An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part XIX - No True Scotsman

In my previous "Agnostic's Look at The Bible", Christians Calling Other Christians Not-Christian, I discussed the phenomena of Christians deciding that other Christians weren't "real" Christians based on doctrinal disagreements. In this week's installment I'll look at how Christians behaving badly are dismissed by other Christians as "Not True Christians".

The classic example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, from whence it derives its name, is this: McBeth claims that a Scotsman will invariably eat haggis regularly. McDuff replies that he's a Scotsman and he never eats haggis. McBeth retorts "Well then, you're not a true Scotsman". The "No True Scotsman" fallacy is a species of circular reasoning where the premise is redefined to exclude any inconvenient deviations and contradictions. This is a pretty common fallacy employed by Christians who by and large adhere to the "love thy neighbor" ethos against coreligionists who don't. When someone points out the horrible behavior of a group of Christians, you can be sure that someone will claim that "they're not really Christians because true Christians wouldn't act like that". 

Of course, Love Thy Neighbor Christians will argue that they're not the ones deciding who are true Christians and who aren't, God has set the standards in The Bible. The trouble with that, as I have pointed out many times in this series, is that the Bible isn't clear or unambiguous in what it has to say. In addition, "Christian" is as much a cultural identifier as a set of religious doctrines and behaviors. Anyone who says they're a Christian is a Christian. One might argue whether a particular Christian is living up to some perceived Biblical standard, but that doesn't make them Not A Christian, any more than abstaining from haggis makes an Edinburgh native whose roots go back many generations Not A  Scotsman.  

This doesn't mean that the Love Thy Neighbor Christians don't have a good reason to be embarrassed by the antics of their bigoted, hateful brethren. Like a family of cops who have that one sibling who just got out of prison, they think they're making them look bad. Guilt by association. But these hypothetical cops don't claim that their ex-con brother isn't their brother. But Christians are trying to boost their godliness average by eliminating their more embarrassing brethren from the statistics. 

This is by no means a Christians-only phenomena. Fundamentalist Muslims who require their women to wear a hijab look down on the Muslims who don't as not true Muslims and the burqa-wearing sects are sure the rest of the Muslim world are just as damned as Christians and Jews, maybe more so. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are pretty judgmental about their Conservative and Reform branches — some don't recognize weddings officiated by non-Orthodox rabbis. Heck, I've even encountered this tendency among Pagans! But since Christians are the power wielding majority in this country, this is whom I'm focusing on. 

The truth is, that between Fundamentalist Evangelicals, Conservative Traditional Catholics, Mega Church Pastors and the like, cultural Christians who identify as right wing conservatives and espouse beliefs largely divorced from the Love Thy Neighbor morality are likely the majority of self-identified Christians in the United States. You can't just pretend they're not the face of 21st Century Christianity. 

Start at The Beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XX

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part XVIII - Christians Calling Other Christians Not-Christian

Growing up I didn't think too much about other Christians or what they believed, or whether they were "real" Christians. I was raised in the Catholic Church, which definitely teaches that it's the "One True Church", but it wasn't something that came up in everyday conversation. In my teens I became aware of the Protestant Churches in my neighborhood and attended their services out of curiosity. This disturbed my parents, but I didn't detect anything very much different. It wasn't until I got involved in The Way that I was exposed to the idea that some Christians didn't think some other Christians were...Christians.

I'm not talking about one Christian judging another Christian's behavior as unchristian, but the characterization of another Christian denomination as being fundamentally outside what the Bible would define as Christian. Not just labeling fringe denominations as cults, but other "regular" denominations. This is a doctrinal thing, not behavioral. 

I've written much about The Way's cultishness, but their attitudes about how one would define a "true" Christian was right in line with conservative Protestant thinking. The thinking that fueled the engine of the European religious wars of the 1600 and 1700's definitely hadn't completely gone away. Catholics viewed Protestants as deluded schismatics and Protestants viewed Catholics as Mary worshipping Papists. In the nineties my ex-wife and I were home schooling our children and purchased some textbooks from a Christian book publisher. I clearly remember the description in a history textbook of Catholics as a "false religion". 

I mostly hear these accusations of Christians not being real Christians mostly in a political context. Supporters of both major presidential parties are sure that no real Christian could truly support the other candidate. Abortion is a major theme in this flinging of heretical epithets, but even something as ordinary as clapping back at hecklers becomes "evidence" that a candidate hates Christians. In the political realm it's not so much suspect doctrine that gets one viewed as outside the pale, but the assumption that God is without a doubt on one side. 

This is not something new. The New Testament Epistles are full of references to "false teachers" who are accused of leading people astray and even being diabolic influences. Who are these allegedly false teachers? They weren't pagan priests or Jewish rabbis, they were other Christian leaders! Of course, since history is written by the victors, we don't see much of what the other factions of Christians in the First Century had to say, but you can bet that they were writing the same things about the eventual authors of the epistles that the epistle writers were saying about them. Even beyond the era when The Bible was written there was a constant battle among different factions of Christians to decide what the truth was. There was a constantly evolving opinion about various topics about which the Bible was unclear. Why? Because the Bible was unclear.

And other than politicians disingenuously promoting themselves as the only Christian alternative, the reason that regular Christians can confidently conclude that what they believe is the truth while other people are deluded fools or shills for Satan is that the Bible is (1) Unclear (2) Internally contradictory and (3) Not a concise doctrinal statement. The Bible is not a manifesto laying out a clear statement of beliefs and clarifying all manner of moral and practical conundrums, it is a loose collection of biographies (which contradict each other) and letters addressing behavioral problems in specific places. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation. In order to make sense out of it a Christian is required to cherry pick, ignore the contradictions and parts that they don't like and interpret the ambiguous sections in a way that props up their own morality. Then decide that any other view is not just wrong, but inspired by The Devil. 

Start at The Beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XIX

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part XVII - Christianity as a Cultural Identity

With the recent focus on the (White) Christian Nationalist Movement and its connection to right wing politics, one could be forgiven for thinking that this was a recent development. Christians completely ignoring the Gospel message in favor of an us vs. them mindset? We need to get back to Christians acting Christian...right? Not so fast. 

Even going back to the days of Constantine the Great, people have always identified as Christians without having even a passing familiarity with The Bible. 

There's little objective information about Christianity in its first hundred years, but by the time Christianity became a recognized religion and later the official religion, it's evident that people were Christians because that's what everyone else in their culture was. Christian identity was inseparable from Roman identity. This tendency became more pronounced as the Arab Muslim Caliphate became a threat to the Empire's existence. Even within Christendom, the Western Europeans identified as Catholics and the Byzantines identified as Orthodox, both as intrinsic parts of who they were. (There were also the Arians in the West and the Monophysites in the East)

Christianity splintered (more) in the 1500's with the Protestant Reformation as different varieties of Christianity multiplied. But for the most part, individuals' religion was determined by their rulers and there were Catholic nations, Lutheran nations, Calvinist nations, all warring among themselves for various reasons. As time went by there was more choice among various denominations, but for the most part the umbrella identity of "Christian" persisted. I'm not suggesting there weren't sincere Christians throughout all of these eras, or that no one studied the text of the Bible or lived lives according the teachings of Jesus, but that being a Christian wasn't something that you decided to become, but something that you were.

People my age remember that one of the bloodiest religious conflicts of our lives was not in Israel or the Middle East, and didn't involve radical Muslims, but was the Catholic-Protestant Troubles in Northern Ireland. For many reasons economic and political divisions broke along religious lines. The poorer Northern Irish, who favored union with the Republic of Ireland in the south tended to be Catholic, while those who wanted to remain part of the U.K. and were of higher economic status, tended to be  Protestant. There's a lot of reasons for why this split developed, but people didn't spend a lot of time thinking about which version of Christianity they followed, it was just who they were. 

Even in my own youth, my neighborhood was made up of mostly Catholics, children or grandchildren of immigrants from Catholic countries. There wasn't violence or strife between Catholics and the few Protestants, but it was almost unthinkable that one would convert from one to another. Being Catholic was what you were. My own generation was a bit more fluid. The so-called Jesus Movement was making inroads, and young people were more willing than previous generations to explore other traditions or join new religious groups. When I decided to ditch Catholicism and join The Way, (which was, as far as they knew, Christian) my parents' reaction was similar to how I imagine it would have been if I had announced that I had embraced Satanism. Milder, but still disapproving, were their reactions when my brother married an Episcopalian or when my niece was married in a non-church ceremony. In all of these cases, most people, no matter what denomination they identified as, would be hard pressed to articulate how their religion was substantially different that the other guys' faith. 

My point in bringing up these examples, is that identifying as Christian without any connection to actual Christian theology or principles is nothing new, it has a long history. Today's White Christian Nationalists are part of a long history of weaponizing religion and using it to "other" those they don't like. They have allies in Congress and in the courts. The Supreme Court majority has deferred to Christians in First Amendment cases and their doctrine of shaping opinions based on whether similar laws existed historically should scare anyone who believes that government should be neutral with respect to religion. 

Start at The Beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XVIII

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part XVI - Agreeing to Disagree...Or Not

One of the problems in looking to the Bible as a rulebook on how to live life is that it's not arranged in any easy-to-access order. There's no index, it's not arranged by subject matter and there seems to be a lot of areas that simply aren't covered. The true believers will tell you that's because it's not supposed to be accessible to the disbelievers, but that if you have the Holy Spirit within you, understanding will flow naturally.

How convenient. 

Of course, I'm one of those disbelievers, and this series is about how I, an agnostic, look at the Bible. I don't believe that it was dictated, or even inspired, by God, or any other permutation of the idea that it's "The Truth". I'm just looking at it like I'd look at any other piece of literature. Viewed in that light, it's confusing. 

One of the sources of confusion is the dichotomy between the "Old Testament", aka The Hebrew or Jewish scriptures, and the "New Testament", aka the Gospels and the Epistles. The Old Testament is without question written for the Jewish people. The New Testament is more universal in who it's apparently intended for. The Old Testament describes God in starkly different terms than does most of the New Testament. Most Christians ignore this difference, pretending that it's not there. Although there is a subset of Christian theology called dispensationalism which explains the difference by theorizing that God has different "dispensations", or administrations, where the rules of the game change. It's obvious that the institution of the Law of Moses changed the ground rules that existed before, and that Jesus' life, death and resurrection represented a further change. The Book of Revelation is without question a different milieu than the world as we know it, ending with a still different new Heaven and Earth. Dispensationalists can be thanked (or blamed) for the popular belief in "the rapture". An early Christian movement, founded by Marcion, believed that the differences were so great that the Old Testament God was a different God than the God of Jesus; not only different, but evil. So it comes down to either explaining away the differences in a pretzel-like manner, or just ignoring them. 

Another dichotomy in the New Testament is between the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul. Jesus was primarily concerned with action, while Paul was mainly concerned with belief. Even though each of the four Gospels has a different emphasis, and even contradict each other, Jesus isn't telling people to simply believe, he's always talking about how one should behave oneself. Paul on the other hand, while he does touch on a few things to do and not do, it's all in the head — it's believing in Jesus, believing that he was raised from the dead and so on. 

The epistles of Paul are not an instruction manual on how to be a Christian, they're mostly in the form of letters addressing specific problems that various church communities were having. There's not a lot of internal inconsistency within the Pauline letters, but there's no definitive listing of doctrine and practice. The Catholic/Orthodox traditions tell their people to not worry about it, the leaders will tell you how to act and think. The Protestant traditions do that too, while maintaining the illusion that their people can see what the Bible teaches for themselves...as long as it agrees with what the leaders say it means. For any doctrinal position it's typical to jump from section to section and book to book putting together a supposedly coherent position, because you usually won't find it clearly delineated in any one place. 

What about the Ten Commandments? Isn't that a list telling us how to act? Yes and no. Yes, in that it's a list in the Bible. No — for several reasons. If we're taking the dispensationalist position that the Old Testament was for the Jews and not written to The Church, why would we pay it any attention? If we are supposed to heed the "Ten Commandments", why not the other hundreds of commandments? Like the ones involving dietary and grooming rules. Or the ones that allow slavery or that a woman marry her rapist. Quite a quandary. But what most people do not realize that no matter what position you take, there are two contradictory versions of the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words) in the Book of Exodus:

https://contradictionsinthebible.com/2-ten-commandments/

Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17)

1. I am Yahweh your god; you shall not have other gods before my face!

2. You shall not make for yourself a statue or an image.

3. You shall not swear falsely by the name Yahweh, your god

4. Remember the Sabbath day.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet you neighbor’s house.

 Ten Commandments (Ex 34:14-26)

1. You shall not bow down to another god; for Yahweh is a jealous god!

2. You shall not make molten gods for yourself.

3. You shall observe the festival of Unleavened bread.

4. You shall redeem every first born of your sons!

5. You shall observe the Sabbath.

6. You shall make a festival of Weeks.

7. Three times a year every male shall appear before Yahweh, god of Israel.

8. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice on leavened bread.

9. You shall bring the firstfruits of your land to the house of Yahweh your god.

10. You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.

So, which version do you want to follow? Or post in your classrooms? 

In addition to the fact that there are two distinct and clearly contradictory versions of The Ten Commandments right there in the text of the Bible, the way that the first, more popular version, is interpreted varies depending on the church tradition or denomination, there are eight distinct traditions or versions which divide the seven verses in Exodus differently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

1. Septuagint
2. Reformed Protestantism
3. Ashburnham Pentateuch
4. Talmud
5. Samaritan Pentateuch
6. Augustine
7. Roman Catholicism
8. Lutherans

"I am the Lord your God"

One tradition lists this as the First Commandment

Seven combine it with "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me" as the First Commandment, the remaining tradition separate them into the First and Second Commandments

Four traditions combine it with "You Shall Not Have False Idols"  or "Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee a Graven Image" as the first commandment

The other three call "You Shall Not Have False Idols"  or "Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee a Graven Image" the second commandment.

The next few are called the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th if all the previous commandments are combined into the First;  3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th if not

"You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain" is third/second commandment
 
"Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy" is the fourth/third commandment

"Honor Thy Father and Mother" is the fifth/fourth commandment

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" is the sixth/fifth, although one version counts it as the eighth commandment

"Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" is the seventh/sixth commandment, although since one source reverses this and the previous command, it is 3 for seventh and 5 for sixth

"Thou Shalt Not Steal" is eighth/seventh commandment

"Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (Lie?) Against Thy Neighbor" is ninth/eighth

The next three commandments are all combined into one commandment as either the Ninth Commandment in one tradition; or as the Tenth Commandment in 4. Three traditions split them up as follows:

A. "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House" One combines this one with "B" as the Ninth Commandment; Two combine this one with "B" and "D" as the Tenth Commandment

B. "Thou Shalt Not Desire Thy Neighbor's House" One combines this one with "A" as the Ninth Commandment; Two combine this one with "A" and "D" as the Tenth Commandment

C. "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" One combines this one with "D" as the Tenth Commandment; Two list this as the Ninth Commandment, not combined with others

D. "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Stuff"  One combines this one with "C" as the Tenth Commandment; Two combine this one with "A" and "B" as the Tenth Commandment

The one exception adds "You Shall Set Up These Stones, Which I Command You Today, on Mount Argarizem" and combines all the "covets" as the ninth commandment

(4 of 8 combine all 3 "covets" into #10, 3 combine 2 of them in various ways)

Even though there are actually fifteen commandments, (if you count every one that at least one tradition considers a separate commandment), the Bible, just before the listing, specifically calls them ten commandments (or words, sayings, or matters), but does not clearly delineate where one "commandment" ends and another begins. Maybe whoever wrote it thought it would be obvious, or that it was unimportant. Here they are separated out and listed in order:

1. I am the Lord your God
2. You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me
3. You Shall Not Have False Idols
4. You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain
5. Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy
6. Honor Thy Father and Mother
7. Thou Shalt Not Kill
8. Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
9. Thou Shalt Not Steal
10. Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (Lie?) Against Thy Neighbor
11. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's House
12. Thou Shalt Not Desire Thy Neighbor's House
13. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife
14. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Stuff
15. You Shall Set Up These Stones, Which I Command You Today, on Mount Argarizem

Periodically there are legal disputes about posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses and in government buildings. The rationale being that the commandments are all basic moral/ethical stuff and no one should have any problem with them, even if they did originate in a religious book. There are some problems with that position. Some of them are hardcore religious and not just "do unto others..." stuff.

The first three to five, depending on how you're counting, address who you should be worshipping, when you should do it, and how you should talk about the god who is the object of this worship. For anyone who worships a god different from the god of the bible, this is not something that they they would want to do and it certainly shouldn't be displayed in a government setting. If you think that the whole world, or at least the whole country, consists entirely of Christians and Jews (and depending on how you view Allah, Muslims), then you might have no problem with this. But that's not the reality — there's a large number of people who worship or honor different gods (or no gods at all), in addition there's that pesky First Amendment.

The "covet" prohibitions are also problematic. Most people would agree in theory that these are things that you shouldn't do, but when you get down to it they are prohibitions against thought, not actions. So once again, this comes down to strictly religious rules, not anything that could or should be encoded into secular law.

Honoring your parents (unless your parents are evil bastards), no stealing, lying, killing or cheating on your spouse...I'll give you those. The Five Commandments sounds okay.

Start at The Beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XVII