Rev. Tom Lenhart
Sermon September 9, 2007
“In Defense of Religion” 
Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16 and John 1: 1-3, 8-16

Let us pray.

O God you are behind us and before us. Lay your hands upon me as I utter these words. And may we all feel your presence in our souls. Amen

             It has become fashionable to trash religion and faith. Certainly, for as long as there has been faith in something transcendent there have been naysayers and skeptics. And that was and is appropriate. Faithful believers of all strips should never view themselves as immune to criticism or free from questioning – indeed, we should engage in periodic self-examination.  And yet I fear we have moved beyond thoughtful skepticism to a kind of malignant attack on religion and the existence of God. It has become truly “in” not simply to question religion but to demean it. Two recent best sellers, albeit in different ways highlight this stampede. First, we have The God Delusion, written by Richard Dawkins, an esteemed Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford.[1] And second, we have god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, a best selling polemic written by the respected journalist Charles Hitchins.[2] In the interest of full disclosure I have not read all of either book but I think I have their drift.  It has become fashionable to suggest that anyone who believes in God is delusional. Belief is now equated with a lack of connection to reality. Likewise, the maladies of the world can apparently be traced in large measure back to religion and its adherents; they poison every thing. Enough is enough!

            These books and other critics make many arguments against the appropriateness of religion and the existence of God. I cannot respond to them all but want to reply to two arguments that I think are worthy of discussing because they have a wide following in contemporary society. The first is what I call “the historical argument.” In essence the argument is that religion -- the church -- has been the cause or facilitator of much that is evil and harmful throughout history. The great misdeeds of those acting in the name of God or the gods belie the truths they propose – hence religion has no claim on us to believe in it.

There can be no doubt that religion has been the cause of much that is lamentable in human history. From the crusades of the 9^th, 10th and 11^th centuries to the jihads of the 21^st century, many ignoble actions in history find their genesis in religion. And yet in fairness one must recognize the history of religion is mixed -- more nuanced than its critics concede -- with pluses that counterbalance the minuses. Not only have horrible things been done in the name of religion, but religious adherents have done and fostered wonderful things -- indeed, changes that would not have occurred without faith and self sacrifice. Some were on a large scale –for example, civil rights in this country. This movement would not have succeeded without the power and support of organized religion and people of faith. But even on a smaller and more local scale in the villages, hamlets, towns and cities of this world, there are acts of kindness and love done every day by people motivated by their faith. They heal the sick, befriend the outcast and comfort the anxious and the grieving. So I think the first thing to say is that religion is not the root of all evil nor does it consistently spawn violence and a parade of horribles. It does not poison everything that it touches. To say so is overly simplistic, foolish and myopic.

To reject all religion because some religion at some times in history has been pernicious is, if you think about it, odd. Because some economic systems have been oppressive and repressive, doesn’t mean that we reject all economic systems and theories. The same could be said of political systems.  Because some monarchies were repressive or abusive doesn’t necessarily condemn all monarchies. So it is that some religious regimes and institutions are rightly condemned but it does not follow that all religion should be. 

The existence of religious institutions that are narrow, judgmental and exclusive is less that fault of religion per se and more that religion is always mediated through human beings. Just as economic systems and political structures are put in practice through human beings so too is religion. Religion is based on belief in the existence of God but  that Ultimate is understood and interpreted by human beings. It should not surprise us – whose faith recognizes humanity’s capacity to sin – that religion could at times be misused.

            Another argument against religion used by critics when looking at the history of religion is the prevalence of the assertion that only one religion has it right. It alone is the truth and the way – indeed, the only truth. Any other religion is not simply wrong but heretical and as such deserves to be eradicated; its followers converted or killed.  This is quite clearly a problem that continues to plague our world. But this is not true of all religions or even perhaps of all facets of a particular faith and thus this criticism cannot logically serve to discredit all them.

            Our faith is premised on the principle of love of neighbor (indeed of our enemies) and thus we are, by faith, compelled to be tolerant. Ours is also a faith that recognizes that what we know about faith is mediated by our experience and our context.  No one fully knows God. When we explore our faith and seek to understand it, we are looking through a set of glasses with a prescription that reflects our background, experience, gender and many other things unique to us. While what we are ultimately looking at may be true and eternal – we see and understand that truth through our own set of experiences. We must therefore always assert our faith and our beliefs with a certain humility. This leaves us space to learn more and to recognize that God truly is still speaking. Within the UCC we do not frown on those who doubt or have questions concerning belief but understand them as part of the process of refining our vision of faith. Ours is a faith that accepts that other faiths are authentic and also reflect truth and light. And ours is not the only religion that teaches tolerance. So again the notion that all religion is suspect and bankrupt because some religions espouse and practice intolerance is not only bad logic but bad faith.

            Those who make such arguments are guilty of stereotyping religion. How are the religious portrayed today in our media and in our literature? Homer Simpson’s neighbor, Ned Flanders, is the archetype of the modern religious figure. He is a fundamentalist – one who believes that his is the one way. There are answers and he has them. So often that is the way religious people are described today. When was the last time a member of a mainstream church was used as an exemplar? Our kind of thoughtful, questioning, tolerant, inclusive religion is not the straw man set up to be knocked down. I for one am tired of defending a narrow and non-representative stereotype of religion and of believers. All religion is incomplete – there is always more truth and light to be revealed. Unfortunately, I think the culprit throughout history has been mankind -- not faith and religion. Indeed, faith may be the answer not the problem.

            The second point that I want to address is what I call the “scientific argument.” It attacks religion by suggesting that science in its ability to explain more and more about existence has shown that God is an illusion – simply a human construct to explain what we have been until now unable to explain. The argument has been around for generations, although the scientific context is new. In the 20th century the argument against God arose out of the scientific discoveries in particle physics and cosmology. As we understood more and more of the building blocks of existence and created more comprehensive and scientifically grounded hypotheses for the origins of the universe, there seemed no place for God. Today the imperative for a scientific debunking of God is evolutionary biology. The existence of God disappears -- so the argument goes –because Darwinian evolution can truly explain the origin of species and the full range of human behavior.  The principle of the survival of the fittest is now coupled with the notion that an inherent instinct to cooperate exist and together work to insure the survival of a species, indeed of its very genetic make-up.  Moreover, the argument continues, the ability of science to explain the evolution of new species and human behavior does not leave a place for a Creator God who also providentially intervenes in history. History can be explained through the lens of science. 

And yet I am not sure that the arguments are quite so ironclad. First, the science is itself still grappling with issues. One of the great challenges for evolutionary biology is to explain true altruism as a form of behavior. Can it be fully explained by the drive for the preservation of a species’ genes and an instinct to cooperate? Altruism towards another who shares one’s genetic make-up can be explained this way. It gets more difficult when someone shows kindness to those outside their family or clan or group – indeed, to other species even when they can offer us nothing in return that directly sustains us.  The most common explanation given by biologists for empathy and altruism is the one given by Dawkins in his book where he wrote:   

In ancestral times, we had the opportunity to be altruistic only towards close kin and potential reciprocators. Nowadays that restriction is no longer there, but the rule of thumb persists. Why would it not? It is just like sexual desire. We can no more help ourselves feeling pity when we see a weeping unfortunate… than we can help ourselves feeling lust for a member of the opposite sex…. Both are misfirings, Darwinian mistakes: blessed, precious mistakes.”[3]

Certainly, this is a clever way of explaining behavior, which does not seem to serve Darwinian goals.  It raises, however, a number of questions. Why has this mistake not be corrected in the fullness of evolutionary time, as it is wasteful and potentially counter productive to the goal of survival for the fittest? What of human volition –to act consciously as a person of faith out of love? What, for example, is to be made of the love and nurture given by step and adopted parents to their children? Dawkins’ view limits our freedom to choices with respect to survival goals, which seems at odds with the complexity of human behavior. Certainly the scientific evidence is incomplete. So I would suggest it would be premature to write God’s obituary because of the principles of evolutionary biology.

            But more importantly why can’t  such scientific theories and the existence of God, who initiates creation and plays a role in it, not be capable of co-existing. Sarah Coakley, a Professor of mine at Harvard now at Cambridge University in England  has suggested a way of understanding evolutionary contingency – that is the drive for survival of the species and the co-existence of divine guidance in creation.[4] The basic idea is that God is like a chess master playing a game with rules against a young chess novice; and although there are a huge number of different moves that the child can make, each of these can be successfully responded to by the chess master and we can have no doubt who will win.[5]   Much of the challenge of understanding science and religion is a matter of perspective. From our perspective we can believe in evolutionary processes and drives.  Yet from God’s perspective these are simply part of the creation game that she has devised.

            So how might we think of evolution and God’s role in creation?   As the chess master, God is the loving initiator of existence -- an existence that has embedded in it the principle of natural selection just as it does a value for pi and a drive for cooperation. And perhaps it has in it the existence of a freedom to override or transcend those instincts in response to one’s faith or other guiding principles. God has throughout history supported and upheld all natural processes and yet out of love plays a role in history as God did through Jesus. Certainly an all-powerful God need not create every living thing. To be all-powerful does not mean that all power is used all the time. To believe in God does not require that God control or create all forms of life. Why would God opt for evolution? A loving God – that is the God who loves creation – could believe that creativity and diversity are fundamental to creation. In other words that to be created in God’s image means that we too have creativity as God does and the ability to exercise freedom of choice. And that choice may be more than simply deciding how to maximize our gene pool’s chances of survival. Why do we have such choice -- because the goods we choose are in some fundamental sense better than goods we are forced or compelled to do. And yet as Coakley points out even with freedom and creativity – the ultimate outcome can be understood to be certain. The Chess Master will prevail and we can thus believe in evolution and also the promise of God’s victory. 

               Science, I believe, fundamentally seeks to answer the “how”, not the “why” questions that confront us in our world.  How does the sound of a whistle change when the train moves away? How did cockroaches survive when millions of other species become extinct? Now, some of you will say but those are really “why” questions.  And you are right– for I believe “how” questions can be stated as “why” questions. So why did the cockroach survive to bedevil us? Yet not every why question is a how question?  For me -- the ultimate why questions are those with which religion, not science, grapples. You can explain many -- though I suspect not all -- aspects of human behavior through the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest. But I don’t think science can answer why that principle should exist rather than another.  And so it is that I believe there is a place for God in the evolving creation. For me true religion -- that is religion that knows that there is more truth to be unearthed -- is excited at the prospects of further scientific discovery in cosmology,  evolutionary biology and genetics and at the same time continues confidently to address the ultimate why question – always listening for God’s voice to shed new light.  So despite the critics, I for one am not quite ready to give up on religion. So I am afraid I will be here at the same time next week. Amen