As always, things are worse in Europe. I'm referring here to the state of religious belief there, particularly as expressed in news and opinion forums.
One surprise following Britain's terrorist bombing was the popping up of denunciations of religion as the source of world terrorism. Those who expressed these opinions in op-eds and letters to the editor did not restrict their intemperance to Islam, but to any belief in God and an afterlife. These atheists of the British Isles argued that such beliefs are a self-indulgence that the modern world can no longer afford, because they encourage violence and hatred.
Judging from this published sample of opinion, the atheists of England are not students of history. For the history of extreme political movements during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is primarily one of anti-religious extremism — such as the French Revolution's worship of Reason or, more catastrophically, communism's dictatorship of the proletariat. Hitler's Nazi philosophy, which was also hostile to traditional religion, relied on half-baked pagan mythology overlaid with a veneer of “scientific” eugenics. None of the most lethal “isms” of the last two centuries drew on traditional religious belief.
This is not to deny that religious feeling can erupt explosively and destructively. It has done so in the past, in religious wars and persecutions, for example. But the true cause of violence and persecution is fallen human nature. And removing religion only exacerbates the problem, by relaxing the restraints on unlimited human nature imposed by belief in the Almighty. Without those restraints, we wind up with Auschwitz and the gulag, Pol Pot's Cambodia and Mao's Cultural Revolution.
Here in America, such a large majority profess some kind of traditional religious belief that even the unbelieving would not think of calling for religion's elimination. However, the unbelieving or minimally believing members of the media can (and do) try to ghettoize religious opinions they don't like. So editorial writers and op-ed writers worry that John Roberts's religious beliefs might influence his jurisprudence; they condemn the “private religious opinion” of many traditional Christians that it is wrong to sacrifice young embryos to obtain stem cells for treating “real” human beings. And they sound the alarm when they see religion sneaking through science's back door in the debate between Darwin and Intelligent Design.
But just how a functionally agnostic press should react gets trickier when the story they are covering is a large-scale tragedy like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. Most of the victims — and their families, friends, and attempted rescuers — are Christians. When these people fear for their lives, they implore God's aid. When rescued, they give thanks. When mourning another's death, they beg God's help in their present distress, and comfort themselves by anticipating future reunion with the departed.
The arc of the standard human-interest story during times of disaster fits religious protagonists to a tee: anxiety and distress give way to joy and gratitude or pain leavened by religiously expressed solace. This storyline makes for moving copy, but it can pose a dilemma for liberal American journalists (even those who sort of believe in a not-very-interfering God), because it may not resemble how the journalist would react under similar divine provocation. The classic questions about the existence of evil and suffering, combined with our pleasure-seeking age's protracted adolescent rebellion against the laws of nature and nature's God, make Satan's choice in Paradise Lost to reign in hell rather than serve in heaven more understandable to the unsubmissive modern mind.
So journalists deliver that classic disaster-story arc, complete with their protagonists' profoundly moving acknowledgement of dependence upon God. But these stories, with their slightly alien (to network news or CNN ears) language of being “blessed” or accepting God's will, are often reported from a sort of respectful distance on the part of the journalist. From across the divide of religious belief or religious commitment, the secular media view religious people caught up in national news events with a certain incomprehension, but sometimes also with a note of yearning and wonder. Not a bad picture frame through which to view the difference that God makes.
Madame X works in Washington DC for the federal government. Because of her employer, she must write under a pseudonym.
This article courtesy of FactIs.org.
