The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

I recall that this book was recommended to me by a few different sources, which is how it ended up on my ever-lengthening reading list. It rose to the top, however, when my brother read it and praised it. Since he has good taste (except for that Dirk Pitt thing), I figured I had to read it. 

The Boys In The Boat is mostly about the nine American rowers, from the University of Washington, who won the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. But it is also about one of the rowers in particular, Joe Rantz, who had a backstory that really did need to be made into a book. His rise from poverty and abandonment to become one of the most famous athletes of his time is a great story. The author interviewed Joe extensively before his death, as well as one of his daughters, who had absorbed the old stories and could recount her father’s words. 

While the story focuses on Joe, there are other memorable characters. The other “boys in the boat,” most of whom came from similarly impoverished backgrounds, are given a bit of time in the book. Other rowers from other schools and nations get mentions to the extent that they are interesting, and the history of competitive rowing itself is told briefly as needed. In addition, the rivalry of the great rowing coaches, Al Ulbrickson of Washington, and Ky Ebright of Cal, is a crucial part of the story, as is the genius of George Pocock, arguably the best maker of rowing shells of all time. 

Of necessity, the book also addresses the rise of Hitler, and the massive propaganda machine that was created to whitewash the Nazi experience for the benefit of the rest of the world. The book specifically looks at the role of actress and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, and her propaganda film of the Games. And also a good bit at Goebbels, of course. In 1936, the elimination of Jews was already starting, but this fact was carefully hidden behind the glossy facade. Within a few years, of course, the world would be on fire again, and Hitler’s atrocities would be laid bare before the world. 

Before reading this book, I will admit I was pretty ignorant of rowing. Other than, I guess, the fact that I own a kayak, and can paddle well enough to get around. But rowing as a sport is a good bit different. Particularly eight man crew, which involves perfect timing and technique, a coxswain to steer and keep time, and a 62 foot long boat. The speeds are pretty insane too, and watching a race is pretty exciting. Fortunately, the author assumes the reader needs a bit of a primer, and subtly works information into the book as needed. This is completely unobtrusive, and well explained. 

The story of Joe Rantz would make a book in itself. Joe was the younger of two sons, with a significant age gap between him and his brother. When he was four, his mother died. After living with an aunt for a while, then with his older brother, he returned to live with his father...and wicked stepmother. Actually, that is a whole can of worms right there. Soon after Joe’s older brother married one of a pair of twins, Joe’s dad married the other. Awkward. Stepmom Thula hated Joe, and kicked him out of the house at age 10. Literally. He had to beg his food and fend for himself. From age 14 on, Joe lived in an old house his dad abandoned, and supported himself through school. All while his dad, stepmom, and their kids were living across Puget Sound and ignoring him. 

Joe eventually had the chance to pay his way through University of Washington. He tried out for Crew in order to earn some scholarship money, and went on to become one of the best rowers Ulbrickson had seen. By his side through much of this was his eventual wife Joyce, who herself came from poverty and a dysfunctional family. They would be a source of stability and love for each other for over 60 years. 

Of necessity, the book recounts a number of important races over the course of three years. Fortunately, the author does an outstanding job of pacing the book and filling in other details so that it never gets monotonous. A race will be followed by a section on Nazi Germany, followed by a bit on one of the rowers, or the boat, or other interesting related topics. 

Rowing is one of those sports which has historically been an upper-class thing. Which is weird because it started (in its modern form) with Thames boatmen. However, the Etonian sorts took it over, and by the 1930s, it was mostly an Ivy League thing. But that was already starting to change. The West Coast rowers were either a mix of classes (in the case of Cal) or overwhelmingly blue collar (in the case of Washington), and they were starting a run of dominance over their East Coast rivals. This didn’t sit well with the Ivy Leaguers, and this came to a head right before the 1936 Olympics. Washington won the trials, which meant it had the right to represent the US in Berlin. However, due to the Depression, funds were short to assist with travel expenses. The runner up, the Pennsylvania Athletic Club, had plenty of cash. And a bigwig with them also sat on the US Olympic committee. Which announced after the race that the Washington crew would have to pay their own way. But, if they were too poor, then Penn could take their place…

It is inspiring that the $5000.00 in necessary funds was raised by mostly small donors back in Washington, allowing the boys to go. 

Another inspiring scene occurred when the Americans sang “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here” out of time with the Nazi marching during the opening parade. It was just one example of subtle pushback by the American athletes (including the legendary Jessie Owens) during the games. Within a few years, an army of the same sort of young American men would be marching into Berlin under very different circumstances. 

The race itself was thrilling. The Americans faced several seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Their “stroke oar,” Don Hume, was suffering from a severe case of pneumonia, bad enough that he was confined to bed for the week before, and passed out at the end of the first trial run. He was nearly non-responsive at the start of the gold medal race, and failed to respond to Moch’s instructions during - although he rowed by instinct. Finally, something snapped, and Moch was able to drag him along by eye contact. 

The other issue was every bit as serious. The course had six lanes, and they were nowhere near equal in difficulty. The inner two were calm and sheltered. The outer two were subject to wind and currents. Ulbrickson calculated that the advantage was about two boat lengths - a huge amount of difference. Through an opaque process which still has not been adequately explained, the German and Italian boats were assigned to the best lanes, while the Brits and Americans were given the worst. Particularly the Americans. 

So, in order to win the race - by a very fine margin - the Americans had to overcome a 2 length disadvantage AND do it with a gravely ill oarsman. And yet they did. That’s the quintessential American mythology, though, right? Blue collar boys fend of the trust fund babies, overcome huge obstacles, and shove it in Hitler’s face? Oh so very much yes. 

It was also kind of interesting what happened to the boys afterward. The 1930s were essentially the dawn of a new age in America, with the New Deal, affordable education, an explosion of technology, and rapid social mobility for some. (If you were white.) The blue collar boys in the book made good. Joe would study hard and get his degree in engineering, and then work for Boeing the rest of his career. Others would opt for medicine or law or business. With the exception of one who died early of lung cancer, they would live long and prosperous lives. And, in some cases, be instrumental in the cause of the war. Not in combat, though. Ironically, they were too big. Rowers even in the 1930s were over six feet - often by a good margin - and wouldn’t qualify for military service as a result. By the time the war broke out, most had degrees in areas that were needed on the homefront - particularly the engineers. Rantz and others would design and build aircraft and vehicles, for example. 

One exception to the height was Bobby Moch, the coxswain. He had to be short and small to get the job. A picture of the crew is amusing, because there are eight giants...and one tiny shrimp. (Moch was my size, so I get to tease a bit.) 

Moch would make good himself, leveraging a coaching job for MIT into admission to Harvard Law School. Moch did a good bit of appellate work, arguing and winning a case in front of the US Supreme Court. I tried to find the case, but was unable to in a reasonable amount of time. I could probably go borrow the Lexis account at the local law library, I guess. I did, however, find his name as counsel on a few US Court of Appeals cases. Hey, a short badass lawyer. Got to love that. Also, Moch found out from his parents just before leaving for Berlin that he was Jewish, and that his family had hidden that fact due to rampant antisemitism both in Germany and in the United States. Judging from the way the race went down (and Moch’s subsequent career), he had ice running through his veins. 

One final tidbit which I thought was interesting. The book takes a bit of a detour to mention two of the British rowing crew. The coxswain, Noel Duckworth, was another tiny badass. He would win honors in the war, due to his time as a POW, during which he saved quite a few lives. Oh, and he wasn’t a soldier - he was a chaplain who went along with the prisoners so they wouldn’t be shot. The other English rower was Ran Laurie, who was the father of Hugh Laurie. Which was kind of a cool connection. 

The Boys In The Boat is a thoroughly enjoyable book. Brown clearly spent hours interviewing dozens of people, and going through the correspondence between Joe Rantz and Joyce, which contained a lot of good information. Coming on the heels of our own visit to the Seattle area, I was able to envision where much of the story took place, although obviously things look a bit different now. The writing is excellent, particularly in the way it takes an arcane topic and makes it not just understandable, but compelling. Brown also centers the story in history: the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler, the Dust Bowl, and the rapid westward shift of the center of American life. 

***

In the 1930s, rowing was a male domain. But now, women compete as well. Here is an exciting race from 2012. Not particularly the body language at the end. Six plus minutes of full body exertion takes it all out of them by the end. Insanely difficult work. 

Letter to Lord Byron by W. H. Auden

Source of book: I own this - my wife found a copy of the complete Auden in hardback for my 40th birthday.

Apparently, it has been an entire six years since I sat down and read some Auden - it seems impossible, but I read Paid on Both Sides and his early poems (1927-1932) back in 2011. That was before I started this blog, and was just writing notes in Facebook about what I was reading. That review is linked above in its re-formated blog version.

I had originally intended to read The Age of Anxiety, but I confess I wasn’t able to get into it, and decided to find another option. If nothing else, the last year has been one of anxiety for me, in significant part caused by the re-emergence of open Nazis in our society and their embrace by my former political party and many of my faith tradition. Anyway, it was a bit much, so I set it aside for a later time.

Instead, I took the simplest approach and picked up where I left off last time. Having read the two earliest sections in the book, I read the next, which happened to be the rather long poem, Letter to Lord Byron.

This poem came at an interesting juncture in Auden’s life. He had had an epiphany in Berlin in 1928, in which he realized he desired to be a poet. Lacking a reputation or sufficient funds to live as an idle gentleman, he took the usual route at the time of getting a job teaching at an English public school. (This is what we Americans would call a private school...those silly Brits…) After a few years of this - and some success for his poems, plays, collaborations, and prose - he set off on trips to Iceland, then China, with the intent to write about his trips. After this, he would settle down in the United States, writing and teaching at various universities. 

 Auden in 1939

Letter to Lord Byron was written in 1936, between the two trips. The poem is a commentary on modern (for then) life, informing Byron of the changes and how he and Auden would be perceived in each era. Auden takes the time to talk about contemporary writers and fads and ideas, generally in a nostalgic vein. The final section of the poem contains a good deal of autobiographical information: Audent tells of his time at school, his epiphany in Berlin, his years of teaching, and his trip to Iceland. Both the commentary and the autobiography are fascinating, quite witty, and full of delightful use of the language.

The poem has a form rather unusual for its time: Rhyme Royal. The stanzas have seven lines, with the rhyme scheme of ABABBCC, with iambic pentameter as the meter. Chaucer used the form in several of the Canterbury Tales, as well as in a few other poems. The form was popular for a while - Spenser used it -  but went out of fashion by Elizabethan times. However Shakespeare resurrected it for The Rape of Lucrece. It pretty much fell into disuse, with only a few poets giving it an occasional turn. Wordsworth wrote one, but it really is this poem by Auden that can be said to be the most memorable use of the form in the last few hundred years.

Auden starts off by apologising for bothering Byron, but notes that he just read Don Juan on the boat to Iceland, and liked it, so maybe Byron will do him the favor of reading his letter. He also asks pardon for using Rhyme Royal rather than Ottava Rima, but says at least his will be cheery.

He also mentions that he debated who to write to. He considered writing to Jane Austen, but he felt intimidated writing to a novelist - he was a mere poet. On the other hand, Auden had no fear of shocking old Jane:

You could not shock her more that she shocks me;

Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.

It makes me most uncomfortable to see

An English spinster of the middle class

Describe the amorous effect of “brass”,

Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety

The economic basis of society.

The whole tone of the poem is as tongue in cheek as this. Later, he describes his project of writing a travel book, which is sure to irritate his publisher with its digressions - even as he notes that digressions are indeed traditional in the genre. At that point, he has already rhymed “point” and “joint,” and needs one more for his “B” rhyme. Uh oh.

But now I’ve got uncomfortable suspicions,

I’m going to put their patience out of joint.

Though it’s in keeping with the best traditions

For Travel Books to wander from the point

(There is no other rhyme except anoint),

The well may charge me with - I’ve no defences -

Obtaining money under false pretences.

As many a poetic soul has done, Auden bemoans the problems of modernity - particularly compared with the fairytale. No longer can one go out and fight the dragon with sword. Instead, the mundane problems of poverty and macroeconomics and bureaucracy. Auden realizes, however, that the dragons have never gone away.

Against the ogre, dragon, what you will;

His many shapes and names all turn us pale,

For he’s immortal, and to-day he still

Swinges the horror of his scaley tail.

Sometimes he seems to sleep, but will not fail

In every age to rear up to defend

Each dying force of history to the end.

Milton beheld him on the English throne,

And Bunyan sitting in the Papal chair;

The hermits fought him in their caves alone,

At the first Empire he was also there,

Dangling his Pax Romana in the air:

He comes in dreams at puberty to man,

To scare him back to childhood if he can.

Banker or landlord, booking-clerk or Pope,

Whenever he’s lost faith in choice and thought,

When a man sees the future without hope,

Whenever he endorses Hobbes’ report

“The life of man is nasty, brutish, short,”

The dragon rises from his garden border

And promises to set up law and order.

It’s not too hard to see what Auden is thinking of here. Hitler had come to power in Germany a few short years prior, and to many, including Winston Churchill, the looming world war was already seeming increasingly inevitable. Auden goes on to paraphrase Tacitus:

He that in Athens murdered Socrates,

And Plato then seduced, prepares to make

A desolation and to call it peace…

And this is what tyrants do. It was also hard not to see the present in this, with multitudes losing hope, and embracing one promising a return to the glorious (and fictitious) past, and set up law and order against the “others.” And authoritarianism rises again, making a desert and calling it peace.

I love the last lines in the first stanza above:

In every age to rear up to defend

Each dying force of history to the end.

This really is a significant part of what attracts people both to demagogues like Le Toupee and to religious hucksters like Bill Gothard. Change - particularly change that addresses the injustices of history - is uncomfortable for a lot of people, and in our nation today, there are many who really, really want to return to a time when women and brown people knew their place. And both Trump and Gothard appeal to that in different but similar ways with their toxic visions of masculinity and power and their demonizing of non-whites and their cultures. Auden tends to be perceptive in his writing, and there is a lot in this poem that fingers some uncomfortable truths.

I also was intrigued by a passage in the autobiographical section. Auden speaks of his days in school during World War One. He notes that pretty much all the able bodied and able minded men were sent off to war, leaving the schools to be taught by the elderly - and by those who weren’t exactly fit for duty.

However, he mentions one eccentric character, who he gives the pseudonym “Reginald.” This teacher apparently departed from the acceptable curriculum intended to edify and instead telling scandalous tales of the outside world.

“Half a lunatic, half a knave.” No doubt

A holy terror to the staff at tea;

A good headmaster must have soon found out

Your moral character was all at sea;

I question if you’d got a pass degree:

But little children bless your kind that knocks

Away the edifying stumbling blocks.

Like Auden, I am a divergent thinker, and have never been able to just do what everyone else wants. So I can readily bring to mind several people in the category of this teacher (including a sunday school teacher or two who treated us like adults, not little kids…) Judging from how many of us who spent time in cultic groups specifically calculated to enforce rigid cultural and political conformity turned out later, much of this “edification” has turned out to be real stumbling blocks to us later. Thank god for the ones who kicked them away.

A few stanzas later, Auden adds this:

I hate the modern trick, to tell the truth,

Of straightening out the kinks in the young mind,

Our passion for the tender plant of youth,

Our hatred for weeds of any kind.

Slogans are bad: the best that I can find

Is this: “Let each child have that’s in our care

As much neurosis as the child can bear.”

I smile at that line every time.

Auden finishes by contemning “Normality” as being the source of no less than murder, committed in the name of conformity. Auden would know. As a gay man, he lived in an era when his sort were rather routinely murdered or imprisoned.

But I do think Auden had one thing wrong about this. It isn’t a “modern trick” at all. (He probably knew this, but poetry and hyperbole go hand in glove.) Rather, it is that same timeless “Dragon” he describes earlier, the forces of conformity - and the obverse: hatred of the “other.” The two are, of course, inseparable. Likewise, much of what we see in our modern reactionary waves are driven by that desperate determination to defend the dying forces of history to the very bitter end.

What I probably like the most about this poem is that it contains gems like these in what is mostly a humorous and wry poem. There is nothing of despair in it, more a gentle laugh at the expense of folies of all this. Things would, in time, become deadly, deadly serious. Millions would lose their lives. But we must also laugh in the midst, or we would go mad. My hope is that, like the dying forces of nationalistic imperialism that gripped Germany in the 1930s, our own moment may too meet its demise with the next generation. Auden was a youngish man on the cusp of the World War, and his generation in Europe was the key to rejecting the poisonous ideas of the Nineteenth Century and building what has been a remarkably peaceable and stable Europe after literally centuries of nearly endless fighting. My own generation and my children’s generation have a lot of work to do to undo the damage of the last few years. But I believe it can be done.

The Taste of War by Lizzie Collingham

Source of book: I own this. This was a gift from my brother-in-law. (See my post on Dharma Bums for more about our mutual love for hiking and literature.)

I have been putting off writing this for a few weeks. First, I went camping, and that kind of got in the way. Then, I had a crazy Symphony week, so there just wasn’t time to sit down and sort out what I was going to say. The problem, in large part, is that this is a really big book, with a fairly broad reach, and that tends to make it hard to focus on a few core ideas. The book is 500ish pages long, plus extensive endnotes. 

Let me see if I can distill this down a bit. Lizzie Collingham tackles the role that food played in World War II, from the role food played in why the Axis powers started a war in the first place, through the difficulties the various players encountered in keeping their own populations - and armies - supplied with food, through the way starvation was used as a weapon, to the way the war changed forever how food was grown, processed, and consumed throughout our modern world. So yes, a huge scope, and far too much information to put in one review. Collingham is British, so she sometimes focuses on the British experience, but she does an excellent job expanding the view to a global one.

As a basic summary, I would say that this book is well researched, marvelously detailed, and sheds a light on World War II that augments and in some cases revises the dominant narratives.

First, while the causes of most wars aren’t exactly singular, there are some common threads. No doubt the economic hardships to Germany after the first World War were a significant trigger. But there was also a political philosophy which went beyond that of the Nazis which led inevitably to the war.

Germany decided that its goal was to become self sufficient when it came to food, rather than import food from elsewhere, like Britain. And not just Germany, but Japan too adopted this ideal.

There was a major problem, however: neither had enough land to be able to support their populations. In Japan’s case, it was at least arguable that had they embraced modern farming techniques, they might have been able to do it, but Germany simply didn’t have enough fertile land or a long enough growing season. Britain, for what it is worth, was even worse off, but chose to embrace a global marketplace and import food in exchange for other goods. Come to think of it, this is what Britain had been doing for the past several hundred years, so it came easily to them.

The solution to the problem? Well, since population shrinkage is rarely a popular suggestion, particularly since someone gets the task of dying, Germany and Japan decided that they needed more land. In Germany’s case, it is clear from internal documents that they always intended to invade Russia, and take part of the Ukraine in addition to Poland for themselves. For Japan, this mean Korea and Manchuria - and an empire in Southeast Asia.

This begs the question, naturally, of what was to happen to the people who already occupied these “new” lands that would would be conquered. Where would they go?

The answer to that is as ugly as it comes. Germany had long considered the Jews to be mere “useless eaters,” and intended for them to starve or flee. In fact, the “final solution” wasn’t really a surprise to many within the regime. If anything, execution was a better death than starvation. But it didn’t stop with the Jews. Not at all. Collingham pieces together documents from the Nazi era that paint a pretty clear picture.

The people occupying the land would be deported and enslaved - around 70 million people. It was fully expected that at least 30-60 million people, primarily those of the “undesirable” Slavic race, would starve to death. And that was fine.

Japan does not seem to have been as realistic. It appears that they expected that somehow they could “merely” enslave the Korean and Chinese populations, feed them less, and still have lots of food left over. In practice, of course, one would have the same result. Those deprived of their food would die of starvation.

One of the most shocking things in this book, though, was that these intended (and partially accomplished) atrocities didn’t just happen out of the blue. In fact, there was a clear blueprint for them which was cited by the Nazis as a great example of how they foresaw the plan unfolding:

The expulsion of the Native Americans from the United States.

Ouch.

Think about it: as we expanded into North America, the native populations were enslaved, deported en masse, and eventually succumbed to starvation and disease. (The numbers are staggering: 20-100 million for the entire new world, and easily 80% of the original populations. Even with the lower number, it comes in at the 7th worst death toll for conflicts in history once adjusted for world population.) The Nazis recognized this as a viable template for genocide.

On a related note, I do not want to create the impression that the evil was all on the side of the Axis powers. With the exception of the United States, no major player could feed itself, so hard decisions had to be made. Even for the US, how much to share and with whom was a question which was not necessarily answered in a just manner.

For England, the decision was made that hunger would be “exported.” That is, the colonies - particularly in India and Africa - would be cut back far more than for the homeland, with the result that starvation became rampant. India was hit the worst, because Africa was both closer to self-sufficient, and better able to conceal foodstuffs from requisitioning by the British authorities.

Although I admire Churchill, I must say I was repulsed by his statements on India. He considered Indians to be subhuman savages, and blamed them for their own starvation. In a sentiment that even now is echoed by the right wing here in America, he claimed that they would have been fine had they not “reproduced like rabbits.” As if reproduction were just a privilege for the wealthy or white.

As Field Marshall Wavell (one of the true heroes in the war) after he was appointed to oversee India (having commanded the forces in North Africa previously) bitterly said, “A very different attitude [exists] towards feeding a starving population when the starvation is in Europe.”

I won’t spend too much time in this review on the extensive discussion of battlefield logistics other than to say that it is fascinating reading. Truly battles may be won on tactics, but wars are often won by logistics. Whatever the contribution in weaponry and soldiers the United States made to the war, it was the logistics of supply that were its forte.

Likewise, the sections on how the various countries managed their own supplies through rationing and other means is worth reading. Any economist would recognize the problems caused by black markets and unfair apportionment of resources.

I do want to focus a bit, though, on some of the interesting points the author makes about malnutrition. There are plenty of tales of people dying in the streets of starvation. (Google the Siege of Leningrad, if you have a strong stomach.) It wasn’t pretty.

But I hadn’t realized the severe secondary tolls taken by malnutrition. It’s one thing to die from lack of calories - it’s ugly. But for far more, they died from the effects of insufficient nutrition. Diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and cholera are far more deadly for the malnourished. Likewise, one of the early signs of malnutrition is an elevated maternal and infant death rate. Thus, even as millions starved, even more millions died of disease as a direct result of malnutrition, and more mothers and babies died as well.

Before and during the war, scientific research turned to the requirements of nutrition. Many of our current standards derive from this era and the research which was done. The war itself served as a research study on a grand scale. Because of rationing and subsidies, for the first time in recorded history, some poor populations actually had enough to eat - and nutritious food.

The result of this research has been revolutionary. It turns out that, as the author put it, “It was clear that ill-health among the poor was directly related to deficient family income. The poor quite simply could not afford to buy enough good-quality food.” All it took to reduce maternal death rates, and rates of many diseases was to ensure that women got sufficient and good quality food. Who knew? Well, this was revolutionary in its time.

There were other interesting findings. Often the poor would consume enough calories, but they lacked other nutrients. Due to the gulf in income, the wealthy were able to afford meat, fish, dairy products, and fresh vegetables which were out of the reach of the poor.

Furthermore, the research identified three causes which still today are at the heart of the malnutrition problem: lack of proper kitchen facilities to prepare food, a lack of time to cook from scratch, and insufficient income to afford the more expensive but more nutritious foods.

Prior to this research, there was a general sentiment that malnutrition was the fault of the poor. They weren’t frugal enough, they were ignorant of nutrition, they were lazy and didn’t want to cook. Oh wait. That’s still how we talk about the poor. My bad.

This is still an issue today. A great example of how this plays out can be seen in McDonalds’ attempt to show that one can live on the current minimum wage. It has been pointed out - and indeed, it is completely obvious to anyone who can live on budget - that the plan for living on minimum wage has serious flaws. First, it assumes that the person receives government health care and food stamps to pay pretty much all of their food needs. Second, it requires a 70 hour work week. Third, the amount allocated for rent wouldn’t actually allow a person to afford real housing - at least in California. So, one could see all three factors: lack of total income for needs, probably no kitchen facilities, and a work schedule that leaves insufficient time to prepare nutritious food.

This research had a secondary effect. Because rationing and nutrition subsidies had a positive effect, leading many to experience a lack of hunger and malnutrition, a fundamental shift occurred. Maternal and infant death rates declined in England and the United States. Malnutrition related deaths of all kinds dropped. And people noticed.

Throughout the western world, the wartime introduction of planned economies, which accepted responsibility for the health and welfare of all a nation’s citizens, marked a decisive break with the past. In post-war Britain it would no longer be possible for a government, whether Conservative or Labour, to turn away from abject misery, declaring that it was the result of ignorance and, by implication, beyond the means of the government to rectify.

Perhaps the only movement in the western world that hasn’t accepted this is the current version of the right wing in the United States. (Even the Right, when I was a kid in the Reagan years, didn’t see the dismantling of the New Deal and the safety net to be a goal. But now, it appears that Ayn Rand economics has become the cause celebre - one of several reasons I left the GOP.)

The problem is this: prior to these programs, people really did starve, and people really did die of malnutrition-related diseases, and things got better once government stepped in and did some redistribution. For those who wish to reverse that, I have to wonder, “what is your plan to keep the gains?” Or do you, deep down, hope to return to the days of malnutrition for those who “don’t deserve it”? Just asking…

One final bit that I found interesting - and a bit humorous. Hitler was well known to eat an austere diet that would faze even some paleolithic sorts today. Not so for some of his underlings. This book tells of a feud between Goebbels, who wished to see the leaders embrace austerity in the name of victory, and Goering, who was legendary in his extravagance. His love for Horcher’s, a luxury restaurant infuriated Goebbels enough that he arranged for a mob to attack the restaurant. Goering, naturally, dispatched soldiers from the Luftwaffe to guard his favorite dinner spot. Ah, the politics of food…

This is an intriguing book on many levels. It isn’t an easy or light book, but it is well worth the read. Doubly so for anyone interested in history, warfare, economics, nutrition, or politics.

But I think what will stick with me the most is this: we still act in accordance with the worst of our human nature all too often. We can be generous only until our own luxury and privilege is threatened, and then we are all too eager to export hunger and poverty and turn a blind eye to the suffering of our fellow humans. World War II was ugly on so many levels, but we should not forget that much of its evil wasn’t unique. It existed before the war, and remains afterward.

Nazism, Communism, and Atheism Aren't the Same Thing

[This post is, in part, a follow-up to my review of Steven Pinker's excellent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature.]

 ***

In the last few years, the late Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins each came out with a book making a case against religion, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and The God Delusion, respectively.

Now, to be fair, I haven’t read either book. I haven’t read anything by Dawkins, actually (other than a couple of short articles on scientific topics), but I am a fan of much of Hitchens’ journalistic writing. In particular, I found his take on Islamic fundamentalism to be refreshing; and even when I disagreed (which was often), I did respect him for striving to be intellectually honest and consistent, something all too often lacking on both the left and the right.

That said, the two books have created enough of a stir in Evangelicalism that there is a sort of defensive backlash against their claims. Again, I strongly suspect that few of those reacting have actually read the books, and I have every reason to believe that most of those reacting are not really interested in grappling with the uncomfortable historical and philosophical issues involved. Instead, there has developed a pissing contest over who is more responsible for evil in the world.

In essence:

“New Atheists”: Religion is responsible for all the evil in the world, and we would solve our problems if we could just get rid of religion.

Conservative Christians: You think we are bad? What about all of the terrible things done by atheists? We could solve all our problems if we would just get rid of atheists!

“New Atheists”: Witch hunts, the Crusades, the 30 Years War, the Inquisition!

Conservative Christians: We see your Inquisition, and raise you World War II and the Communist Purges. (Mic Drop…)

This is not particularly helpful, unfortunately. I see the following problems with this approach.

First, it doesn’t seem to me that we Christians should be imitating these tactics. Name calling and blame heaping doesn’t get one anywhere, and it smacks of wrestling with a pig. (You get dirty and the pig likes it. Tip o’ the hat to George Bernard Shaw...) Nothing like claiming to be a religion based on love, and then accusing your opponents of being responsible for atrocities.

Second, it requires a certain revisionist view of history, as I have pointed out elsewhere. That the Inquisition - and thousands of other religious purges - actually happened isn’t really debateable. Saying, “yeah, but you were worse” doesn’t actually take away the original problem. Religion has caused evil, and we shouldn’t be afraid to admit it.

Third, it oversimplifies. Hitchens and Dawkins do the same thing in treating religion as a monolithic force, and a force for evil at that. This is pretty clearly an overreach, as other atheistic writers have pointed out. Likewise, attributing Communism and Nazism to Atheism is a gross oversimplification, both in practice and in theory. I’ll address this point in more detail.

Fourth, it detracts attention from the real causes of the Nazi and Communist atrocities, just like Hitchens and Dawkins detract attention from the poisonous ideas that led to the Inquisition by lumping all religion together. There are in fact common ideas that link these seemingly disparate blots on human history, and preventing them isn’t a matter of “eliminate religion” or “make everyone Christian.”

This is how things devolve into a playground argument, when there could actually be dialogue that leads to a mutual determination to prevent mass violence in the future.

1. A black and white worldview leads to oversimplification

One thing that the New Atheists and Evangelicals seem to agree on is this: The fundamental battle between good and evil is between religion and atheism. (Depending on the Evangelical, the enemy would be all other religions too, and in some extreme cases, most other Christians in the bargain.) The disagreement is which side is the side of evil.

For the New Atheists, this oversimplifies the role of religion to one of malign influence. In my opinion, and that of many historians, the picture is far from simple. Religion can and has inspired evil. It also can and has inspired good. Even today, this is true. Christianity in one form or another inspires the Westboro Baptist Church, but it also has inspired as large number of medical professionals to risk their lives treating ebola patients in Africa and here in the United States. It is unfair and inaccurate to say that religion poisons everything.

However, the reverse is also true. For some, atheism can lead to selfishness and a disregard for others. But that isn’t necessarily the result, in my experience. I have done volunteer work alongside people of different faiths and no faith, and there are many good people sacrificing themselves for the good of others. If you want to look at famous people, you can see a Stalin on one side, but also a Bill Gates (who has done great good in the world with his money and his time) and an Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who has worked to end female genital mutilation). So it is unfair and inaccurate to say that atheism poisons everything.

When your worldview is one of “us versus them,” these are the kinds of errors you end up making.

In reality, there is little that is truly simple. History is messy. Belief systems are messy. Humans are messy.

As many have pointed out, so many of the problems worth solving in life are hard. If they were easy, someone else would have solved them earlier.

If there were a simple answer to ending violence, war, and genocide, one would have hoped someone would have done it before all the carnage of history.

By oversimplifying things to a “Christians versus Evil Atheists” or a “Atheism versus Evil Religion” narrative, we miss the point.

2. Communism and atheism aren’t the same thing

Likewise, Nazism (or Fascism for that matter) and Atheism aren’t the same thing.

Per the dictionary: “Communism: a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.”

“Nazism: the body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer.”

In its Stalinist form, Communism took on several similarities to Nazism, namely the totalitarian principle of government and the supremacy of the leadership.

But, but, but, the person argues, the doctrines underlying Communism and Nazism were the direct descendents of atheism. As I noted in my extended post on the Nazis and Nietzsche, the supposed connection is a stretch, and ignores counterexamples. Also, it ignores the more directly connected philosophies that were crucial to both movements.

It shouldn’t be too hard to show this. First of all, regarding the Nazis, the central “doctrines,” if you will, were Antisemitism, Racism, and Totalitarianism. Without these ideas, Nazism would have been unrecognizable. Second, while the Nazi leaders weren’t obviously Christian, Germany was predominantly Christian, and Hitler used German Christianity to further his agenda. It is easy to turn up expressly Christian statements in Hitler’s writings and speeches.

One from Mein Kampf should suffice for this post:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Those are not the words of an atheist, I’m afraid. Once in power, Hitler even went so far as to outlaw most atheistic organizations and groups. Nazism was widely accepted in Germany despite Christian beliefs. So even to claim that Nazism was atheistic is a bit of a stretch.

As for Communism, there is more of a case that it is an atheistic philosophy, at least as experienced in real life. However, it is “atheistic” in the same way that the Inquisition was “Christian.” There are many, many atheists who feel the same way about communism as I do about the Inquisition. I might name just a few of the writers that I found to have been particularly eloquent in the fight against Communism: the aforementioned Christopher Hitchens, Raymond Aron, Clive James, and Steven Pinker. 

This fallacy is known as the Fallacy of Division. A classic example would be: “A 747 can fly across the ocean. 747s have jet engines. Therefore, a jet engine can fly across the ocean by itself.”

Or, as applied to Communism: “The Communists are responsible for great atrocities. Communists were atheists. Therefore, atheists are responsible great atrocities.”

This would work equally “well” to claim that Russians as a race or nation are the cause of the Communist atrocities, or that White People are responsible, or that males are responsible, or whatever other characteristic of Stalin or Marx you want to use.

An additional complication is that while Stalin and Mao were atheists, Pol Pot wasn’t. He was buddhist, and combined that belief with communist ideas and a sense of his divinely ordained destiny.

So don’t conflate Atheism with either Nazism or Communism.

3. The roots of this conflation.

As I noted above, some this comes from the black and white worldview of “us versus them.” If someone is evil, then he or she must be an atheist. But I think there is another facet to this.

Namely, for decades, there has been a conflation of “Christianity” with “The United States of America” and “Capitalism.”

Because of the myth of the US as “Christian Nation,” or the “New Israel,” far too many Christians believe that the United States and the Kingdom of God are, if not identical, closely aligned. Don’t think that this is just my opinion, check out this survey in Christianity Today. 

If you want to break it down by group, it is interesting to me that older Evangelicals are more likely to hold that view than other groups. (This is not much of a surprise to me.)

So, we get another logical fallacy here: “The United States opposed both Nazism and Communism. The United States has a special relationship with God. Thus, Communism and Nazism are opposed to God, ergo they are Atheist.”

Alas, this also causes problems in domestic politics here in the United States, where “Capitalism” and its modern incarnations “corporatism” and “crony capitalism” and a few other pernicious varieties are confused with “Christianity.” Thus, the unholy alliance between Evangelicalism and the Republican party, and the tendency of many Evangelicals to preach the economic Objectivism of Ayn Rand as if it were gospel truth. Thus, any attempt (for example) to redistribute wealth from the wealthy to the poor is conflated with “communism,” which of course is “atheism,” and thus opposed to Christianity. Ergo, any economic policy that doesn’t match the Ayn Rand paradigm is now not just inadvisable, but pure evil. And thus, the belief that we are just one social program (the Affordable Care Act, anyone?) from the gulags and the gas chambers.

Thus also the tendency to act as if the United States is always in the right, and whatever we do is in furtherance of the Kingdom of God. (See any number of foreign policy examples…)

4. Why this doesn’t pass the sniff test.

One principle of critical thinking is that one should look to see if there is correlation before assuming that there is causation.

If I think that smoking causes cancer, I would want to first look to see if there is a correlation between smoking and cancer. Do smokers get more cancer than non-smokers? Does cancer risk increase with the amount and duration of smoking? In this case, all of these correlations exist. This is obviously only the first step in proving causation. Correlation does not prove causation.

However, lack of correlation does disprove causation.

That is an important point, which is often ignored in debates over issues such as vaccines and autism. If there isn’t even correlation, there cannot be causation.

Based on this same principle, it becomes quickly apparent that there is a significant lack of correlation in any of the purported links.

Here are some ways we could look at it:

1. Does the religion or lack thereof in a society correlate with greater or lesser levels of violence?
2. As a society goes from more religious to less religious, does it increase in violence?
3. Is a society more likely to become communist the more atheistic it is?
4. Does a society become increasingly likely to become communist as it becomes more atheist?

These are testable propositions. Although “Atheism” can be a bit tricky, as some philosophies that most consider a religion lack a supreme being and are thus lumped with atheism in some studies. That said, here are some patterns.

Apparently, the country (as of 2012) with the highest murder rate is Honduras, followed by Venezuela, the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands (really?) and an assortment of failed African states. None of these appear to be particularly irreligious. The rate of atheism in Honduras is around 13%, lower than the global average, and the African countries appear to be even lower.

Okay, what about the opposite side? Which countries are least religious? The highest is Sweden, at 88% atheist, followed by China at 82%. These are followed primarily by places like Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Japan, and the other Scandinavian countries.

The first thing that jumps out is that none of these places are particularly violent. In fact, the main exception is Russia, whose murder rate is higher than the United States (Which, by the way,  is closer to Russia than to the other Western nations on that list in murder rate.)

So, there isn’t a huge correlation there. At least not a clear one in favor of religion as a reducer of violence.

On a related note, the European countries aren’t exactly hotbeds of religious oppression, bloody purges, and government violence. China, on the other hand, does seem to have this problem. It correlates with communism, but not with atheism.

How about a correlation between atheism and communism? Well, that’s complicated, considering some of those countries are or recently were communist. Which caused which? Another complicating factor is that in the Far East, Taoism, Confucianism, some Buddhism, and Shinto are usually classified as “atheistic” because of the lack of a supreme being.  So those rates may well be overstated in any case.

Whatever the case is, the evidence is mixed. Some atheistic countries are or were communist. Others were and are not.

Likewise, communist Venezuela is more religious than average, while Sierra Leone (a predominantly Muslim democracy, of all things) shares honors for lowest percentage of atheists.

Again, the correlation is spotty at best. Democratic countries can be either very religious or very non-religious, or in between. Communist countries can be religious as well as atheistic.

What about increases in violence or communism?

As with correlation in rates, the evidence isn’t particularly in favor of atheism correlating with communism. The number of communist countries has declined significantly since the fall of the iron curtain, and even those nominally “communist” countries that remain are less doctrinaire than they used to be. China is a case in point, with elements of capitalism and free markets growing the economy. Political freedom is still problematic, but it is safe to say that it isn’t exactly like it was in the days of Chairman Mao.

As for the increase in rates, there is strong evidence that Europe (even more than the rest of the world) has seen a huge decline in violence. This, even as rates of atheism have increased. Likewise, those countries with a high rate of atheism seem hardly headed in the direction of communism in the Stalinist sense. They may have seen an increase in the redistribution of wealth and toward a managed economy, but hardly even toward true socialism (government ownership of the means of production.) Unless I am missing something, I cannot see that Belgium is somehow becoming a genocidal threat...

Again, the evidence of correlation is seriously lacking. It can’t even pass the sniff test, really. An unbiased researcher would at this point start looking for other connections to investigate. Chances are, something other than atheism/religion is the common factor in violent, murderous regimes.

5. The elephants in the room: Totalitarianism and ideology

It isn’t hard to see that Nazism and Communism share some significant attributes. We tend to forget this sometimes, but during their heydays, the two political philosophies were mortal enemies. Nazism billed itself as the antidote to “Jewish” and “Atheistic” communism, while Soviet communism in particular sold itself as the last great defense against the evils of Nazism.

But they weren’t really all that far apart. The things they had in common are quite interesting, and understanding those common traits is crucial to guarding against a repeat of the atrocities they committed.

The first commonality is totalitarianism. Per the dictionary:

1:  centralized control by an autocratic authority

2:  the political concept that the citizen should be totally subject to an absolute state authority

It should be noted that the Nazis and Communists were by no means the first totalitarian governments. Empires since the dawn of history have often aspired to be totalitarian, and many have succeeded to some degree or another. The Roman Empire comes to mind as a particularly brutal government, which murdered dissidents and conquered and enslaved whenever it could. That’s just one example, of course. History is filled with them. The Inquisition itself was a totalitarian entity, with totalitarian ideals.

In many ways, the idea that government didn’t have the right or the duty to purge dissenters is a very modern idea, revolutionary in its time, and yet one of the bedrocks of modern democracies.

Rudolph Hummel, a historian who has written extensively on totalitarianism - and is often quoted by the religious right - believed that totalitarianism is the key commonality in large scale attrocities.

I find that religion or its lack – atheism – have hardly anything to do in general with wide-scale democide. The most important factor is totalitarian power. Whether a church, atheists, or agnostics have that power is incidental – it is having the power that is a condition of democide. Incidentally, some ideologies, such as communism, function psychologically and sociologically as though a religion. The only distinction is whether the subject is a god or a man, such as Marx, Lenin, Hirohito, Hitler, Mohammed, Kim Ill sung, Mao, etc.

The second commonality is ideology. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who had plenty of experience with Communism, pointed out that killing a few is easy to justify, but to kill millions, you need an ideology.

I use the term in this case to mean more than merely a set of political or philosophical beliefs. In that sense, any coherent belief system would be an ideology.

Rather, I use “ideology” in the same way Solzhenitsyn does: a belief that is held to be the single, unified answer to everything, and is worth killing for.

Ideology is a single narrative that explains everything in history, reduces every problem to one struggle, and envisions a utopia that is possible if the “right” side wins.

This clearly applies to both Nazism and Communism. To borrow from Steven Pinker:

“Marxist socialism, in which history is a glorious struggle between classes, culminating in the subjugation of the bourgeoisie and the supremacy of the proletariat.”

“National Socialism, in which history is a glorious struggle between races, culminating in the subjugation of inferior races and the supremacy of the Aryans.”

The similarity is easy to see. There is another commonality too: the belief in an apocalypse followed by a utopia. The workers would rise, eliminate private property, and usher in the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the golden future age. The Aryans would purge the vile Jews, dominate the world, and usher in the 1000 year 3rd Reich.

As Pinker points out, this leads to a brutal calculus. If the good to be gained is infinite, that is, Utopia forever, then there is no cost too high. There is no slaughter too great when the end result is so good.

And Utopia is certainly an attractive idea, particularly if one’s real life is unpleasant.

As Hannah Arendt (another eloquent opponent of totalitarianism) notes, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes is their ideology, which provides a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future. Everything can be answered, solved, and understood in light of that one idea.

Pinker also proposed three factors that turn an ideology pernicious and violent.

Tribalism, authoritarianism, and purity.

All three of these were present in Nazism and Communism. Tribalism can manifest itself as membership of a race and/or nation, as it did in Nazism - and generally in fascist regimes worldwide. It can also present as membership of a social or economic class, as in communism. It can be seen in any case where group membership becomes primal, whether that group is a religion, political party, race, nationality, or whatever. The minute the understanding of the world becomes “us versus them,” you have tribalism. Unsurprisingly, tribalism quickly leads to dehumanization of the “other.”

The second factor is authoritarianism, which is pretty obviously present in all totalitarian systems. The supreme leader commands unquestioning obedience.

The third factor is also crucial, and it flows from the first two. The “impure” elements must be purged for the good of the “pure.” The “other” has been dehumanized, and like vermin, must be exterminated. You can see this clearly in the Nazi experience. Not just the Jews, but the “Gypsies,” the homosexuals, the disabled, and many others were purged as “impurities.” For the great Aryan race to survive, all obstacles must be removed.

Likewise, in communism. Many of the purges were directed at the economic “other.” The wealthy, the educated. Others were directed at any potential dissenters, because ideological purity is all in all. As I noted regarding ideology, anyone who stands in the way of utopia is expendable.

I believe that you can see these traits in the religiously motivated atrocities as well. The Inquisition, for example, was Tribalist: anyone outside of the Roman Catholic tribe was targeted. Protestants, Jews, Muslims: all were fair game, and were slaughtered. Authority - namely church authority - was to be obeyed without question on all matters of conscience as well as practice. And there is no doubt that the goal of the Inquisition was to purge the impurities.

For a striking modern day example, take a look at fundamentalist Islam, which shows all the hallmarks: totalitarianism, ideology, tribalism, authoritarianism, and purity. And let’s not forget the apocalypse and the future utopia.

It’s kind of amazing once you start applying the pattern to the past. It generally fits, particularly when it comes to atrocities that cannot be explained by ordinary selfishness.

6. And one more:

It should not be forgotten that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot all had one other thing in common: a cult of personality.

There is a reason that I can name these names without a moment’s hesitation: they were the very face of their respective systems to the degree that they are inseparable from it. It is hard to believe that just anyone could have commanded such unquestioning obedience. And in fact, it turns out that the terrible atrocities tended to fade away after the “dear leader’s” death.

While it was no picnic to live in the Soviet Union under, say, Khrushchev, there was hardly a massive purge under his tenure. (Even less so under Andropov or Brezhnev. Bonus points if you know when these two were in charge.)

You can likewise see significant changes after the death of the other “great” leaders. Without the cult of personality, the system cannot sustain the carnage.

One might note that in the case of Germany, not only did the holocaust cease after the defeat of the Nazis, it never got restarted. Despite the fact that Germany has become far less religious in the aftermath of WWII.

7. A false sense of security

One major attraction of the belief that atheism is the cause of communism and nazism is a sense of comfort. By believing that these horrors would not have occurred absent atheism, it is logical to conclude as well that “we would never do that.” Here is where a sense of history can be helpful, because it is an unavoidable conclusion that we very much could do that, and in fact, we often did do just that. If anything, the grand scale of slaughter in the 20th Century owes more to increased world population and increased efficiency of technology than anything else. The bloody ideologies of the more distant past hardly lacked the will, but lacked the means. As it was, on a per-population basis, the old wars killed as well as the new ones, and probably better, with the aid of starvation.

The reason I believe the sense of security is false is that the real commonalities in Nazism, Communism, and the Inquisition (and others) are uncomfortable to contemplate.

Because they implicate us.

The totalitarian instinct may be on the wane in many parts of the world, but it still dwells in us. The temptation to view the world in an ideological manner is strong. We truly want to be able to reduce the world’s problems and challenges to that one single thing. The “atheists versus Christians” dichotomy is an example of that. If we could just bring everyone to Jesus, everything would be great, and all problems would be solved. If we could just get rid of all these darn atheists, then we wouldn’t have to worry about mass murder any more.

And, if we are honest, the pull of the three evils of ideology is also quite strong. We want to believe in an “us versus them” worldview. We want to impose authoritarian structures. (Just look at the renewed push for “church discipline” in forms such as 9 Marks.) We want to purge impurity, whether it is in doctrine, or in practice, or even in race and nationality, as the recent debates about immigration have shown.  (Also, as I hope to discuss in a further post, for Evangelicals, “purity” is all about sex and doctrine related to sex.)

Do I think American Christians are about to initiate a Jihad of their own? Not really. But I do see some troubling signs of the same tendencies growing. Fortunately, I doubt that there will be enough concentrated power to actually “take America back™.” I also believe that the values of freedom and tolerance are still strong in our culture, in a way that they weren’t in Germany or Russia in the early 20th Century.

7. Why the false dichotomy hurts discourse

The damage done by the false belief that Atheism is responsible for Communism and Nazism is deep.

First, it creates an unnecessary antagonism, and furthers the pissing contest. 

Second, it eliminates the truly productive dialogue on how to fight ideological violence around the world. It blinds to the role that toxic religion plays in violence around the world, and misses the roles tribalism, authoritarianism, and purity in totalitarianism.

It also causes blindness when it comes to sociological factors, which should really be front and center in the discussion.

As Milton Mayer showed in They Thought They Were Free, an amazing book on the Nazi experience, the rise of the Nazis wasn’t a simple matter of everyone deciding to abandon the church and believe in Nazism. Rather, Hitler came to power through a combination of circumstances, the foremost of which was the economic woes and national humiliation Germany suffered in the wake of World War One. Without that, he would never have been able to seize power.

Likewise, Soviet Communism didn’t happen in a vacuum. There really was a genuine problem in Russia at the time, and the lower classes were indeed looking for a solution.

As history has shown, Nazism and Communism were really bad solutions to the problems. However, those problems were very real too. One can easily (and correctly) say that Stalin’s purges were a bad thing. It is harder to say that starving serfs were a good thing. The “cure” may (or not) have been worse than the disease, but the disease was still very, very real.

The same can be said about the other countries that turned communist by revolution rather than conquest. There were real problems, without which, communism would never have looked like a solution.

One might even say that another historical atrocity, the Terror that followed the French Revolution, was also a horridly bad solution to a genuine problem.

I believe there is a lesson to be learned. Unfortunately, it is one that the religious Right isn’t particularly interested in learning right now.

The stability of any society or government or economic system will be threatened when enough people feel revolution is a better deal than what they have within the system. If the deal seems unfair enough to enough people, they are liable to tear up the social contract.

Yes, sometimes this pushes them into an even worse situation. But not always. (See the English Civil Wars for a positive example.) 

In light of these historical realities, I would have thought that there would be a little more concern about rising inequality in both income and wealth, and a lowering of social mobility. Those things generally do not lead to good things down the road. Now, it’s entirely possible - indeed probable - that a democracy will make the corrections necessary to adjust the social contract. But a system that doesn’t self-correct is vulnerable to revolution.

And those are things we need to be talking about when we discuss totalitarian systems of the past.

8. Attacking atheists doesn’t serve a constructive purpose

I’m often not sure what we are trying to accomplish here. Is blaming atheists for evil in the past likely to convince them of anything? Not really, particularly since the accusation is pretty easily refuted with some actual facts. Rather, it is more likely to convince atheists that we are more interested in looking good than in the truth.

That leads me to another thought. If I were trying to convince a neutral observer to become a Christian, I wouldn’t sit there yelling about how bad the atheists are. That would just make me look petty and vindictive. This would be compounded if I were in denial about the bad stuff in my religion’s past. I would just look like someone in denial, talking trash about others to hide my own weaknesses.

This is more than an academic exercise. Our children are watching all this play out. Chances are, if they do not already have atheist friends, they someday will. And it will become apparent that a lot of the name-calling isn’t accurate at all. And, if they go outside the bubble and actually study history, they may be a bit shaken when they discover that the “Christians versus Atheists” paradigm doesn’t really work well to explain history.

I’ve said this before, but I don’t think the primary barrier to faith in our time is intellectual. I believe it is moral. To a large degree, we expect people not just to check their brains at the door, but to actually believe lies and slander about others - and slander them ourselves. It requires one to leave his conscience at the door as well. And that is a step that is hard to take for anyone who is genuinely moral.

9. Attacking Atheists distracts from the more serious problems facing Evangelicalism

There seems to be this belief that Atheism is the greatest threat facing the Evangelical church right now.

I believe this is utterly false.

First, let me note that I came out of the Christian Patriarchy cult. One of the things that I and many others have noticed is how many of the people we know from that period in our lives have completely left the faith. Many of them are not at all shy about why.

Oddly, I can’t think of anyone who just randomly heard Dawkins or Hitchens blame religion for evil, and then decided to change their beliefs.

Instead, deconversion took place after a long period of serious reflection, exploration, and a gradual realization that many of the things they were taught were not exactly true. In most cases, this was precipitated, not by curiosity, but by deep hurt and damage. (I know this isn’t the only scenario, but it sure is common.)

The greatest threat to the faith of Evangelicals lies within, not outside the church.

I am reminded again of an outstanding comment on a video by John Piper (wherein he advises abused women to stay and endure a beating):

“Richard Dawkins wishes he were as effective as this video at convincing people that Christianity is a morally bankrupt mess.”

If you want to look at the greatest threat, look no further than this. Evangelicalism’s disturbingly high tolerance for false teachers is a huge problem. In particular, the fact that so many within Evangelicalism have embraced a Victorian view of gender and authority makes it extremely difficult for many to remain in the faith. It requires one to embrace evil. And even those within Evangelicalism who do not preach this seem unwilling to warn that these teachings are as false and evil as anything preached by the cults.

Similarly, compare the Religious Right’s political record and rhetoric (Donald Trump, anyone?) with the teachings of Christ. Not much in common, I would say.

But rather than confront the evil within, it is much more fun to just blame everything on the atheists.

I believe this also runs counter to what we know of the founder of our Faith. Jesus Christ himself spent little time dissing the godless Romans. His focus was on the true source of evil in his own culture: the established religious authorities. Likewise today, the pressing source of evil is not coming from without. It is right in our midst.

Hitting back may indeed feel good for a while, but it is ultimately counterproductive, historically inaccurate, and damaging to the faith of those who take the time to study history.  

***

Update, September 21, 2015: Just for fun, the 10 reasons to be afraid of atheists...




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