Are We Really Talking, or Just Competing for Body Counts?

In 2019, political commentator and talk show host Dave Rubin and Oxford professor John Lennox met onstage and tried to answer: Is God Dead? Justin Brierley of the UK's Unbelievable? radio show and podcast moderated the conversation at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, CA. Crediting his year-long tour with Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson, Rubin discusses his own journey in faith and belief--from an apparent atheism to now an exploration of his parents' Judaism. Lennox is a Christian from Northern Ireland and approaches the exchange with a magnanimity that's much harder to find than it should be. As if to put a finer point on it, host Brierley reads an audience question for Lennox toward the end, Do you want Dave to become a Christian? The question illicits laughter, perhaps in part for Rubin's periodic joking that he was on a hot-seat throughout the event. Then Lennox provides a response that I think is a model for all who seek to evangelize.

"Well of course," begins Lennox, "and everyone else." Okay, not surprising. But Lennox goes on to say he won't turn other people into "evangelism fodder." He's not about brow-beating people into submission but having open conversations about how and why we believe what we believe. Lennox draws applause from (we assume) a majority Christian audience. Once you realize Lennox is a mathematician and philosopher of science, perhaps his perspective is less novel; we expect that an academic of his stature and experience would privilege open dialogue over combative debate and public shaming. We kinda hope that's always the case, don't we?

That Time I Engaged Online

I was good for a long time. I'd told myself that engaging in dialogue online, especially on Facebook, was futile. Rarely do deep conversations about profound difference ensue on the platform, today better known (within and beyond the tech industry) for inventing the infinite Feed and exploiting the human predisposition toward anger and disaster. But it's hard for someone like me, intent as I am on letting most of what I find pass by, to also let go what I perceive as gaslighting.

Does the First Amendment protect a person's right to follow any religious system? Well of course, you might say. We all have the right to worship as we want, or not at all, provided such worship doesn't violate the rights of another. Easy enough. Does the First Amendment, by virtue of those protections, also guarantee protection from the effects of religion for those who claim to be agnostic or atheist? Maybe that one's just as simple, but I wasn't so sure.

Let's go the beginning of the 'record,' when I decided to comment on a friend's repost of someone else's tweet (another weird phenomenon on social media):

There's nothing in the tweet that seems objectionable to me. I've never been comfortable with the idea of "Christian nationalism," if for no other reason than the clear evidence that even Christians can't agree on whose interpretation of the Scriptures is the "correct" one. If the idea of a Christian state appeals to you, consider how you'd feel if someone from a different theological tradition or denomination wins the next election...and that tradition sees your morality as antithetical to the teachings of Christ. In any case, this wasn't the gist of my initial comment; I decided there was no way to address the many nuances of the idea in a post comment but saw an opening to share a new favorite podcast of mine--Zealots at the Gate.

Looking back at my friend's reply (the comment immediately below my YouTube share), even weeks later, I'm still confused. I did mention Islam, referring to the show's co-host Dr. Shadi Hamid, and implicitly lauded the hosts' ability to discuss what they call "deep difference." Now while that's a point I'll stand by, there's nothing in my comment about Islamists. And I don't think Dr. Hamid is one, so I wasn't expecting a response lumping Islamists and Christian nationalists into "the same category." Interest piqued, I asked what he meant.

Terrorists? After the last half-century, it's hard for lots of people to read Islamist and not think "terrorist." By the same token, there's no shortage of expression by pastors and laypeople that the U.S. must 'revert' or convert itself into a "Christian nation." Marjorie Taylor Greene is but one example of prominent American who's now assumed the banner, which is associated by critics with anti-government protest, threats of violent overthrow, and white supremacy. If my friend really did grow up hearing from these people on a regular basis, I can see where his bias is deeply rooted. I might have developed a similar bias against white supremacists while living in the South and being subjected to their influence. Yet through all that, I remain convinced we must allow space for these people in the discourse, lest we suppress them into states of uncontrolled outburst.

Okay, so my friend and I have hit something of a natural endpoint. Then a third-party, a mutual contact, inputs their take (third comment in the image above)--that "any political religious group is engaged in tyranny" and the First Amendment protects us from religion as much as it protects a person's practice of religion. I won't argue against the first point, about such groups engaging in "tyranny," mainly because I can't see inside any of these groups--they may very well tyrannize their members and adherents. As for the rest of the comment, I disagree that the First Amendment is written to prevent the encroachment of a religious sensibility on others. You may think this is a good idea, or want such a provision in the law; in fact the Constitution elsewhere prevents us from subjecting political candidates to religious tests. But I don't think the First Amendment as written includes a protection from a religious person's influence on policy or prohibition on applying one's religious framework of morality to policy decisions or judgments. This is why we have elections on a routine basis.

And so to my next mistake, thinking a conversation about this idea--while important in real life--would be worthwhile in a Facebook comment string. I reply to that new commenter:

You can agree or disagree; I'll refrain from commentary and go straight to the person's reply.

They're right, there is a difference between encountering the speech and being compelled by the force of state to follow another religion. Problem is, if you're subject to laws which prohibit the practice of abortion (for example), you aren't necessarily also subject to the precepts of a religious belief that teaches abortion is a sin. Even if the politicians affecting such a law did so from a religious moral framework, our system dilutes such influences through the mechanisms of election and majority rule in legislatures. And if it happens that the majority legislature also represents a common religious foundation, then the mechanism to change that rests in the hands of the electorate--it's up to us to change the composition of our elected bodies, if we don't think they represent who we are (or appear to be). Nevertheless, I faced a sharp fork-in-the-road at this point.

Because I'd just begun a deeper study of theology, for my own sake, this was as much a personal issue as the other commenter implied for themself. But clearly there's a specific instance at play here, a recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and remarks apparently made by a justice about the Kingdom of God. Naturally, I had to go in search of the text to get some context. I came across a commencement address delivered by Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the University of Notre Dame's "Diploma Ceremony" for their law school graduates. She frames her speech as a discussion on what it means to be a "different kind of lawyer," given Notre Dame's status as a private, Catholic institution. She does say "kingdom of God," though I think it's more interesting to look at how she got there.

My (final) response, then, below:

I debating whether to reply for several days. Jesus teaches us to love even our "enemies" (no this person is not an enemy) and all others as we would love ourselves. Christian teaching also prioritizes humility in the face of worldly pressures and provocations, so I considered leaving the whole thing alone. What would either of us gain?

But there was another angle. No, it wasn't evangelism; this person is way more than "evangelism fodder," as Lennox put it. The angle was based on my own fear, that we could attribute a truncated paraphrase to a Supreme Court justice and forever alter the tenor of her message...a message, by the way, tailored well for a particular audience, at a particular time. Yes, Barrett's now a public official and accountable for her words and deeds; but there's a vital difference between assailing her moral assumptions and suggesting she's committing a violation of legal ethics that would otherwise merit disbarment. I saw the comment as attempting the latter, whether deliberately or not. And so, I chose to respond with a combination of (genuine) apology and deeper examination of the quotation's source.

So What Now?

This article gone long enough already, so if you made it this far you might ask, So what of it? What do you want me to do? Fair question, and admittedly I'm sure I know the answer. But I would ask you to at least think about what you'd do in the same situation. When you come across a comment or response (in person or online) that seems incomplete or disingenuous, do you engage or let it be? It probably matters if the comment is a response to you or something you said, vice something related to a string or story you're following passively. I don't know how I'd do it again, if given the chance; and I don't know that I would do it again at all if confronted by a similar set of circumstances. I took for granted the people involved, including what I thought I knew about the second commenter--though I hadn't interacted with either in a while. It's not like I believe any more in the power of social media; if anything, this episode only reinforces for me how counterproductive online discourse is. Then again what choice do we have? How do we recover from the assumption a lot of people make, that social media is the way we'll meet each other in the future?

Listening to the Lennox-Rubin conversation reminded me about this Facebook jaunt, in part because I knew the exchange wouldn't go well if I simply tried explaining why a Christian (of almost any stripe) would find abortion objectionable as a practice. The goal couldn't be to convince this person abortion was 'wrong,' nor that abortion was defined a particular way; the extreme ends of the spectrum, represented by murder-of-babies and women's healthcare have no common ground on which to reconcile without the rest of us considering what it takes (and what to say) to live in the middle. Lennox, a believing mathematician and philosopher, sat next to a once-avowed atheist and regarded him as a person who must have come to his beliefs and curiosities and skepticism honestly. We all have "long arguments" in our heads from time to time, which is what it takes to dig into something and come out the other side believing in something for real, because we think it's true. Maybe that's what strikes me most.

Why do you argue for what you argue for? What animates your sensibility when you read or hear someone and your intellectual hackles rise? What's true in your mind and why might they be wrong? You don't have license to attack or belittle them, but are you responsible for helping them see a different angle to the problem? Or simply to let them go on through life being 'wrong' (by your definition, anyway)?

People are not "evangelism fodder," and now I'm not just talking about religion. No matter what you're arguing for (or against), we're not pawns in a great battle equaling tally marks on a scoreboard. If you're serious about what you believe, wouldn't you rather I believe it just as seriously and not because you scared me into it or simply wore me down to giving up?