950s um that's a big admission for you to start this conversation with well of course I think I should end it right there I we've I've I've won it's over no I mean I think I think as you beautifully lay out in this book uh Bad Religion um the quality of Catholic intellectual life the coherence of its spiritual and communal life uh was at a peak it seemed um just as we were at a peak of middle class strength and cohesion in America as a whole now we know all the forces that have unraveled the American middle class in many ways why did Christianity from such a strength I mean one of the things I don't I don't quite see the answer to I know you're trying to find the answer to it in the book why did it so wither so quickly um in the 70s um and to some extent and it stabilized a little bit now but why why the sudden collapse of this confident self-confident Christianity well I mean I think the reason not to wish that we'd come of age as Catholics in the 50s is that then we would have lived through precisely that collapse I mean maybe the only thing worse than coming of age in the aftermath would have been to you know if you're a conservative Catholic to suddenly have the Latin math replaced with guitar masses and so on um and and just a sort of I mean what what really struck me and this is a book about American Christianity in general but particularly where Catholicism is concerned just sort of the sense of sort of complete flux and disarray that that gripped at least the Western Catholic Church both in Europe and the United States and the late 60s and 70s um and I you know it was something that was back in back back in the church's past from before you know before I was before I was born um so to read about it was a and sort of experience it secondhand was kind of a striking thing and I think that you know I have in the book a sort of list of causes right because you have to have a list of a list of causes and I think the first one um is the one that I think everybody talks about and that's the sexual Revolution right and I think that that the kind of Crisis that created for Christianity is pretty easily understood it was a massive shift in Social mores the pill basically basically the pill but you know and sort of the broader um cultural consequences that rippled outward from that but basically the severing of what I think had been a real link between um sort of the basic Christian view that you know Chastity was very important and um sex was supposed to be reserved for marriage and obviously you know people had sex outside of marriage before 1964 but um but just that there was this ideal that people were trying to live up to that that Christian idea I think was linked to sort of a kind of simple common sense in the world of say 1946 or so in a way that it wasn't linked to simple common sense in the world of 1976 um and that you know and but it wasn't really available in 1946 I mean you couldn't have sex without risk appropriation right you and and and that lack of avail meant that why should a religion you know we're talking here about a belief in God made man two Millennia ago uh spreading a message of of divine compassion and love and giving himself up for crucifixion why would those beliefs be affected by a change in sexual uh I mean it seems such a strange distant issue but think about think about the gospels right um and think about the things that Jesus talks about in the gospels um essentially he lays a great moral stress on two big issues I'd say one and and this is where the strongest stress is laid is on the moral Temptations associated with great wealth um and the second and it's a lesser stress because I think it was probably a lesser a lesser issue in a way but it's still real is a stress on um the importance of sexual Chastity and you know the sort of Jesus has a way of taking the sort of The Commandments of the Jewish law in both cases really and strengthening them saying it has been said to you X but I say to you why and why is usually harder right and you know it's not just but when why is also impossible well why why is also why you can't even look at a beautiful woman um and and feel attracted to her without having committed adultery which is uh that's that's that's a very high standard it is a very high standard but it I'm just saying that's that's the sort of those are the moral standards that the Jesus of the New Testament sets right he sets and I I agree he sets a very just he sets just follow me here for a moment so what happens in the 60s and 70s and it isn't just the sexual Revolution right it's the combination of the sexual Revolution with I think an unprecedented affluence um in the western world and particularly in the United States and the era that we were just talking about the 40s and 50s this period of great strength and resilience for the Christian churches that's an era for of a generation that came of age with material privation with having seen Prosperity Melt Away during the Great Depression having lived through the the depression and then the rationing and everything else in in World War II and the generation that succeeds them comes of age in a kind of cornucopian abundance um and I think it's out of those two things and part of what I try and do in the book is is weave those two together in a way I think they're often separated the combination of sort of unprecedented opportunities afforded by affluence and what seemed like unprecedented sexual opportunities afforded by the sexual Revolution the birth control pill and so on they make um on the one hand they make what were already impossible admonition seem that much harder to live up to right it's one thing to say don't look at a woman woman you know with lust in your heart if you know you live in a Mediterranean Village and you see 25 women in the course of you know a given a given week a we're not going to we're not GNA no this is no even even in a more freewheeling Mediterranean Village right it's but it's another thing but it's another thing to say you know that those Commandments get harder in an age when you know magazine covers get more sort of provocative and then in an age when the internet makes everything provocative and the same is true with wealth it's you know it's one thing to say um you know do not covet thy neighbors you know whatever when Thy Neighbor doesn't even doesn't have that much stuff but in 21st century America Thy Neighbor or maybe not thy neighbor but you know the people who you watch on um million dooll listing on on Bravo or something the the amount of stuff available to covet has become so extraordinary I I would think your second argument about affluence is much more persuasive than the sex thing even though I I even though for you I mean and don't don't don't you think that the in a way the deepest source of some of your own alienation from at least from our shared Catholic church has to do with sexual issues right yes primarily I have to say the abuse of children and the cover up of it um was much more problematic for me than my struggle to understand why I was uh born a homosexual and how I should live my life according to the church figuring that through in a ways that made made psychological and spiritual as well as a natural allw sense but but those are different but those are different kinds of crises I mean the crisis that the sexual abuse epidemic posed for you I think is the kind of Crisis I mean I you know I have a 14-month old daughter I I I feel it in viscerally and again to sort of write a book like this and go through um so much of the documentation on the sex abbuse stuff is you know it's it's absolutely sickening and you can completely understand the sense you know the Deep sense of alienation that that provokes but it's a different kind of alienation I think it's it's not an alienation from necessarily the New Testament message it's an alienation from the Catholic Church as an institution in a particular time and place and as we know as an institution in a particular time and place the the Catholic church has had a lot of dark hours over the years so I I guess I guess I just think that for if you're looking at the tra the overall trajectory right I mean to me it seems like there was a shock and then an Aftershock for Christianity and the shock was the 60s and 70s it was mass affluence it was globalization it was the sexual Revolution and then over the last 10 or 15 years we've seen a kind of Aftershock which is the result of sort of a backlash against sort of you know the religious right the sense of a conflation of religion and politics and then the crisis in the Catholic church over sex abuse and so on but I think the first shock is still the more profound one and the second one is sort of you know the the religious right came into existence as a kind of response to that first shock I see well that that's one reading that's one reading yeah you're right that it is interesting that the sexual issues seem to be the ones upon which people fasten and Define themselves in a way um is not sex I mean you would concede that as you did that within the gospels Jesus is not that concerned with it there are two or three mentions of it there is the woman C in adultery there is there is um uh there is the admonition against divorce right or the strengthening of but these are not Central themes and and in fact he's you know he tells his disciples to leave their families as you cite in the book he tells you to hate your family if it mean if if you have to choose between it and him um the vast teachings of Jesus impinge upon sex not a little isn't there a danger that in fact what the sexual teaching and elevating it to such an extent was really about the church's Authority's ability to make to control the lives of their flock in a very guilt inducing a slightly unhealthy manner which kept them in power once that power was dissolved by the people themselves then it showed that the church was not resting on the gospel it was resting upon certain forms of social control and uh uh social repression uh and and and and giving power to a church Authority that could alone absolve you of sins that that's a pretty that's a pretty harsh reading of the Catholic past but I mean yeah there's an element of Truth in that story I think that story varies a lot I mean you would tell a very different story I think about um Irish Catholicism versus Italian Catholicism let's say or versus Spanish Catholicism I mean one of I think one of the great things about the Catholic church is it is this Global institution that has expressed itself in very different ways in very different times and places and you know you don't there in certain eras in certain cultures you do have this very strong stress on the sort of the ethic of City and so on that can absolutely shade into a kind of you know you need to confess X sins every week um you know and I'm thinking more of I think Paul and Augustine are much closer to this kind of Christianity than Jesus seems to although in a way but I think for them the the lust desires of the flesh seem to be far more important but what but what what striking about the gospels is that yes Jesus does clearly lay us he talks more about the Temptations of wealth than he does about the Temptations of sex but every time stat absolutely or of identity but when he's given but when he's given opportunities to talk about to talk about sex to talk about marriage and so on he makes two arguments right and one is a strengthening of um the Old Testament law in the cases he's given on questions like divorce and the definition of adultery and so on and the other as you rightly points out is point out is this is is a sort of um you know is is the idea that there also might be a higher calling than the institution of marriage and so on and that you know you might need to leave your family and and so on and but but that calling is not is not a call to a form of it's at least in the New Testament as it comes down to it's not a call toward sort of leaving those institutions behind in order to express your sex self sexually in many more exciting ways right it's a call to you know leaving the family behind in order to pursue a more aesthetic way of life so given given that given that grounding I think the issue for a lot of um a lot of Christians who I think would you know might share your your overall perspective right that yes it's important not to make sexuality the heart of the Christian story would also say but it's also important not to just sort of set set that part part of the New Testament I don't think you can I don't I don't think you can I think it's quite clear in some ways especially on divorce but we but let me let me think of but but it's also let me just say it's also that I mean people are interested in sex and they're interested in arguing about sexual morality because sex is so fascinating to so many people and I think one of the reasons I think that it works in on both sides right you have conservative Christians who want to emphasize these issues and then you have liberal Christian secular critics and so on who want to say look the only thing the Pope wants to talk about his sex and actually the pope mentioned sex you know in one line of one speech in one talk out of 600 addresses he gives most of which are about the love of Jesus Christ so I think it works both ways that everybody's obsessed with sex and that sort of that espe in especially in our contemporary culture and that colors our reading of religion yeah except I'm I'm lucky in as much as even though I I am from an Irish Catholic sort of background um my mother who was the one who mainly instilled Catholic Doctrine and discipline into me as well as the priests never would say sex is a sin but it's really not that big a sin people are it's one that good people are particularly liable to fall into um and or as Malcolm marriage once put it he didn't understand why lust was so wrong since it was always give give give as he put it um and well and that's that's a very dantean point of view if you read you know the Divine Comedy the the sins of lust are you know they're occupying one of the higher Circles of of I mean there there are many many Sinners who Dante places below the adulterers the fornicators and so on I that's that's absolutely true but I I also think there are some very go have the restoration of the kind of authority that the Catholic Bishops or hierarchy and Pope had in the 50s and 60s without the sexual uh torque as it were to keep the I don't think you could have I don't think you could have the restitution of that kind of authority period um and I I I just don't think that we live in an era or a society where you know I mean as you said there were a lot of factors especially in American Life tending towards sort of homogeneization um sort of assimilation and a sort of a more hierarchical mentality in that era so I I don't think you know sexual issues aside I guess this is part of one of the reasons why I think of myself as a social conservative because I think that the the nightmare scenarios that liberals tend to spin where if you know if you give the pope an inch the next thing you know you know the Swiss guards are going to be knocking at your door we're so far from those scenarios that you know that that the the the thing to worry about now is sort of repairing and rebuilding the institutions to the extent we can rather than you know assuming that if we if we do you know if we take any step back towards a more institutional Christianity next thing you know it's no one expects the Spanish Inquisition right so so that's yeah so I'm I'm I guess yeah I'm I'm Authority if if you believe that modernity in a way has it's it's it's it's like like like it did to the monarchy it has done to the papacy and it's blown all those cobwebs and veils away the mystery that badget would speak of that's very important in maintaining its power um that's sort of gone it's certainly gone in America it's certainly towards the Cardinals and Bishop I can't think of any Cardinal this country I think of as a holy someone I think of as a holy person uh maybe I'm missing somebody more obious I I agree that there's been a lot of that demystification on the other hand again I think we shouldn't assume that you know if you go back and read medieval literature I mean Dante is placing popes in hell right there was I think it was Michael Brendan doy a blogger had this great line about some press release from the Catholic league right you know the Vigilant guardians of vigilant for any whiff of anti-catholicism he said the Catholic league would have you know fired off endless press releases attacking Dante for you know putting popes in hell and and sort of um curing favor with the secular humanists of his day so I I don't know if that level of mystification you know there was a higher level perhaps but sort of spirit of ribaldry and farce and I can't believe I just used the word ribaldry have you ever seen that John love it Saturday Night Live sketch where he's talking about yes anyway viewers can Google John loveits at rivalry to find out why that word is funny but anyway that's I think that that that's always been there and so I think it is possible and has to be possible to have a vibrant Catholicism without the sort of you know papal Tiara up there and but isn't that what the second Council really tried to do and yet you've it seems to me with the current pontiff not to get into the details with him because he's not that not that is is um from the the attempt to restore Authority through more beautiful liturgy um all his fancy get up um uh you know I think I think that is think good I think that is how you do restore Authority except it just feels like someone's pulling the lever and nothing is working I mean it depends you know it depends where you go to mass and who you you know who you go to mass with and so on I think that there are I think that there are a lot of people and by a lot of people I don't mean hundreds of millions of people but you know there I think that a more beautiful liturgy let's say has more power to attract people back to the Catholic Church than would the pope just saying you know let a thousand flowers bloom again and it's you know guitar masses and every parish and so on of course the actual major reformers on offer now are not that they are female priests or married priests um which are third order uh issues for the church I would say um well I mean it depends you know for for a lot of people who you know came of age in the 60s and 70s those were sort of first order issues and that was the Assumption was that that above all was what the church needed to do right that you know you let Priests get married you ordain women and then these sort of problems of people dropping out of dropping out of the pews and dropping out of the Seminary would take care of themsel themselves but I mean the point I try to make in the book is that if you look at the churches and denominations that basically did that um that turned out not to be a respon a solution to the Dilemma right I mean you know if if the sort of conventional answer for what Al's Catholicism were true then the Episcopal Church would be flush with members in every Parish um and would basically be on its way to sort of overtake taking Catholicism in the United States and in fact the Episcopal church has declined more precipitously than the Catholic church and that's been true of Mainline denominations in general um so which is why it's it's such a hard problem sort of this where does Christianity go from here because I feel like to me coming of age in the 90s and 2000s it felt like the liberal answer had been tried and failed and the more conservative answer was being tried and at that point I think especially in the 90s it felt like it was being tried with some success but that was before the sort of onew punch of the Bush presidency and the Catholic sex abuse crisis sort of I think re it didn't sort of so much um undo whatever progress had been made as it sort of exposed the limits of um the sort of John Paul 2 era the sort of Catholic Evangelical Alliance and American politics and so on that these things had had done done some good I think some real good in sort of continuing to make Christ geni more relevant in the US than it had been become in Europe but they hadn't sort of figured out an answer to the deeper dilemma when you talk about the sort of uh 90s 2000s Catholic Evangelical Alliance in America in particular by which actually demographically what means the Catholic hierarchy and evangelicals because Catholic actual Catholics lean very much in the opposite direction let's say churchgoing Catholics evangelicals and the Catholic hierarchy if you just if you just that's not my experience of churchgoing Catholics well it depends who see to me and I go to a big Cathedral so I don't go to a but very easygoing a very e happy in modernity um a little repelled by political messaging from the pulpit no I I I I think that that's right that there's clearly a big difference if you even if you just break it down to sort of Conservative Catholics versus evangelicals right there's a difference in the level of zeal the level of stridency the level of political engagement and all the rest but it is true that if you just look at churchgoing Catholics they do lean more sort of conservative on issues Politics As You Con seeed in the book and this is where we where I want to talk about a difference in our approaches I think you're quite candid that there is a great risk in agglomerating churches around a political party as such absolutely in in the sense that I think one of the reasons I wrote that piece in news wi was because I wanted to tell another generation that everywhere I went if I ever talked on campus the idea of Christianity was abhorrent frightening oppressive uh ugly intolerant that is pal kicking that's a general feeling I mean I'm not I'm not car that is a that's a huge thing I'm aware of that feeling yeah and part of part of the I think part of what this book is going to try and do and and what I was trying to do in a different way is is to is to is to present it in a fresher way and say look no no every you've got this got the wrong end of the stick here this is let's go back and look at what this religion is really about and what its values are and you may like them my my issue and it is in that piece is is why be political at all um my understanding of how a Christian would be political would be something like the Civil Rights Movement which is essentially not a Democrat party or Republican Party Movement at the time that was understood itself as a moral movement more than a more than a political one as such even though the even though what they were doing hard to separate the moral and the political in the Civil Rights Movement wouldn't you say I mean there were they were a movement with a particular legal agenda yes right that were using you know in effect um politic a form of sort of political force a sort of you know peaceful political force to achieve particular political goals right and the Paradox as you say was that they were also this sort of you know revivalist movement you know this movement that that you know was I mean if you read um the I Have a Dream speech it's a sort of you know it's it's a um it's a I'm I'm missing the right word here but it's it's a speech that transcends political categories of every kind right it's a it's a vision of the Peaceable Kingdom almost transform kingdom come right um so that's there but they the existence of that Dimension that transcended politics coexisted with a dimension that was I mean Martin Luther King is a very political figure the force the force right the force comes let let me let me finish the sent the force came from abandoning coercion It came it its greatest moments came when it was withstanding violence uh which is a classic Christian move in the public sphere it is to stand for certain principles but not to wield power to achieve them rather than to present oneself as a moral uh as it were Voice or a moral example in the face of an injustice um and refuse to be you know even even if to be persecuted um I mean there is this and to put it in a different way there is the strange way in which current many current uh Christians talk about oppression of the state as if it were a bad thing for Christianity whereas of course the earliest Christians understood that as a sign that they were on the right path um but sometimes you know as in the case of the Japanese Christians in the 17th century sometimes the state does win so it's you know it's it's perilous to just sort of for own but to go to the other end and talk about um picking presidential candidates with a colloquium of Evangelical leaders and who are they going to who was going to be anointed uh that to my mind is that that's what people don't like I completely agree that that that is but but I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that this is there is a dilemma here that can't just be resolved by saying we're going to be apolitical right because I mean well let's let's take your own case right Andrew Sullivan passionate passionate moralist right I mean I've been reading I've been reading your writing for decades now uh maybe not multiple let's say two decades now I I don't want to I don't want to claim claim that I was reading your pieces on ratzinger in 1987 from um but and you I mean I I don't think it's a coincidence that you that your conscience both moral and political was formed by a fairly intense form of Christianity and I think this comes through in cases where your arguments line up very clearly with tradition Christian teaching um I think it comes through in arguments where you're critiquing traditional Christian teaching on questions of gay rights and so on I I think that your your sort of moral voice is inseparable right from and it is a and it is a Authority on you're not no you're not claiming Authority on this I'm claiming I'm claiming witness right but that's you you you see that that's a tricky distinction to make and if you take the case of the Civil Rights Movement they sort of they abandoned a certain form of coercion right by committing themselves to non-violent protest but nonviolent protest as Gandhi before them and you know recognized is also a form of coercion it's one of the most effective forms of coercion because it it you know force it effectively forces your enemy to pass judgment on himself right by becoming the thing that he doesn't want to think of himself as being the guy fire hosing 10-year-olds in the streets of Birmingham um and so and so that element of coion is there and then the political element never you know what is the landmark moment of the Civil Rights Movement it is the passage it's it's not the only Landmark movement but but the Civil I mean the argument Johnston's moment but the not King but the argument but the but the argument that was often made in the 50s and 60s by critics of the Civil Rights Movement was that they should only be a moral voice and not seek legal change prec too quickly at least precisely because their Vision was too utopian right Billy Graham who in many ways I think was a was very impressive in his support of the civil rights movement after King gave his I I Have a Dream speech you know he said something like you know the lion will lie down with the lamb before you know this sort of this sort of perfect vision comes to pass so and and yet I think the Civil Rights protesters were right to be political and so the challenges I mean imagine agree that we have to be careful yes in the mixture here yes and that is and that is the the I mean this book is it's very critical I hope you agree of the way religion and politics have been conflated um I think first in many ways by the religious left in the 60s and 70s but then incredibly strongly and ultimately I think destructively by um by by religious conservatives continuing to the present day all that I'm saying is that I feel like I feel like you you want to sort of Envision a refuge of sort of apoliticism if you will that doesn't actually exist and that this tight rope walk I mean you can be apolitical completely and God knows my model is entirely in this respect Jesus's navigational politics which is remarkably uh rather than confronting it steps to the side it's rather like when they're all about to cast the stone he breaks the dynamic but that's what you would have religious authorities do isn't what you yourself do in your own I mean I think there and I think you're right about it there's a distinction here particularly in Catholic terms I think between the obligations of lay people involved in politics and the obligations of Bishops right where I and I agree that but I think you and I as as lay people I mean I'm I think it's silly to pretend that my political arguments are not informed right by my by my religious views about the nature of it is quite clear for example that my extreme extreme response to torture was informed overwhelmingly by my Catholic or Christian faith but you have said that you would you but I tried right never to invoke that um instead taking from my faith something like a principle of human dignity right uh and applying it to trying to persuade others that that's the case that's different than saying you're you're breaking God's will here therefore it is wrong I mean that's a yes but I I think that and I and I agree that sort of taking taking that taking a universal premise um and making the argument on those grounds is the best way to make this kind of argument I just don't think you give I mean if you take an issue like abortion right I think people on the pro-life side of the argument have spent a lot of time trying to do exactly that same thing trying to make arguments that appeal to Universal ideas about human rights and human dignity um trying to sort of have a message that could appeal you know could appeal to people in both political parties and so on I I guess I just feel like as somebody who you know has who who is pro-life and who who sort of sees that movement as a compelling and important Christian cause I think I've sort of seen seen the challenges right it's just sort of it's a very fine line to walk and there are moments when you have to be willing to accept that you're going to be nakedly political if if the goal of the pro life movement were not to make abortion illegal but to simp simply persuade the majority of Americans specifically and and in particular American women that it is just something they should never do would it be more successful I mean my con the threat of criminalizing people actually immediately stops people listening it does but that's why the pro-life if you listen to I mean first of all if you listen to Republican politicians you will never hear a republican politician say he wants to criminalize abortion in general and if you listen to the most effective prif pro-life activists and if you listen to the Catholic Bishops and so on I mean I think the success of the pro-life movement in moving public opinion on the issue have been driven by yes exactly uh you know not using the rhetoric of criminalization but but speaking you know a sort of retoric of moral persuasion and so on nothing powerful than our ability to image the little embryo which we didn't have before but again it's tricky right because you can't just say well you know all debates a debate this important is only a debate about culture and not a debate about law right because culture and law interact and shape each other in all kinds of ways change the culture and then the law will follow right but I mean again take okay so I come from a perspective but it's it's easy for you to say because you're we you know you've you've you've come so far in 15 years right but yeah it worked for one it worked for a lot of things um if you're telling the truth um and if you're clearly that's all your agenda is rather than seeking power and I think people can sniff out but think about but think about the way it felt to you when Republicans conservatives were one trying to enshrine the traditional definition of marriage in state constitutions and then we trying to put it in the US Constitution right for pro lifers that already happened essentially a group of justices said ruled um that prif pro-life conviction is I don't want to say an American that's too strong a word but that the pro-life argument um is contrary to the Constitution of the United States and that I think is the the existence of that yeah that ruling and its consequences both for Law and culture is what makes the pro it's such a huge hurdle on the one hand for the pro-life movement to get over and on the other hand it keeps that debate political I mean I think for you imagine if Republicans had succeeded in passing a constitutional amendment um sort of whatever the language was but let's say it you it I I think it would have I think it would have intended to radicalize you politically a bit more than what actually happened which has been a sort of succession of Victories for your side of the argument has done so that's again that's all I mean by saying you know I again there's a real overlap between our position on on sort of this critique of how partisanship can corrupt Christianity but it's just I think you should have maybe a little more sympathy for how sort of Christian conservatives have wrestled with these issues just because they're so hard I am I it is very hard my my and one can't take an absolutist position on either position I think perfectly but then it becomes a question of what do you think you want to emphasize and move nudge towards one of the things I liked about this book a lot was its was its pushing away of the political and its concentration again on religion as itself um uh so you're not gonna I'm gonna although I do think there's a difference by the way just parenthetically because a constitutional amendment on that would have I think singled out a group of people within the society and and and had a specific part of the Constitution designed to affect them alone whereas and it really does affect them not in terms of someone who doesn't want you don't think that uh roow versus Wade singles out a group of let's say members of the species Homo sapiens and uh subjects them to a politic a particular form of political treatment that little guy in you know in in the ultrasound that you were talking I mean Rover versus way it states it's it writes Peter Singer philosophy those those fetuses would not be or embryos would or or early uh children uh in the womb would not feel anything from this I mean yes they would objectively be marginalized but they wouldn't be you wouldn't be telling a whole bunch of active American ciens be killed yeah you wouldn't they aren't voters if that's what you mean they aren't but I'm not going to disagree with that Ros as what I think it was a horrible decision I think it and I think it ruined a lot of our politics in a lot of areas subsequently and has been a bane of the culture wars um and in so far as it tempted evangelicals to come flooding into Political life I think it was the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court anyway on that we'll come back in a second in the book you're very I think rightly tough on nationalism conflating itself with Christianity um uh too much politics uh co-opting Christianity um but you're also very tough on what you might call the sort of Karen Armstrong wing of modern hermeneutics of the gospels I mean it's a very long complicated topic I and I don't want to Su but but let us say the one is at at mass and one is one is or even just a prayer somewhere um isn't it simply true that the God we are being with or attempting to be with or in the Eucharist consuming isn't isn't it the case that in some ways it it is God is godness or whatever it is beyond definition our understanding so you know what Pascal said was you use reason but you then have to let go of it right um uh uh where I'm sorry I've just completely lost my oh yeah so you're saying what what's they right in saying look we and we all I think you're great on the Gnostic Gospels because you you you do show why they are actually little unconvincing and incoherent and why in fact the boring Bor the synoptic gospels are actually more interesting um but we know now things that we never knew before we knew that we now know that there was a a lot ofun in in the early Church of what Jesus meant who he was I think we knew that already well I mean it's in the New Testament that I mean the you know the the I mean one of the central debates of the New Testament is well what do you know what do we do about the Jewish law and um I mean and obviously Paul's letters aren't being written written in a vacuum I think the debate and where I don't think we now know some amazing secret the debate is over to what extent was there this really powerful alternative tradition that rooted in the same common experience of Jesus's life and death and resurrection that was sort of snuffed out by the sort of Orthodox party or the Proto Orthodox party in the early church and and this is the argument that is made by a host of historians and non-historians and so on is that by combining sort of second century alternative gospels with reading between the lines of the New Testament with the Gospel of Thomas which some people date to the same age as at least some of the canonical gospels we can reconstruct this alternative narrative which is a Jesus who was more of a sort of Zen you know speaker of interesting aphorisms and so on and who was less the Jesus of you know Proto Orthodoxy Orthodoxy whatever you want to call him and I I'm again you know not posturing as an academic historian and so on this is the opinion of someone without an advance advaned degree and who obviously comes to this subject with strong biases but I don't find that argument remotely convincing I think almost all the evidence we had suggests that in that the earliest Christians were focused very intensely were focused more intensely on Jesus's death and Resurrection than they were on his sayings um and that the sort of Orthodox Narrative of what Jesus's life and death meant while obviously you know was sort of has been debated and will continue to be debated until the end of time that narrative is the narrative that dates to the early church so that's my you know that's again just one man's opinion of course this is this all you're doing this understand but then that makes difference that then that makes a difference for for the question you raised which I think is an absolutely important question right which is that sort of intellectually and philosophically the god of the Hebrew scriptures the New Testament um the god of sort of Western monotheism is a God who is you know beyond the Beyond as you say right and so the the writers like Karen Armstrong and others who say that you know the most important theology is apophatic theology right which emphasizes what we can't know about God is sort of that that's been part of the Christian tradition throughout time and space and history it's there in Augustine it's there in aquinus and all the rest and that's hugely important but it's also important that this beyond the beyond God if you're a Christian you think this beyond the beyond God decided to reveal himself to humanity in the most profound way in the person of Jesus of Nazareth a first century sort of you know troublemaking Jew um and and it's that and it's that that that I feel like gets lost in a lot of liberal theology but surely what that first century Jew said told people to do The Parables and riddles he told and he did tell a lot of zenik Parables and riddles which are which seemed totally counterintuitive strangely you know there's a reason why Merton was translating chongu you know there there there is a sort of and Jesus is often withdrawing to meditate there is a there is there's clearly some elements of Eastern insights into into mystery that Jesus seems to embody um which brings me to the to the other question is it possible that the beyond the Beyond uh both entered human history through Jesus and in other forms like other religions or other figures um obviously I think you believe that he would enter the world not incarnate but through the Saints um whom we can observe but what about someone you know the teachings of the Buddha um for me I found so much of it fascinating and and worthwhile except the notion that I'm disappearing into complete nothingness right that there is not a God who loves me um and that loves me deos katos s right and who loves the world that the world itself is I mean that right is that it isn't on the one hand just something to a sort of prison to be escaped a sort of mediocre reality to just be transcended and so on I mean so the answer to your question is yes right that that I mean this is one of the things the second Vatican Council was was right about right it is you know it's the you know the spirit bloweth where it listeth and all that right God you know if there is a God then then every human civilization has to has presumably had some sort of encounter with him and it's the the idea that you know we can find um sort of sort of divine truths expressed to other religious figures I think is a tremendously important point for Christians to keep in mind but but then but then the essence of Christianity is to say I mean as you say in the case of the Buddha right like you know to be a Christian is to say that the person of Jesus of Nazareth this sort of you know fish frying you know taxpayer be sorry ta taxpayer too but tax collector befriending uh you know changing water into wine not at the beginning of the feast but at the end of The Feast so they could keep drinking right that that that Jesus with his sort of fleshly rebuke to people who would just say religion is about you know purely escaping the body that that's that you know you have to come back to that Jesus right and that that and that that Jesus you know in in the places where that if Christ is the Incarnation of God then he is sort of the controlling the controlling Authority if you will for sort of settling these questions about you know you know should we drink you know should we eat drink and be merry sometimes right well yeah sometimes we should because he did and this is I think it's ENT right there was great line where it's the sort of the what what's what's interesting about I'm going to get I'm going to butcher this but it's something like the challenge of Jesus is that He suggests you know He suggests to us that in some way and you know that we can't understand because God is beyond the Beyond this too is what God is really like God is really like Jesus right and that's you know that's in a way incredibly comforting because it means god is someone who lays down his life for us it's also challenging because as we said at the beginning of this conversation he asks The Impossible of us um and it's also just really interesting I mean if that's if that's you know the most powerful moment in the gospels is is maybe when you know Jesus goes to raise Lazarus from the dead and it's the Gospel of John which really emphasizes his you know his godhood right this is the most and this is part part of why part of why I find the sort of real Jesus enthusiasts so annoying is that they a lot lot of the points they're trying to make are already they're already there in the gospels these interesting tensions but the Gospel of John is like a very Supernatural Jesus who's very in control he knows he's going to die he knows he's going to be resurrected no problem and then he goes to raise Lazarus and he's in control it's like Lazarus is sick no worries we're gonna you know takes a couple days he gets there and then he and then he confronts the reality of Lazarus being dead and Mary and Martha weeping and everybody's suffering just weeping but telling him where were you it's your fault which is what we say to God every single day and and he weeps yes and that's amazing he weeps he weeps because and and why he weeps is of course not answered entirely in that text no but um I think he weeps well my feeling about that story is that he weeps because these are his friends I mean he genuinely genuinely feels he's let them down secondly he weeps because he knows that that if he takes this step uh then all then then the road to the passion kicks in because he is invoking powers that no existing order could tolerate um because of a threat to temporal Powers um but yes I what I what I what I miss in public Christianity is the telling of stories like that where Jesus is revealed as an extraordinary complicated interesting character I mean I think uh I I I feel they're a part of the the gospels where I really hear a distinctive voice a very clear um often with the Mary Martha stuff which is my one of my favorite sort of themes of the gospels um there's the more he's among friends I mean you get it in a way with his relationship with Peter too where he's sort of you know Peter is his chosen one who he's always rebuking and always sort of correcting and so on and S John whom somehow always confiding in and and taking rest with in a way he's the one who will always understand somehow be beloved in in some special way and he is all about and you are very kind to mention my own book he's his fundamental relationship Jesus on Earth his friendship right um greater man hath no love in this he laid down his life for his friends I just found just personally that one of I mean the one of the things that we can do better is is is is is read about the Saints actually I mean because I think when you act when you actually instead not not necessarily hagiographies or the sort of myth but the actual the actual lives these people lived and and the sacrifices they made and the convictions they had and yet we're not um but anyway we you can I call it your party the Republican party you're not that identified as a republican as such are you or are you are you there are two political parties in America I'm a conservative and feel a stronger identification with Republican party so we we can say that do you think that if mitt Romany is the nominee that you'll be that you would be supporting a Christian uh well that's why the um the subtitle of the book is how we became a nation of Heretics heretic is obviously a very loaded word um but I use it because I think it is it is the correct word to describe a a lot of American religion today that we are this we are a country that on the one hand is you know no longer traditionally Christian and sort of the bastions of traditional Christianity are weaker than they've ever been but on the other hand I don't think we're we're not a secular country clearly and I don't think we're a sort of you know we're not a postchristian country because most of American religion is still more influenced by Christianity than by any other tradition I mean for all of the interest in Buddhism and Hindu ISM and you know Jewish mysticism and so on the controlling theological influence on American life is Christianity by a factor of like 20 or something even now and so what you know so what is American religion well it's it's Christian is it's sort of you know fascinated by Jesus but constantly reinterpreting and rewriting his story it's you know um I think it's you know we're I Think We're a nation of Heretics and I think that is the correct word um and I we're Heretics to one another I don't think you know I'm not writing this book and saying you know I mean I am saying there is a core of historic Christian faith and much of American religion diverges from it both on sort of core doctrinal issues but also on sort of the money and sort of sex and some of these issues we touched on earlier but I'm also saying that you know we are we've we've sort of all drifted in all these different directions so that you know from one person's vantage point the other looks like a heretic and vice vers Versa um and in the case of Romney and Mormonism we've had this whole debate you know the evangelicals in particular are focused on this is Mormonism Christianity right well look traditional Christians um believe in a certain set of Sacred Scriptures and a certain set of doctrines Mormonism adds some Sacred Scriptures and amends some of those doctrines particularly related to you know the nature of Christ and and The Trinity um if if Mormonism had popped into existence in the 4th Century ad we we would remember it as a you know the way we remember aryanism and a lot of the heresies of that time so I don't think it's problematic to call it a heresy now and it sort of solves the you know is it Christian is it not issue which is sort of a silly debate yes Mormons are Christians in the sense that they claim to be followers of Jesus Christ and are I mean are in a very intense way followers of Jesus Christ but they're from the Mormon point of view you and I are Heretics and from I think my own I'm not going to speak for you but maybe from your point of view as well the Mormons are Heretics and it's okay to it's okay to sort of say that I don't think we need to are you a heretic uh I try not to be I I I try not to be no I mean no one of the dangers you have in writing a book like this right is I'm pointing the finger and saying heretic right right and I am to some extent doing that I I mean I do think that you know I I would I but not from a position of authority you can't do anything to these people except expose that what they believe is has nothing whatsoever to do with what Jesus taught um that's move I just feel that once everybody's a heretic and Authority is essentially lost how do we live as Christians now how do we sustain this life um and surely there must be within anybody's religious faith those periods when one is going to mass and nothing seems to be jelling or working there are periods when there are certain doctrines you just have difficulty understanding there's a do there doctrines when we say the n in cre that we don't really we've forgotten what they actually mean these words because they become so familiar substantial with the father what right in some ways just forcing us into a new word makes us um makes us look at this again and one of the things that I've try to do in my adult life is constantly look at the religion that created me in many ways uh and keep trying to look at it in different ways so I don't it doesn't get it doesn't get aifi or calcified into something I can't that doesn't isn't real to me anymore it's well and this is what the Karen the Karen Armstrongs are write that fundamentally practice is more important than Dogma to I mean to almost any religion but to to Christianity and and Jesus himself you cannot read the New Testament you know the parable of you know he says many will say Lord Lord and you know and and not mean it or whatever and the parable of the sheep and the goats where what matters is who you know who help the poor not you know not I mean that's that's clearly there I think the from from from my perspective the problem with much of contemporary religion is that there's an assumption that if the practice is more important than the Dogma then you just jettison the Dogma because it's controversial and divisive and nobody understands it and so on but then the next thing you know you get rid of the dogma and suddenly people aren't practicing anymore because there has to be a reason there has to be a reason for the practice exactly I mean no there's no question although Jesus is quite clear that religion is what you do if you you can say whatever you like about what you believe but what your religion actually is is what you do um now obviously I agree with you you but this is where but this is where and this is where the sort of I mean it's I'm just stealing it from K Chesterton but the idea that Paradox is Central to Christian dogma I mean if you look at sort of you know the endless debates over you know Free Will versus Grace in terms of Salvation I mean and then you sort of try and map that onto your own life well sometimes you know sometimes virtue feels like Free Will and it feels like exertion and sometimes it's clear that you're hopelessly corrupted by sin and only an infusion of Grace um can help you but holding those ideas in tension and not just saying well we're going to rationalize it it's all free will I mean that was what Pelagius did right and it made sense it was like why would God give us Commandments we can't follow let's just rationalize it you can follow these Commandments just follow them but that's not what human life is like No And and that's and it's that I just feel like it's the same thing with with um you know with sort of the broader dogma and practice issue it's like you know you can say oh the Eucharist it's you know we don't need to worry about transubstantiation versus consubstantiation it's just a lovely symbol of you know of of Jesus but then you know if you if it's just a symol con sorry sorry it was one of intervie one of best one of the best Crips at a dinner party ever right if I if it's just a symbol I say to hell with it but that's but that's right I mean that's look I was in high school figuring out trans instantiation because it's what separated me from all these other people right all the props all the props yeah um uh but even now that was in no way meant to cast dispersions on the Protestant book buying public no just we're we're describing tribes right in a particular form and I was very much a minority tribe i' it's I've made a a lifetime out of being a minority tribe somewhere within some Community um now where was I going with that um is it not possible for yes for people to understand that Paradox to understand that their faith will sometimes be de out or their faith May sometimes be Transcendent um they're not entirely sure like like transubstantiation what really that means like when I when I take that on my tongue I I drink that wine it tastes like a wafer and tastes like wine but but we are being asked to believe that it is the body and soul um uh body and blood soul and Divinity of of Jesus uh I'm just fascinated by the mechanics of faith of that moment obviously we have to to some extent surrender ourselves to something that is completely mysterious that that we just have to say in some way we cannot understand this is Jesus's way of staying with us um and some of those are but to a non-believer that sounds completely pathetic just as you insisting upon Paradox and I insist on mystery right is Hitch hitch God rested Soul would be all over us right he'd be all over what's his blood would be until you asked him to you know justify his fierce moralism in a sort of meaningless Universe where we're all just fizzing soda bottles I mean there yes there are intellectual difficulties with Christianity but there are other other systems of belief have intellectual difficulties well that giv us hope doesn't it I mean I well and it's also this this this idea of I think what a lot of non-believers and Skeptics don't understand when they look at religious belief is they look at the most yeah the most outrageous right transubstantiation for Catholics that's one of the most outrageous things that the Catholic Church asks you to believe um but I think with with religious belief you the more I mean it's as in any relationship any anything you know you it the relationship is what is primary and then because you have trust in the relationship and maybe it's trust in your relationship with Jesus Christ himself or to trust in your relationship with your church which obviously many Catholics don't have these days and so on but out of that trust you know you you you don't accept you don't start with transubstantiation I guess is what I'm saying you start with the story of Jesus and whether this story is compelling and whether whether you know whether you are whether you feel called to believe in that story and then from that story you hit the moment when you know Jesus says you you know you must eat my flesh and drink my blood and most of the crowd leaves right because but the disciples stay because you know they've they have they feel that they have reason to trust even when even when they don't quite understand and that yeah and that is sort of the ultimate nature of of Faith but I think it's wrong to say that it's all you know it's not that it's it's not that it's all unreasonable you have reasons to feel trust in Jesus that enable you to stay with him when you reach a point where you don't understand you know it's rather like a marriage in which there can be pretty bad days or big fights or good good periods and bad periods but you remember that you're you're still married um and that and that in fact that's your primary commitment I mean when people ask me to leave why I don't just leave the church over matter such as um gay rights or something to me it it it just trivializes the church I mean I I I don't I don't mean to deny there isn't an argument here but I do do not think it's an argument worth leaving if I'm head if the if the gospels have moved me in my life the way they have if the sacraments have changed my life the way they have that issue is not something I could possibly leave well and that's my home over I mean I think the the question with issues like that is to what extent you know if if your disagreement with the church over homosexuality leads you to stop listening to the church in general then I think there is a strong argument for for leaving the church but I think the question the the ultimate issue is it's not sort of from from my point of view the essence of sort of small o Orthodox faith is not just sort of you know mindless Ascent to you know whatever whatever letter has been co-signed by two Vatican sub preets today right it's just the idea that in your Christian Life you have authorities outside of yourself and it doesn't mean you ignore your own conscience right um and it doesn't you know it doesn't mean that you aren't you know aren't willing to sort of think critically about those authorities but I I feel that absent the idea of a non-personal Authority that religion just sort of and Christianity in particular just sort of it drifts into narcissism and solipsism and all these things that are characteristic of of of Our Lives as we live them today but that's that's that's the tension isn't it because the authority taken out of proportion is dangerous I mean I think I think that I think that a lot of us felt that the authoritarian structure of the church as well as um uh it's the nature of the priesthood after Vatican 2 was direct was definitely part of godliness that happened with child rape and youth abuse um uh you need both but it does seem to me that a lot of American Catholics are figuring it out I mean they are showing up um American Catholic attendance is pretty stable Now isn't it it's as as far as I can tell the the the challenge for the church is that a lot of the stability is created by Hispanic immigration and if you just look at white Catholics um there's you know a steep decline in the crisis years but then it's just sort of yeah I mean well then you look at a place like Ireland where my religion right W Europe wiped it's just never never has a a religion collapsed so quickly as it just did in Ireland you wri in this book about a physical resurrection of Jesus Christ what do you mean by that because the the stories that we have what do I mean by that yeah yeah U because I mean I mean a I mean a flesh and blood resurrection that did not take place just as a sort of either a psychological experience purely in the minds of the disciples or as something they experienced solely in a transported religious state right so it it was something that was that could have been experienced by you and I in our current caffeinated but not sort of transported experience what happens when he vanishes I I don't know what happens when he I mean the someone who physical a physical body can't vanish can he well a physical someone who someone who I mean the interesting thing and I think one of the to me persuasive things about about the New Testament is that there isn't an attempt to fit the resurrection experiences into expected categories he doesn't behave like a completely resurrected normal back from the grave I'm fine he he's not like right what's for well he does say well I mean he does he does you know eat he does eat with them but he doesn't he's not one he's not Lazarus back from the dead right he's not just restored to his normal life two he's not resurrected sort of and then he goes and you know you know he's super he's he's Neo in The Matrix and he suddenly goes and you know kills the high priests and slaps everybody around with his new superpowers and he's not he's not a ghost they're very focused on that he has you know physical hands and you know wounds in his hands and he eats and so on but he you know but he does things that he disappears sometimes they don't recognize him and then they do recognize him so it's clearly it's clearly a very mysterious thing um but I do think the stress on the I think the stress on the physicality of it is very important because it makes the point that this is a this is a religious experience unlike any other unlike any other unlike you know religious experience is a human Universal not in the sense that all people have it but in the sense that it seems to be available to people in all cultures at all times and places but it is usually something that takes place through a sort of transport to heightened a heightened sense of reality you know these sort of mystical experiences where you know you sort of feel yourself with the universe some of the post-resurrection stories do are a little like that they have a little of that like when he's with the disciples on the road to EMAs and he's sort of interpreting the scriptures for them and you know their hearts are opened and so on how they not recognize him this is this is the and they recognize him in the breaking of the bread so you understand this story is All About the E because it's a because it's a story I mean because it is it is our I mean hopefully it is our sort of ultimate Destiny which we can't quite comprehend at this moment breaking into a fallen and compromised world and so there is you know there is it's it's there you know he's he's there with them and yet there's also there's also there's also some distance but I think it's to me one of the interesting things about contemporary religion is the extent to which we live in this sort of disenchanted age right where people especially educated people feel very uncomfortable believing in sort of literal literal Miracles right you know uh whether it's sort of medieval seeming stuff like levitating statues and Saints and so on um or its healings and so forth um but religious belief is still present and and what's happened is that you know fewer people believe in a bodily Resurrection right this sort of a core dogma of Christianity but more people believe in the in heaven as a sort of disembodied State and a way right that sort of seems intuitive it's like all right we've gotten rid of the sort of weird wiky wacky you know magical stuff and we believe in a kind of spiritual resurrection that doesn't seem so crazy and Supernatural except that isn't a spiritual Resurrection much actually much weirder wouldn't it be very strange if having lived Our Lives as bodily creatures we you know spent eternity without bodies what would you know what would to me in in a weird way the idea of a bodily resurrection and Jesus Christ being B bodily resurrected and so on is actually it's it's more compelling precisely because it suggests a continuity with our lived experience rather than this sort of like you know we're on clouds with Harps and we're floating around Inc boring and it's incredibly boring and so on and you know no there's going to be a new Heaven and a new Earth and you know so so in in a way to me it it's it seems more Supernatural to people people than a sort of purely spiritual experience but it I think it's actually less Supernatural and it's more what you would expect from The God Who you know made us the way we are if he made us at all with beards and you know and and collared shirts and all the rest of it yeah I'm I'm I'm reminded of um when I when I when I asked Michael oal what he thought about salvation and he said who would ever want to be saved uh right which is which is actually a Christian truth which is we don't want to erase our personalities our spirit and that's why we pray to the dead as people I mean I pray I ask my grandmother for intercession all the time because she's way holier than I will ever be um but it is that it's that middle ground between we don't want we don't want our bodies and our sort of ourselves as they are annihilated completely but neither do we want to just sort of you know you wouldn't want to spend eternity as the person you are now because you know there has to be some sort of change that's for damn sure there has to literally for damn I mean that is in a sense what hell might be right it is eternity as the person you are right now and so this is again why the the resurrection narratives are interesting because they suggest there's a continuity he still got the wounds his life was real right he he didn't just come down to Heaven as sort of from Heaven as a miraculous super guy who wasn't really touched no the nails went in and they and the wounds presumably will be whatever it means for them to be there for all eternity they'll be there but so so it's changed and yet not changed and that is you know again part of what I find hopeful right transfigured probably the proper term it's funny one of my I during one of the most intense periods of my life one of my best friends appeared to me in a dream um absolutely who just died absolutely identifiable as him but not quite him transfigured into something slightly different and uh haunting um but joyful immensely joyful it's a very pleasant dream to see him again um and not see him like to like a dream I mean that's the best I can do with understanding OS um right it is it's it's in that you know it's it's trying to contain two realities at once yes which is a much more interesting idea Than People acknowledge Christianity is actually Christianity it's is actually extraordinar no and I and I do think in you know the the book that I've written I think you've just it sounds sort of you know defensive and half-hearted in a way but I'm writing hopefully for an audience that you know often has very strongly anti-christian feelings I hope some members of that audience will read the book and so that is part of the message of the book yeah Christianity a more interesting idea than you might think than you might think thank you so much thank you so much anrew this was this was a lot of fun yeah you probably won't get many of those questions in future maybe you will I don't know um no this was the best this this is why I was so eer and and this I'm grateful for the book I'm genuinely grateful as a human being

Channel: The Daily Beast

Views: 48,144

Keywords: Daily Beast, Andrew Sullivan, Ross Douthat, Bad Religion, Christianity

Id: 7zsljbjM_4Q

Length: 72min 25sec (4345 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 23 2012