Differing Approaches to Belief and Non-Belief in Today’s World

Christopher Hitchens, contributing editor to Vanity Fair, a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School, and the author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Edd Doerr, Past President of the American Humanist Association, the head of Americans for Religious Liberty, and the author of Here I Stand. 

Christopher Hitchens believes that religion is a poison because it asks humans to surrender the precious faculty of reason in favor of faith where the message of God is accepted without evidence (he believes faith and reason are incompatible), it misrepresents the origins of humanity and the cosmos, it attacks human integrity with an immoral approach to reward and punishment, it fosters servility and solipsism, and it is sexually repressive. 

Edd Doerr first explains that he does not favor use of terms like “non-believer” or “atheist” because they suggest what a person is against, but not what he/she is for.  He prefers “humanist,” which conveys a belief in reason, science and human equality.  He believes that Christopher Hitchens is too broad in his critique of religion.  Doerr differentiates between the Religious Right and fundamentalists (of any faith tradition) and more progressive people of faith with whom he joins often in coalitions around certain issues. 

Christopher Hitchens puts forward some of the basic creedal teachings of Christianity, and says he cannot find anyone claiming to be Christian who says they actually believe them.  Doerr says that most Christians he knows don’t think often about elements of the creed; they are more like the Founding Fathers who say they follow the ethical teachings of Jesus.

Hitchens says that the Scriptures or holy texts of various religions do not teach equality, but rather slavery and repression, evidence of their primitive origins.  He fears that those with such apocalyptic visions who think God is on their side might some day acquire apocalyptic weapons and destroy the world.

Doerr says that many holy texts are, for example, repressive of women, but some religious people like Bp. John Shelby Spong leave aside what does not make sense.  But he says the Bible may be well sold, but not well read.  Polls show that a lot of people can’t name the four gospels, and other basics.

Hitchens says that evolution is central in understanding the world today, but people of faith say that God created it all, without evidence. Doerr suggested that that was Jefferson’s view.  Disageement ensued.

It became clear that Hitchens and Doerr have a fundamental difference about what “being religious” means.  Hitchens says that Jefferson was a Deist; he did not believe that God intervened in human history.  Religious people, he says, believe that God does intervene, and has a message for them.  Doerr said that that is one view of what it means to be “religious.” Many Unitarians, he said,  do not believe in the supernatural, but still call themselves “religious.” 

When it comes to the sexual act, both agree that religion has been repressive, but Doerr thinks religion is evolving, especially with the increasing numbers of women in the clergy. 

When asked if he would make common cause with people of faith on public issues, Hitchens said that depends on the political views of those involved.  But he finds religious people largely useless on the issues important to him.  He cites the publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, and the fact that most religious people condemned the cartoons as the cause of the violence that ensued after their publication, rather than simply condemning the violence.   

Doerr says he has just finished Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, and although Gore is a Christian believer, Doerr agrees with a lot of what he says, and asserts, “I can work with a guy like Al Gore.”

Both men share a strong belief in religious freedom and tolerance.  Hitchens, who recently became an American citizen, said he has a new slogan based on Jefferson’s phrase, the “wall of separation between church and state.”  That slogan is: “Mr. Jefferson, build up that wall!”   Doerr agrees on separation, and finds that the actions of the Religious Right are a danger to that wall today. 

New Archeological Evidence of Women’s Leadership in Early Christianity

Aisha Taylor, Executive Director, Women’s Ordination Conference

New evidence uncovered in iconography in churches, the catacombs and on tombstones suggests that women held offices, and performed roles, in the early centuries of Christianity that are forbidden to them today, at least in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.  For example, a mosaic of “Episcopa ‘Theodora” from the 9th century, implies that a woman was a bishop.  Catacomb frescos show women performing the priestly function of presiding at Eucharist, and many inscriptions cite women in the role of deacon.

Aisha Taylor finds this strong and convincing evidence of an early and significant tradition, although it is “not the lynchpin” in the case for women’s ordination. 

Aisha does see progress toward women’s regaining these roles.  In the Catholic Church, a handful of unidentified bishops are working behind the scenes in a movement to actually ordain women to the priesthood.  This movement, she says, is growing and those ordained have launched small worshipping communities, almost “mini-parishes.”  These women continue to call themselves Catholic, although the hierarchy does not recognize their ordinations.   In the Orthodox tradition, the leadership has publicly admitted that women were deacons in the early church, and that diaconal ordination is currently being studied.

The Women’s Ordination Conference, she notes, wants not only to have women ordained, but to change the structures of the church to be more egalitarian and less hierarchical.  At least 64% of Catholics currently support women’s ordination to the priesthood, and 71% to the diaconate. 

The Vatican’s Recent Re-Statement of Catholic Primacy

Kevin Eckstrom, Editor, Religion News Service

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement in July re-stating the position it took in 2000, in a document called Dominus Jesus.  It asserted that the Orthodox Church is a “church,” but “wounded” because it does not recognize the authority of the pope.  It said Protestant churches are “Christian communities,” but refused to call them “churches” in the proper sense of that term.

What was unclear at the time of this interview is why the Vatican chose to re-state this position now, especially because many Protestants were deeply offended by the first statement of this view in 2000. 

Kevin says that this may be another indication of the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, calling to church to pull back and see what in its (near) past should be re-claimed.  Other examples of this include the recent move to make the Latin Mass more widely available, and the new English translations of Mass prayers to make them more faithful to the Latin. 

However, although both Catholics and Protestants – especially those involved in ecumenical dialogue – have criticized the new statement, he does not see it as a “deal-breaker” in ecumenical relations because it is simply a re-statement of past positions in a document meant largely for theologians.