An atheist and an evangelical walk into a bar… While probably the opening line of at least one joke, it’s also a recurring image in the new documentary called Collision, which follows atheist pugilist Christopher Hitchens and conservative evangelical pastor Douglas Wilson through a series of debates. The film opens with a scene from one of those debates—in a bar, both men perched comfortably on bar stools, two beer taps jutting up between them. But it seems to me that the the film is misnamed. The thing about collisions is this: when objects collide, they change one another in some non-trivial way. Sometimes it’s a crash, inflicting real damage. Sometimes it’s just a change in trajectory, as in the collision of billiard balls.
But neither Hitchens nor Wilson seems to have been damaged by their meeting, which led to the documentary (however misnamed) and a good deal of public exposure for both. And if the film’s substance is any indication, the exposure was largely positive—especially for Wilson who, prior to these debates, was probably best known for his controversial co-authorship of Southern Slavery: As It Was, which the Southern Poverty Law Center described as a “repulsive apologia for slavery.” Apparently, Wilson’s opposition to homosexuality is so strident that he is prepared to rehabilitate the Bible’s endorsement of slavery just so he can preserve its condemnation of homosexuality.
None of this controversy appears in the film. Perhaps Hitchens didn’t know about it; as he admits on camera, he doesn’t like to research his opponents too much. In any event, the film presents us with two men who appear affable and earnest—the sort with whom one might enjoy having a beer if one likes energetic intellectual discussions. In fact, the relationship between the men is so congenial that I found myself almost wishing Hitchens would follow the unfair route of blaming Christianity for Wilson’s more appalling views. Perhaps, then, there might have been a real head-on crash.
So what about a change of trajectory? Was either man inspired to rethink his conviction in light of their debates? If you take a look at the exchanges that took place in the pages of Christianity Today that bookend the live debates chronicled in the film, the answer would seem to be no.
In those print debates Hitchens claims that Christianity, in addition to having no evidence in its favor, represents the world in ethically unacceptable terms—among other things, as “a celestial North Korea in which liberty was not just impossible but inconceivable.” Wilson ripostes by claiming that Hitchens’ atheist worldview offers no basis for justifying ethical judgments (such as those Hitchens levels against Christianity) or for motivating anyone to care about morality.
At the conclusion of their public debates, Hitchens and Wilson published a much briefer exchange in the Huffington Post. And what do they say at the conclusion of years of interaction and, well, collision? Among other things, Hitchens represents Christianity as offering us a wholly unjustified picture of the world, one in which we live under the claustrophobic thumb of “a never-dying tyrannical father figure.” Wilson retorts by claiming that if one takes atheism seriously, one is forced to conclude that nothing has value or meaning, and that ethical judgments (such as those Hitchens wants to make) cannot have any objective validity.
So what happened in the interim to motivate this total absence of change? The film chronicles a series of intellectual sparring matches in which, among other things, Hitchens accuses Christianity of endorsing or motivating moral horrors, and Wilson responds by claiming that Hitchens cannot meaningfully call anything a moral horror without first believing in God. What, exactly, is going on?
A Sales Script for Young Evangelicals
I think the answer may actually be hinted at in an interview with Wilson conducted after a pre-screening of Collision. His interviewer was the like-minded evangelical writer and preacher John Piper (who made news recently by claiming that a Minneapolis tornado was God’s way of warning the Lutheran Church [ELCA] not to vote in favor of ordaining partnered gays and lesbians). The audience, also comprised of conservative evangelicals, ensured that the interview was predictably soft-serve, and his message is illuminating.
First of all, he told Piper that he engages in apologetic debating for the sake of the faithful. They are his audience. The purpose of his polemics is to help shore up the belief of those whose faith has been made “kind of wobbly” by exposure to atheist arguments. At one point Wilson expresses the hope that “Christians in secular universities who don’t know how to answer their professors would be equipped in how to do that, at least in their heads.”
The last clause here—“at least in their heads”—is particularly illuminating. Wilson clearly hopes that conservative Christian college students (and others), when confronted with intellectual challenges to their faith, will not treat these challenges as invitations to critically reflect for themselves on the merits of their beliefs. Instead, they ought to replay Wilson’s polemics in their heads.
At another point in the interview, Piper asks Wilson about “copiousness,” which turns out to be something Wilson thinks should be cultivated by all Christians who engage in polemical debates with atheists. And what is copiousness? It’s a “storehouse” of prepared answers to various challenges to the faith, such that “when he says something, there’s something right there… from the Scriptures, from Chesterton or Oscar Wilde.”
Put another way, Wilson advocates going into debates armed with a range of rehearsed responses and rejoinders—a flexible script, if you will. I am reminded of the scripts that novice salespeople are given, scripts which including the array of “rebuttals” they’re supposed to use in response to the various reasons customers might offer for not buying a product. For the salesperson armed with this flexible script, the human vulnerability of the single mother (one who expresses concern both for her children’s safety and for her precarious financial situation, for example) becomes a trigger for a set of prepared arguments that will ultimately result in a payment plan for a state-of-the-art, overpriced set of fire detectors.
One of the consequences of such scripts is that you don’t need to engage in an authentically personal way with the other individual and what she is saying. You just have to learn which objections or attacks to pluck from your toolkit in response to various challenges.
When it comes to selling a product, the purpose of such a script is clear: to keep the salesperson focused on making the sale, regardless of what the potential customer might say. But what is the purpose of using such a script in a debate? It certainly isn’t for the debaters to learn from one another, to be challenged by new ideas so that they might rethink and refine their own convictions. In a very real sense, it’s about preventing such transformations. When debaters rely on a flexible script, a challenge never triggers the question, “Could my opponent be right about this?” Instead, it sends them digging in their toolkit for the right retort. And when debaters lose, they are inspired to refine or expand their scripts, rather than the difficult work of revising the beliefs the scripts are intended to defend.
Clearly, Wilson hopes that his debates with Hitchens will provide the faithful with scripted answers for their own toolkits. But is he relying on a script himself? What about Hitchens? In a way, perhaps, but not in the way that novice salespeople regurgitate rebuttals written for them by someone else. Hitchens and Wilson are more like the seasoned salespeople who no longer need such explicit scripts. Instead, their toolkits contain an array of ideas, strategies of argument, and honed debating skills.
But this changes little. Whether their toolkits contain crude instruments or state-of-the-art power tools, the objective remains the same: to secure victory for their own view.
Preaching to Their Respective Choirs
Victory means you don’t need to modify your position—and the nice thing about the sort of contest Hitchens and Wilson pursue is that so long as both parties are well-matched, and so long as they both manage to get in a few good arguments, a few moments of mesmerizing rhetoric, or a few clever put-downs that get the fans cheering, both sides can declare victory. There is no official scoreboard, and each can return to his respective constituencies at the end of the day and spin the contest as a win.
Tags: christianity today, christopher hitchens, documentary, douglas wilson, evangelicals, film, movies, new atheists
I alway like to approach things from a heretical point of view, but it is hard to find a hook here, I agree with almost everything you said. The only thing I can come up with is that part about the goal posts and which way they might be moved. Or even what field they should be placed on.
For the discussion to lead anywhere, I think it should be focused, and in this day and age that means evolution. This is the key that the debates at large might rest on. But this debate is no longer between religion and science. It is not really even between atheism and Christianity. The evolution debate should be between Christianity and Christianity. The debate should begin in the churches. Perhaps you should start it, since you have so much at stake here. I no longer really care. Science doesn't care because the issue is resolved. Atheism doesn't care because the only ones who still have something to gain or lose in the debate seem to be those selling debate. You care because you don't want Christianity destroyed, and like it or not this issue is destroying your religion. Christianity has become the only one that can save Christianity.
"The evolution debate should be between Christianity and Christianity. The debate should begin in the churches."
This seems right to me, in the following sense. There is no controversy over whether the scientific evidence supports evolutionary theory--it does, and overwhelmingly. There is no controversy over whether another scientific theory can compete with evolutionary theory to explain the phenomena in question. There is none. The real cleverness of "Intelligent Design" theory has been to use a term which has been invoked to name a theological/philosophical argument as a label for the new creation science--thereby confusing the distinction between scientific and philosophical reasoning and getting supporters of a philosophical/theological perspective rushing to the defense of something that has no scientific credibility.
The interesting question, then, is not whether evolutionary theory is scientifically sound. The interesting question is whether the soundness of evolutionary theory has implications for beliefs about what transcends the natural world.
Does it imply that there IS nothing transcendent? I think not. Does it have implications about what the transcendent must be like, if there is a transcendent being/reality? I think so. Do these implications conflict with Christianity? That, I think, depends on what one thinks Christianity is really about--what is essential to it and what is merely peripheral.
Here, then, is a space for really substantive discussion. And it's a discussion whose most natural home is within Christian communities. In my experience, this discussion is not generally facilitated when atheist outsiders announce, "This is what Christianity is. Evolution conflicts with Christianity. Therefore Christianity is false." Instead, such announcements tend to legitimize those who, in solidarity with the atheist critics, define the faith in terms opposed to evolution and therefore reject the latter.
The zero-sum struggle is thus launched, and those more moderate Christian voices--who are investigating the possibilities of formulations of the faith that respect science--are shunted to the margins and accused of "moving the goal posts" whenever they try to pipe in.
As a non-believer, I have to think you might be hiding if the discussion within Christianity is about what one thinks Christianity is really about, and what is essential to it. That discussion might take way too long. Back to the evolution issue, what is the consequence when a religion teaches a belief that is false? What happens to a religion and its people when they bad mouth a wonderful person like Charles Darwin? Even if the discussions within Christianity do eventually determine what is essential to Christianity and what they should think about what Christianity is about, they might have have determined nothing of real value. If they can come to an understanding about all the harm they have caused by trashing Darwin, then they will have accomplished something of real value, and I think God and Jesus would agree with that.
I agree that the conversation within Christianity should not solely focus on understanding Christianity's essence. And I agree that the issues you raise here ought to be taken seriously within the churches.
But the struggle to define the essence of Christianity, at least as I understand that struggle, is not divorced from these and other obviously significant ethical concerns. As things now stand, many Christians feel that loyalty to the faith requires them to sacrifice such things as scientific objectivity and even compassion. A friend of mine was warned against being too compassionate by a conservative mentor in her church, on the grounds that such compassion might inspire her to turn away from the commands of God (I think the mentor was here thinking about the categorical condemnation of homosexualuty).
Christians cannot have internal debates about evolutionary theory without questioning the premise, held by some, that there is something central to Christianity that conflicts with scientific objectivity. Christians cannot have internal debates about homosexuality without questioning the premise, held by some, that something central to Christianity limits the extent to which we can be compassionately responsive to our gay and lesbian neighbors.
There are those (such as myself) who argue that what is most central to Jesus' transformative message and life is lost when scientific objectivity and compassionate responsiveness are sacrificed at the altar of biblical inerrancy. Those of us who are arguing these points are struggling to determine what Christianity is all about--but the practical fallout of this struggle is how Christianity should relate to science, scientists such as Darwin, our gay and lesbian neighbors, women who pursue ordained ministry, environmental stewardship, etc.
Eric,
Thanks for the great and honest response. I appreciate your efforts here because I think the Christian struggle is damaging my family since my wife attends a conservative church, and it is great to see this struggle here on RD because it is impossible to deal with in real life.
I think I see something in the reasoning of your response that might warrent a closer look. Science, scientists, gay and lesbian neighbors, women, and the environmental are all easy issues. I don't see how the struggle to define the essence of Christianity could benfit from conservatives and liberals coming together for an internal debate. What would you do, compromise and find middle ground on these issues? You already know the answers, and you understand the conservative problem. Your defining the essence must be done with other liberals, because the conservatives would just pervert the process and try to lead you astray. Go ahead and try if you want, but there is no compromise solution and if you don't already know that now, you will in the end. Just my opinion for what it is worth based on the little exposure I had to people in my wife's church before I was stopped from any more associating with them.
Has debate ever been such a thing?
At least in modern times debate has always seemed to me to be about securing victory for one's own point if view.
The zero sum game is everywhere. What politician is really interested in finding a solution to his nation's problems? In a court of law is anyone interested in truth? (No, Perry Mason is not real.)
Good science is about testing a theory to destruction and modifying it and good scientists do change their ideas in the light of others' findings but only when they do not engage in public debate.
Bishop Spong is right to leave the debate on homosexuality. Perhaps he is willing to join a conversation.
"... he doesn’t like to research his opponents too much"
It is interesting to hear that Hitchens could have had a good deal more material. But what is important is meeting the arguments being made at the debate. I am not saying the Hitchens necessarily does so, but research for the sake of letting off ad hominem bombs wouldn't necessarily advance such a debate. If Wilson is unwilling to go down his more extreme paths under his own power, then those might better be left untrodden, unless you think they represent religion in a generic, rather than parochial, way.
"Wilson ripostes by claiming that Hitchens’ atheist worldview offers no basis for justifying ethical judgments"
If that is the most he can manage, then Hitchens would seem to win be default, since an imaginary basis is no better than no basis at all. But in all truthfulness, moral bases predate both theology and anti-theology, since they are inborn in humans as social animals. And they are logically necessary for social beings whether or not they are inborn.
"What, exactly, is going on?
What is going on is not an exercise in changing their own minds, but of changing the minds of their listeners. By attempting to present the best cases for each side of their debate- views they have nurtured for decades and are unlikely personally to change, they are advancing the cultural discussion by putting these "best" arguments side by side for the benefit of viewers/listeners, who are the ones who may or may not change their minds. As you say, most of this goes to their own choirs with little change, but somewhere, someone might possibly have their thinking cap on.
"In response to these ideas, I have been accused of “moving the goal posts”"
That's true, but it isn't the only critique. The core atheist proposition remains that, move the goal posts as you will to avoid the consequences of common religious belief, even the most esoteric and humanistic religious doctrine is based on falsehoods and misinterpretations of both cosmic and personal transcendence. Hitchens is clearly most comfortable condemning the bad old testament, fundamentalists, etc. in a somewhat monotonous script by this point, but he is capable of making other points as well, I believe.
"Because good science involves listening to criticisms of one’s theories, assessing their merits, and then, if they do have merit, modifying one’s theories accordingly."
Absolutely. But if the respective beliefs of each side in this debate are formed out of completely contrasting, even incommensurate, paradigms, (that gods are man-made, or that man is god-made), then reconciling the occasional datum is not going to address the Kuhnian divide. This is what debate was made for- to expose contrasting paradigms as thoroughly as possible so that the next generation (of scientists, or of people thinking about religion) can ponder how well they fit the world they see around them, and come to their own conclusions.
"even the most esoteric and humanistic religious doctrine is based on falsehoods and misinterpretations of both cosmic and personal transcendence."
Is metaphor a falsehood? Artists tell lies in order to tell the truth.....
It seems that attacking transcendence, as I believe Eric means it, is not useful - as it is a quality that we all seek to know - not just know about.
I would like to discuss sometime the misinterpretation of personal transcendence that you refer to. It's an interesting subject.
But I agree, Burk. Debates are a sporting event in a sense and they are worthwhile. I admire the rhetorical skills of many debaters whose views I do not share.
That said, I also appreciate Eric's point, a point which goes beyond the realm of public debate. It seeks compassion, true non-judgement and a charitable interpretation of the views of our opponents.
But let's also have fun and debate.
Artists may tell lies, but do they call it religion?
Conversely, when religious liberals speak, do they adopt non-realism, in the mode of Don Cupitt? Very, very few go so far. I applaud them and the art of religion, but faith remains a matter of belief in virtually all religious precincts.
Observe the thesis of Karen Armstrong's work - as well reported on this website in an article on the main page. There are many that define faith a little differently
"Artists may tell lies, but do they call it religion?"
I think it functions the same way for many. Observe the many "Arte Es Vida" bumper stickers, the devotion to spreading it, the feeling of getting to a deeper experience of truth through symbols.
Anyway, it's a good conversation to have - does religion help or harm the human experience? There are good arguments both ways.
As the free ebook series 'In Search of Utopia' clearly illustrates in Book 4, every organized system of thought (religions, philosophies, sciences, etc) have non-provable assumptions. Naturally you can't disprove another's assumptions. You may well accept the assumptions of empirical science more readily than the assumptions of Christianity or Kantian ethics. It is too complicated to explain here, but the aforementioned series, in Book 4, does an admirable job. If interested, check out http://andgulliverreturns.info
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