Mad Men and Cool Whip

30 05 2012

Cool Whip, every North American’s favorite artificial whipped cream substance, has now entered its 45th year of existence. On the surface, its creamy, light fluffiness might not appear an appropriate subject for deep critical thinking, so I was surprised this year when it made two heavy dents in my consciousness. Its first appearance was in Albert Borgmann’s
book Power Failure. Borgmann, a philosopher of technology, takes up Cool Whip as an example of our culture’s preference for convenience and artificiality and explains where this might lead us. More from him in a moment.

Then recently, Cool Whip reentered my consciousness when it appeared on AMC’s hit drama Mad Men. Set in the late 1960s, Mad Men explores the inner workings of an advertising agency from New York’s sophisticated Madison Avenue. When the makers of Cool Whip begin their search for an ad agency to promote their new product, they consult the suave businessmen at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The resulting ad campaign, “just taste it,” typifies the kind of advertising we see in a Cool Whip culture. What we don’t see as often, however, is how much this culture influences the way we perceive reality.

First, Cool Whip’s long-lasting success simply shows that citizens of affluent cultures purchase products that make their lives more convenient and trouble-free. Thankfully, gone are the days when people are forced to make their own food, shelter, and clothing from scratch. But despite the enormous benefits of industrial specialization, something is lost once homespun activities cease. When consumers lose sight of the time and effort that go into creating a product, they begin to take for granted the people, places, and resources which make consumer goods possible. As Borgmann observes, “Cool Whip exhibits a pattern that is pervasive in an advanced industrial society. Nearly everything that surrounds a citizen of such a society exhibits the opaque and commodious availability of Cool Whip and rests on a sophisticated and unintelligible machinery.”[1]

Second, as companies become increasingly dependent on advertisements for their success, our culture develops a love-hate relationship with its commercials. We may love Super Bowl ads, but how many of us enjoy watching the same commercials over and over again? Borgmann captures our ambivalent attitude towards modern advertising when he writes, “Ironically, the singular visibility and power that advertisement has been given by contemporary culture go along with an equally widespread sense of embarrassment and contempt at the frivolous or incredible claims of so many advertisements.”[2] The characters of Mad Men illustrate this perfectly. They are glamorous, successful, and dedicated to their work, but many confront a quiet despair once they realize their exhausting efforts to advertise for Heinz Beans is ultimately meaningless.

Perhaps the most glaring problem, however, is not our tendency towards convenience or gratification of base instincts. Rather, our Cool Whip culture blurs the lines between consumer goods and things that are beyond monetary value, such as persons. Borgmann explains this side effect:

The availability, the freshness, the uniform perfection, and the absence of demands that we value in Cool Whip we seek in persons as well, and being aware of how widely Cool Whip persons are appreciated, we seek to restyle ourselves in that image. Accordingly, as we remake our personality and appearance to lend them the appeal of availability, we foreshorten our existence into an opaque, if glamorous, surface and replace the depth of tradition and rootedness of life by a concealed and intricate machinery of techniques and therapies.[3]

In the end, our preference for Cool Whip really isn’t the main issue. What is problematic, though, is when we begin to see people and places as dollar signs and billboards. If human beings have any sense of dignity and self-worth apart from their monetary value—if they are, as the Christian tradition has it, made in the image of the Creator God—then we must learn to restrain our desire to commercialize everything. Similarly, if the places we inhabit are more than standing reserves for industrial use—in other words, if the created world possesses intrinsic value because of its beauty and goodness—then we must begin to see it as a place in need of preservation and redemption.

Paul McClure

[1] Albert Borgmann, Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2003), 16.

[2] Ibid., 20.

[3] Ibid., 17.


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Categories : Bar Conversations and Cheap Advice

Light and Truth in Rothko Chapel

11 04 2012

In the arts district of Houston, Texas, there is a chapel that embodies many modern and postmodern attitudes toward art and religion. Situated near the University of St. Thomas, the Rothko Chapel is neither exclusively Catholic nor Christian. While it promotes spiritual reflection and social activism, there are no crosses, icons, priests, choirs, or congregations. It features only several dark and somewhat drab murals of the famous American abstract-expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Visitors who come to Rothko Chapel sit and often meditate in front of Rothko’s black canvases hoping for a religious experience. While not my favorite paintings, they are nonetheless mesmerizing. One can easily get lost in the vastness of the murals and enjoy the peaceful coolness of the chapel, especially on a hot summer day in Houston. Aesthetic experiences aside, the chapel itself, which is shaped like a large octagon, is loaded with a number of assumptions about how religion should be done today.

These presuppositions are evident even before one sees the interior part of the chapel. Near the entrance, there is a small bookshelf that contains many of the world’s sacred texts. The King James Version of the Bible is on a shelf next to the Bhagavad-Gita, the Koran, the Upanishads, the Book of Mormon, and others. The impression one gets is that all of these books may contain some partial truth, but it is up to the individual to decide what works best. Religious pluralism, the idea that all religions are more or less the same, is clearly behind the words of the chapel’s main patron, Dominique de Menil:

The Rothko Chapel is oriented toward the sacred and yet it imposes no traditional environment. It offers a place where a common orientation could be found—an orientation towards God, named or unnamed, an orientation towards the highest aspiration of Man and the most intimate calls of the conscience.”[1]

Though this desire to be free from indoctrination and bias is sincere, one has to wonder whether the process of stripping away all particular religious symbols and names is helpful. Is it possible to create a universal, postmodern religion that sheds layers of history? If so, what does this new religion look like? What kind of ethics does it prescribe? Who is the God at its center?

Despite Rothko’s brilliance, his work for the chapel seems to raise these unanswerable questions. His dark, monochromatic murals have no discernible landscapes, symbols, or story lines. All of paintings are black or dark brown. If they communicate anything, it is that the world is confusing and suffers from a lack of metaphysical revelation. In this uncertain world devoid of light and truth, we are forced to create our own meaning and construct individual religious lives.

To be sure, much more could be said about the Rothko Chapel and its religious implications, but I’ll conclude with a few modest points. First, we have a desire for the sacred. People who visit Rothko Chapel hope that the space will inspire and speak Truth to them. They seem to know that secular materialism is a dead end, and they hope for a spiritual experience of some sort. Second, despite this desire, there is a deep, postmodern suspicion about the truth of any one religion. This explains why all the sacred texts in the chapel are on the same bookshelf and why all the paintings are dark and monochromatic. Any hint of privileging one story or religion above another would be a violation of postmodern religious pluralism. As a result, all that can be painted is blackness, and we get lost in the darkness.

The Christian story, for what it’s worth, stands in contrast to this last point. In the Gospel of John, we read about “The true light that gives light to everyone….”[2] The protagonist of John’s gospel, Jesus of Nazareth, later claims, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”[3] These are audacious claims to be investigated seriously, but for me, they help explain the drastic differences between the Rothko Chapel and various Christian chapels around the world. Of course, there is plenty of bad Christian art and architecture, just as there is a definite beauty to the Rothko Chapel. But while the latter is constrained by a worldview which obscures light and denies truth, the Christian alternative proclaims Jesus to be the one who is both.

Paul McClure

[1] http://www.rothkochapel.org/

[2] John 1:9

[3] John 8:12


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Categories : Spirituality for the Rest of Us

Madonna, World Peace, and Religious Pluralism

15 02 2012

World Peace was center stage during Madonna’s halftime performance at this year’s Super Bowl. For our Wondering Fair readers uninterested in American culture or sports, I will spare you the details of the well-choreographed and highly entertaining spectacle. This essay focuses less on the glitz and glamour of the Super Bowl than on the possibility of world peace in an age of religious pluralism. 2011 as we know was a year rife with protests, so is world peace in the way Madonna envisions possible? Can we all learn to “coexist,” as the trendy bumper stickers encourage us to do? Madonna’s halftime performance seems to suggest that we can achieve global shalom, but it’s hard to imagine such a world when our current economic, political, and religious differences are so severe.

On the religious front, one proposal to help establish world peace is to adopt a position called religious pluralism. Promulgated by academic theologians like Wilfred Cantwell Smith and John Hick, religious pluralism is the idea that all religions are essentially equal paths up the same divine mountain. Each simply recognizes Truth in a different way, though all roads lead to God. In Hick’s own words, “pluralism is the view that the great world faiths embody different perceptions and conceptions of, and correspondingly different responses to, the Real or the Ultimate from within the major variant cultural ways of being human….”[1] Here, in his desire to remain religiously neutral, Hick substitutes the word “Real” for God, a term which has a clear Abrahamic bias. The benefits of religious pluralism, it is thought, are that people may stop trying to convert or coerce others into their way of thinking and thereby live together in harmony.

Despite good intentions, there are several problems with religious pluralism. First, it is methodologically flawed. In an attempt to find what is common to all faiths, the pluralist is forced to ignore seriously important elements of each religion. The things that make religions unique—such as the Trinity for Christians or the prophecy of Muhammad for Muslims—are routinely trivialized and viewed as unnecessary additions. To suggest that Christians or Muslims willingly give up their core doctrines in favor of a far more ambiguous pluralist picture of the divine seems ill-conceived.

Second, pluralism is morally problematic. If the Real does not reveal Itself to people in history, then the religious practices of faithful Hindus, Jews, Christians, and Muslims are based on misunderstandings. Since the Real hides Itself from everyone (except for Hick and other pluralists!) and remains fundamentally mysterious to us, we are in the dark morally and cannot live in a way that pleases the Real. This deep agnosticism which runs through religious pluralism makes it especially difficult to discern right from wrong.

Third, pluralism is logically impossible. As many scholars have pointed out, the idea that all religions are true in their own way flies in the face of common sense.[2] All religions make exclusive truth-claims and prioritize their understanding of reality over against others. Religious pluralism, with its nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the Real, is no different. Ironically, the desire to create a universal religion for everyone only leads to the denial of all other truth-claims made by religious believers. How can Hinduism, with its claim to 330 million gods, be just as true as Theravada Buddhism, which has zero gods, or Judaism, which has only one?

Finally, from a Christian perspective, religious pluralism fails to acknowledge Jesus as Lord. To be sure, this is unproblematic for persons of other faiths, but for Christians who want to be true to their historic beliefs, Jesus must be seen not merely as one manifestation of an unknown higher deity we call the Real. Rather, Jesus made known his identity in history by walking among people and saying things like, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and “I and the Father are one.”[3] His exclusive truth-claims, as we know, not only caused consternation and led to his crucifixion, but they were and continue to be fundamental to the Christian story. Despite its lack of Super Bowl glitz and glamour, it is this story, I would argue, that promises to end all protests and ultimately usher in real world peace.

Paul McClure

[1] John Hick, “Religious Pluralism.” Reprinted in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings. Ed by Michael Peterson, William Hasker, et al. (New York: Oxford UP, 2001), 565.

[2] For more resources, see Harold Netland’s Encountering Religious Pluralism, Stephen Prothero’s God Is Not One, Vinoth Ramachandra’s Faiths in Conflict, John Stackhouse’s No Other Gods Before Me, and Ravi Zacharias’ Jesus Among Other Gods.

[3] Italics added. John 14:6, 10:30 (NIV)

*Thanks also to Professor Ivan Satyavrata for his helpful lecture on religious pluralism.


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Categories : Tough Questions

Faith and Reason

21 12 2011

Imagine you’re sitting around the dinner table over the holidays and someone in your family says, “Why do you spend all this time studying religion? Religion is all about faith, and reason is all about facts.” How would you respond? Would you agree?

The idea that faith and reason don’t mix well has been around at least since the Enlightenment. Today, many people continue to hold on to this idea, either seeing the two as entirely incompatible or emphasizing one to the neglect of the other. Faith, it seems, involves the heart, our emotions, and believing things without sufficient evidence, whereas reason involves our head, pure rationality, and believing cold, hard facts.

Despite these assumptions, I’d argue that faith and reason can have a much more harmonious relationship than is generally thought. Even though faith often has religious connotations, it is not exclusively a religious term. People act on faith all the time during the course of their daily lives. If they didn’t, think of all the bewildering, paralyzing questions one would have to ask before doing anything. How do I know that the food I’m about to eat is not poisoned? Should I have it tested it in a lab first? And how do I know someone won’t rob me while I’m sleeping? Should I stay awake all night and keep watch over my things just in case? In all these cases, some degree of faith must be enacted to achieve the desired end of eating or sleeping, and such actions are perfectly justified every day around the world for many, many people.

For Christians through the centuries, faith and reason have worked in much the same way. Take Justin Martyr, for example.  Born around 100 AD, Justin was a first-rate philosopher who was mostly unimpressed by his Stoic, Aristotelian, and Pythagorean colleagues. Martyr converted to Christianity because he felt that its reasons had more explanatory power than any of its rivals and then set out to show that faith made the most sense.[1] In the Catholic tradition, one need look no further than St. Thomas Aquinas, whose massive Summa Theologica set out to demonstrate in a systematic fashion the compatibility of faith and reason. In our own time, take a look at the works of Notre Dame’s preeminent analytical philosopher Alvin Plantinga, Oxford’s former scientist-theologian Alister McGrath, or Wondering Fair’s very own John Stackhouse.

What you’ll find, I suspect, is that these thinkers and many Christians like them see reason and faith as copartners in the search for Truth. Faith is not pitted against knowledge; it is a condition for it. By acting faithfully we learn more about the reality we experience, and in the process let us make sure we have good reasons for acting in faith. And so, as the prophet Isaiah wrote long ago, “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord.”[2]

Paul McClure

[1] Hill, Jonathan. The History of Christian Thought (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2003), 16-23.

[2] Isaiah 1:18


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Categories : Tough Questions

Van Gogh’s Death: Post-Impressions

26 10 2011

A new book about the famous Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh is taking the art world by storm. As seen this month on 60 Minutes, Pulitzer Prize- winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have written a comprehensive 976-page biography of the Dutch painter whose works now sell for many millions of dollars.[1] Beyond the painstaking research and meticulous scholarship evident in their work, what’s most surprising and controversial about Van Gogh: The Life is its suggestion that van Gogh did not commit suicide as previously believed. Though this has been the view for the last 121 years, Naifeh and Smith argue that van Gogh died at the hands of two mischievous Parisian teenagers who, after spending much of their summer ridiculing the eccentric and life-wearied artist, acquired a revolver and misfired a bullet into his chest.

Of course, without a time machine, no one will ever really know how van Gogh died, but the facts about his life up until that fateful moment are well documented. He grew up interested in art and God, but his teachers and ministers shunned him for his unconventional habits. He had a love interest and desired fellowship with others, but he was rejected and had very few friends. A constant wanderer, deep thinker, and prolific letter writer, van Gogh also suffered from bouts of mental illness and sliced off part of his ear. His paintings reveal that he saw majestic beauty in nature as well as in ordinary people. But in the end, he died a relatively obscure, unappreciated artist wanting to ease the financial burdens of his brother Theo, who had been commissioning Vincent’s unsuccessful artwork for a good portion of his life.

For my own part in the Christian tradition, much of this bears striking resemblance to what happened to Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus too was rejected by the religious authorities of his day, alienated by close friends, and mocked by those who killed him. He had a deep appreciation for nature and craved committed personal relationships despite the betrayal and alienation he felt from some of his closest friends.

Of course, mysteries swirl around Jesus just as they now do for van Gogh, but note what their deaths have in common. On the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[2] Here, at the height of his persecution and anguish, Jesus evidently was praying for others, hoping to ease their burdens, even as he lay dying for them. For van Gogh, it is reported that when asked by the police whether he shot himself, he strangely answered, “I believe so. Don’t accuse anybody else… It is I who wanted to kill myself.”[3] Are these the words of two suicidal maniacs, or do they reveal far nobler, more forgiving spirits than we ever realized? For Jesus and now for van Gogh, perhaps we ought to rethink our first impressions and form new, post-impressions.

Paul McClure

[2] Luke 23:34

[3] http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/lifestyle/10/19/11/new-book-says-van-goghs-death-was-killing-not-suicide


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Categories : Spirituality for the Rest of Us

“Is This Real Life?”

12 10 2011

At the moment, over 70 million viewers have tuned in to YouTube to watch the wacky antics of a kid named David who has just left the dentist. Aside from the fact that I waste too much time surfing the Web for comedic nuggets such as this, David’s drug-induced musings say a lot about our world. First, we identify with David because, just like him, we
 often find ourselves confronting a scary and confusing world that prompts us to ask questions such as “Is this real life?” or “Why is this happening to me?”  Second, when faced with the brutal reality of the world, we usually look for an escape, a glimmer of hope, or maybe just a funny YouTube video that can keep us distracted from hard and serious labor.

Recently I came across a book that helps make sense of our need for laughter and what this tells us about the world we encounter. The esteemed Austrian-American sociologist and Lutheran theologian Peter Berger, in his insightful and frequently funny work entitled Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience, argues that humor is not only a universal, anthropological necessity but also “a signal of transcendence” and ultimately “a promise of redemption.”[2]

But is this a stretch? What have Christians had to say about laughter, and what does the Christian worldview really have to offer on the subject of humor and our apparent need for it?

Admittedly, there have been many serious-minded and quite unfunny Christians. One of Nietzsche’s many criticisms of Christianity was that its adherents always looked so depressed and unredeemed, and as Berger notes, with some exceptions, “One does not have to be a Nietzschean to look upon the history of Christian theology as a depressingly lachrymose affair.”[3] At the same time, not every Christian needs to act like the unflinching optimist Ned Flanders from The Simpsons. The world is noticeably full of sin and suffering, and Christians are affected by it just like everyone else.

Nonetheless, the Gospel offers a vision of reality drenched with dramatic irony and scandalous humor. Take, for example, the central Christian tenet that the Creator of the universe took on human flesh only to be born in a stable next to barnyard animals.[4] Did God forget to remind Joseph and Mary that they needed to make a reservation at the inn? Or maybe Jesus, prior to the virgin birth, left his confirmation number back at home, outside of the space-time continuum. Then there is the account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, where in a manner typical of a medieval court jester, Jesus clumsily rides in on an ass.[5] Here, again, we have at once a number of very ironic events and historic Christian beliefs: the Redeemer of the world shuns all pomp and circumstance, undergoes a humiliating trial and execution, and then surprises everyone with His glorious resurrection three days later. Certainly, this has to be the greatest prank anyone ever pulled.

In the end, the Gospel is captivating because it acknowledges the tragedy of the human condition and promises to heal us eternally. The fact that we can be healed eternally despite our serious physical, emotional, and spiritual imperfections is also seriously funny, and as God breaks into the bleakness of human history to do this healing, Christians are all the wiser for embracing the joy and laughter that are part and parcel of a redeemed life. We’ve all heard the expression that laughter is the best medicine, and maybe we should realize that being a Christian means that the Doctor has prescribed laughter as an integral part of our redemption. We are, then, free to laugh and remember that, “It’s okay, bud, it’s just from the medicine!”

Paul McClure is a World Religions and Ethics teacher at Episcopal High School in Houston, TX (USA).  

[1] “David after Dentist.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs

[2] Berger, Peter L. Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience. (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1997). 205, x.

[3] Ibid, 197-198.

[4] Luke 2:1-4

[5] Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-41


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Categories : The Heart of Faith

Decision Fatigue

31 08 2011

Decision-making is exhausting. That’s what New York Times columnist John Tierney explains in his recent and fascinating article entitled, “Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?” Whether it’s in the supermarket, on the Internet, or in our home or workplace, we are inundated with more choices than we can possibly process, aren’t we? We face hundreds of decisions each day, from mundane to metaphysical, and this constant bombardment of choices has some surprising individual and cultural effects. Tierney writes:

The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice.[1]

In addition to explaining my sometimes impulsive and indecisive shopping habits, I find this article makes sense on a much deeper level. Consider the deep questions we face when choosing a religious view, for example: Which God or religion should I follow? Which church, temple, mosque, synagogue, or humanist organization should I attend? Or maybe I should read some books first. But which ones? There are so many, and they’re all written by intelligent people, many with PhDs who know more about their subject than I ever could. Plus, none of them worship the same thing in the same way, and everyone seems to disagree on every conceivable religious or philosophical topic out there. How can I figure all of this stuff out with any degree of certainty?

When decision fatigue plagues us with tough kinds of religious questions, many of us tend either to bounce from one practice to another, thus experimenting with the latest spiritual trend, or we conclude that it’s impossible to know anything definitively, so why not reserve judgment until the day when it all makes sense? This type of thinking is especially prevalent in the United States today, where the fastest growing segment of the population claims to be religiously unaffiliated yet varies widely in their religious beliefs and practices. [2] [3]

Still, we know that humans are innately religious, and that our desire to worship something—whether it is a tribal god, a political leader, or a football team—appears to be hardwired into our genetic makeup from the very beginning.[4] Unfortunately, this aspect of our human nature doesn’t make the decision of who or what to worship any easier. Regardless of what we may believe about God or religion, not taking our beliefs and practices seriously could have drastic consequences in this life or another one.

So how do we counter decision fatigue of the religious sort? Rather than succumbing to the extremes of impulsive religious experimentalism or hyper-cautious agnosticism, we could face our religious decision fatigue with steadfastness and courage. We could spend time with people who live out what they preach in their faith communities, read their sacred texts and commentaries, and attempt to maintain an open mind and a keen eye during the process.[5] This may sound like a lot of time and effort, and it very well could be!

But fortunately some of the best decisions we make in life begin with a simple, playful curiosity to go and see someone or something that’s intriguing. The disciples in the New Testament certainly had such an occasion when they met Jesus of Nazareth for the first time: “They said to him, Rabbi’ (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), ‘where are You staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where He was staying….”[5] Indeed, if a simple decision like going to see where someone is spending the night can be the start of something momentous, (as it was for the disciples), we should be reassured that, despite our experience with decision fatigue, the very same possibility exists for us.


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Categories : Spirituality for the Rest of Us

“Are You Religious?”

6 07 2011

I get asked this treacherous question a lot, and I know I’m not the only one.  The question, in its variant forms, is not only asked to those who teach, write, or talk about religion professionally. Obviously these folks are subject to scrutiny simply by virtue of their trade. But others too have faced this excruciating question at some point. Once the most anticipated meet-and-greet questions have been asked—questions like “What do you do?” and “Where do you live?”— there are only so many other ways to keep the conversation flowing. Eventually, mundane conversations give way to discussions about the sacred, and people want to know what others believe about religion.

The reason why the religious question is so difficult is because very few responses turn out well.  If you answer in the affirmative (e.g. “Why, yes, I certainly am a very religious and devout person”) then immediately you are seen as smug and self-righteous. On the other hand, if you say, “No I’m not very religious…” then you get may get characterized as a crass materialist. The optional added phrase “… but I’m spiritual,” could simply lead to the perception that you are a spineless agnostic or hokey New Ager. All of these characterizations are unfair, especially for the thoughtful and intelligent readers of Wondering Fair.

So how does anyone, religious or not, answer this question? First, it is important to ask Mr. or Ms. Socrates to clarify what they mean. Is a “religious” person one
 who goes to a house of worship on a regular basis? Someone who prays before meals? Or tries to convert others to what they believe? Or has weird beliefs about creation and the dinosaurs? Whatever the assumption, it’s critical to have this issue addressed preliminarily because “being religious” means different things to different people, and no one wants give an answer only to have it immediately misconstrued.

Second, and more importantly, the question “Are you religious?” mistakenly assumes that some people are religious while others are not. Granted, not everyone participates in organized religion, but all people are functionally religious about something. Everyone who walks the planet organizes their life around a set of ideas about the world, what is of utmost value, and how we should live. Regardless of how well people articulate these ideas, the particular way of life that emerges from this set of beliefs, if you think about it, is in essence a religion.

Recently, the people most fervently discussing the idea that we are innately religious creatures are not theologians and rabbis, but rather a group of anthropologists and archaeologists. In June, National Geographic Magazine did a cover article on what is now believed to be one of the world’s first religious temples ever built. Located in Southern Turkey, the site archaeologists have uncovered called Göbekli Tepe is not only fascinating because it predates Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid at Giza by thousands of years, it is also striking because it has forced anthropologists to reconsider a long-standing belief that religion came into existence after the rise of agriculture. This theory held that religion was born out of a need for social cooperation and the establishment of shared beliefs and values. In other words, first there were humans, then came agriculture, and then later on came religion. Now, however, in the words of Charles Mann, “What [Göbekli Tepe] suggests, at least to the archaeologists working there, is that the human sense of the sacred—and the human love of a good spectacle—may have given rise to civilization itself.”[1]

To me, all this sounds similar to the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans: “Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”[2] If Paul and the archaeologists at Göbekli Tepe are right, then the best question is not, “Are you religious?” Instead, since it seems we are all religious about something, the real question is, what will that something be?

Paul McClure

[1] Mann, Charles. “The Birth of Religion.” National Geographic Magazine. June 2011. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text

[2] Romans 1:20


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Categories : Tough Questions

Love for Bin Laden?

6 05 2011

The news cycle for the last week and a half has been saturated with the events surrounding the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Besides being a probable game changer in the broader international effort to fight terrorism, Bin Laden’s death has evoked reactions of all sorts. Perhaps the most visceral images came from outside the White House shortly after President Obama made the news official. Video footage broadcast on CNN and other major networks showed Americans dancing in the streets in a raucous and joyous manner as if their favorite sports team had just won a world championship.[1] Anyone glued to the television must have wondered about the celebration. Obviously, the appropriate emotional response when a hero or a lauded public figure dies is one of mourning and grief, but is the opposite true? Is it right to cheer and jump for joy when a villain and infamous terrorist like Bin Laden is killed?

To be sure, for the thousands of families that lost loved ones on 9/11 and for countless others who were affected, Bin Laden’s death could and should bring a sense of relief, closure, or appreciation that justice has been served. As witnessed, some have rejoiced in Bin Laden’s death, whereas others now fear a backlash from Al Qaeda members who may hatch plans to retaliate. Whatever the reaction, the typical American response is clearly not one of concern for Bin Laden or his soul. As a murderer and mastermind of 9/11, Bin Laden has for the last decade seared himself into the American consciousness as the enemy of all enemies, and to think that one should love or pray for Bin Laden before or after his death seems completely radical and counterintuitive.

And yet this is exactly what is commanded in the Bible. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his listeners, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”[2] Jesus’ ethic is radical because it instructs people to face violence with unrelenting love. It is counterintuitive because it offends our pragmatic sensibilities and forces us to reconsider the way we relate to those who persecute us.[3]

So what is Jesus’ logic here? Is the command to love and pray for one’s enemies not merely counterintuitive but also exceedingly ineffectual or overly idealistic? Even in a world with enemies like Bin Laden, I would contend that it is neither weak nor quixotic to follow Jesus’ radical message. In fact, if anything can be learned from Bin Laden’s death, it’s that fundamentalist narratives which promote violence and destruction ultimately fail. Sure, Bin Laden managed to evade capture for years and tragically orchestrated a few terrorist acts, but to what end? Imprisoned in a fortress compound of his own making, Bin Laden lived out his last few years cut off from society and fearful of retribution.

In the end, one can see that Bin Laden’s logic is the one that is impotent. “To express our anger and hate to them,” Bin Laden wrote in 1996, “is a very important moral gesture. By doing so we would have taken part in (the process of) cleansing our sanctities from the crusaders and the Zionists and forcing them, by the Permission of Allah, to leave disappointed and defeated.”[4] By contrast, the radical ethic of Jesus to love our enemies proves to be more logical than one founded on anger and hate. If adopted, it offers an end to disappointment and defeat, and this, I think, provides all of us with a much better reason to dance in the streets.

Paul McClure

[2] Matthew 5:43-45

[3] I do not mean to suggest here that Jesus’ command to love and pray for our enemies precludes all military action. Though a frequently debated issue, my own take is that even while Jesus’ ethic of love is radical, it may still allow for forceful military action in certain circumstances, as long as love remains central and we seek the best, most redemptive option available for our enemies.

[4] Bin Laden, Osama. “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” From London-based newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi. 1996. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html


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“It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson”

9 03 2011

Last month, IBM’s newest supercomputer named Watson succeeded in defeating two of the all-time most successful human contestants on the popular TV game show Jeopardy![1] For many, this latest man vs. machine battle brings to mind the epic 1997 chess match which pitted the world’s greatest chess champion, Gary Kasparov, against IBM’s then most impressive piece of machinery, Deep Blue. Kasparov lost that match, and now a 15-terabyte language-processing, answer-fetching machine named Watson has chalked up another victory for the machines, prompting some to speculate whether evil robots like Hal from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey will eventually turn on their masters and rule the world.[2]

Science fiction aside, Watson’s dual trouncing of Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter forces us to rethink what makes us different from the machines that can now beat us in chess and Jeopardy! On a very basic level, the machines we build are emblematic of the values and ideas that shape our culture. If we desire food and entertainment, we build ovens and televisions. If we value knowledge, we build a Watson. And like ovens and televisions, Watson owes its existence to its human creators, who in this case happen to be remarkably intelligent and innovative IBM engineers. Thus, while new technology may showcase a range of talents and abilities that meet or surpass what we humans can do ourselves, the very emergence of such technology provides a further glimpse into the inventive aspect of our own humanity.

But the question remains: How do we know when we’ve built something that’s good and not potentially destructive? If we choose not to unplug our machines in fear of a Terminator-styled Skynet coup d’état, how do we, as Ken Jennings humorously put it, “welcome our new computer overlords”?[3]

It’s hard to argue against the need for superior wisdom on the technological front. We have benefited enormously from the wave of technological advances begun during the Industrial Revolution, but we have also seen weapons of mass destruction and environmental ruin follow in its wake. As we forge ahead into the brave new world of Deep Blues and Watsons, it’s clear we need true wisdom in handling the technologies we create.

But this much-needed wisdom, I would argue, cannot be obtained unless we first ask some elementary questions of our own existence. We cannot anticipate how technologies will be used, whether they will be beneficial or destructive, unless we first know something about our own programming and the Inventor who created us. At the outset of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin writes, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”[3] Granted, Calvin didn’t envision the possibility of anything like Watson, Hal, or Skynet, but his remarks equally apply. If we don’t know who invented us or why we were invented, won’t it be all the more difficult to know what to invent or what to do with our inventions?

Paul McClure 

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFR3lOm_xhE

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwBmPiOmEGQ&feature=related

[3] Also see: Jennings, Ken. “My Puny Human Brain” in Slate Magazine. 16 Feb. 2011. http://www.slate.com/id/2284721/

[4] Calvin, John. The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Ed. John T. McNeill. Trans. By Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), 35.


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