Posted by Helen on: 04.02.2007 /
This week’s Newsweek includes an interview, The God Debate, with Rick Warren and Sam Harris.
Rick and Sam have both written best-selling books. Rick is pastor of Saddleback, a conservative evangelical mega-church. Saddleback is one of the churches Jim and (Matt) Casper visited and wrote about in Jim and Casper go to Church - in fact, it’s the free preview chapter. Sam is an atheist; he’s currently working on his PhD in Neuroscience.
Hemant posted about the interview on his blog yesterday and there’s an interesting comments discussion going on over there. I agree with Hemant that the whole interview is worth reading. On the whole I was more disappointed with Rick’s comments than Sam’s although I think Sam’s defense of the ’strong language’ in his book was very weak.
Here’s an excerpt from page 2:
WARREN: One of the great evidences of God is answered prayer. I have a friend, a Canadian friend, who has an immigration issue. He’s an intern at this church, and so I said, “God, I need you to help me with this,” as I went out for my evening walk. As I was walking I met a woman. She said, “I’m an immigration attorney; I’d be happy to take this case.” Now, if that happened once in my life I’d say, “That is a coincidence.” If it happened tens of thousands of times, that is not a coincidence.
Meacham (moderator): There must have been times in your ministry when you’ve prayed for someone to be delivered from disease who is not—say, a little girl with cancer.
WARREN: Oh, absolutely.
So, parse that. God gave you an immigration attorney, but God killed a little girl.
WARREN: Well, I do believe in the goodness of God, and I do believe that he knows better than I do. God sometimes says yes, God sometimes says no and God sometimes says wait. I’ve had to learn the difference between no and not yet. The issue here really does come down to surrender. A lot of atheists hide behind rationalism; when you start probing, you find their reactions are quite emotional. In fact, I’ve never met an atheist who wasn’t angry.
HARRIS: Let me be the first.
WARREN: I think your books are quite angry.
HARRIS: I would put it at impatient rather than angry.
I love that Meacham asked why God would answer prayers for immigration help but not for a dying child because this is an important and real question. This was a great lead-in for Rick to convey he’s an authentic real and compassionate human being by simply admitting - yes, I struggle with that. He misses that opportunity - he probably didn’t even think of it because it seems he was more in the typical debate mode of “defend, or even better, attack’. He responds by defending God’s choices, without any hint that they can be difficult for believers to accept at times. Then without any obvious justification that I can find in Meacham’s lead in, he goes on the offensive and claims atheists reject God for emotional, not rational, reasons.
Rick seems to think “I’ve never met an atheist who isn’t angry” implies something about atheists, but I think it’s much more likely it implies something about him. How many atheists has he actually met? The one Sunday I know an atheist was at his church - Matt Casper - he was away. I don’t expect Matt would have gone if he wasn’t writing a book about churches. Does Rick think he’s met a lot of atheists? Does he think they seek him out? I doubt he seeks them out - as pastor of a church of 25,000 I can’t believe he has time to do that.
So, I doubt Rick has met enough atheists for his own experiences of them to provide meaningful information about all atheists. Of course there’s always the possibility that Rick’s experience is caused by the dynamic that in the presence of Rick, atheists tend to become angry. Is that possible? Having read the interview, I’d hesitate to rule that out completely.
Rick’s exchange with Sam about him being angry implies “My perception of you is more important than your own perception of yourself” which is a place I often see Christians go - and always wish they wouldn’t.
I’d love to think that Sam will learn the following from this exchange: Sam’s tone in his books made it easy for Rick to think he was angry and to reinforce his stereotype that all atheists are angry. As I said, I find Sam’s defense of his tone later in the interview (page 8) rather weak.
Right at the end of the interview Rick returns to his “the issue is surrender theme” by telling Sam:
WARREN: You’re more spiritual than you think. You just don’t want a boss. You don’t want a God who tells you what to do.
Way to go, Rick. I expect that before the day was out, Sam found himself on his knees, weeping, talking to God, saying “God, Rick was right! I’m so sorry I rebelled against you and denied your existence, just because I didn’t want a boss…”
Not.
Comment by: Patrick Craig
1Hi Helen,
Came over from Hemant’s page - thanks for all the great links! I am certainly with you on the following:
Everyone is all over the map with these terms “all,” “some,” “many,” or “few.” Part of what will save the definition of the term “Atheist” is getting people to apply the correct qualifier in terms of how many of us subscribe to a particular stance (such as anger). Not all Atheists are angry, but many are. And certainly not without good reason.
If I personally can be said to be “angry,” I have to add the disclaimer that I don’t let it ruin my day, week, month, etc. I let my frustration power my activism, and I do the best I can to keep that activism positive and proactive. I DO fail on occasion, though. I’m very honest about that in my blog. :)
I have a boss, his name is “Bob” and he may end up being the only one who can get us all out of this mess. Let us hope we can leave “Bob” to his bartending duties at Hooters and continue helping ourselves…
Comment by: Helen
2Hi Patrick, thanks for your comment!
I realize that normal human beings do get angry about things, whether they are atheists, Christians, or hold some other viewpoint. I’m sure Rick gets angry sometimes.
What frustrates me is the implication or assertion by some Christians that atheists are prejudiced by their anger to the point that they aren’t able to rationally assess the evidence for God. Or to the point that even though deep down they know God exists, they are too angry to admit it.
Thank you for sharing the good news about Bob with me. ;-)
Comment by: jim henderson
3Bob rules
Comment by: Sage Advice
4Interesting comments, though I don’t get the “Bob” thing. Must be an inside joke.
I really apperciated the article, including the debate, but have questions about what was left out and why. I suppose my skepticism toward the media will always cast a shadow over my reading of these things. In light of that, I wonder if perhaps Helen is being a bit harsh on Warren. I don’t think he intended for Harris to have an instant conversion on the spot. He was simply trying to get him to think a little about his assumptions (presuppositions). I would agree with you if you are contending that, as printed, the comment is weak and unfounded, but to mock him with sarcasim is a bit more than is warranted in my opinion.
I would also like to say that I very much agree with Patrick’s comments regarding extreme statements (all, none, etc.). From our very limited perspective, these comments are always invalid. In fact, that is the problem I have with athiesm. To say there is no God is to make a univerasl (negative) statement. To know that is impossible from that limited perspective.
Comment by: Helen
5Sage Advice, thanks for your comments. I was just kidding about Bob based on what Patrick said. (I don’t even know whether Bob exists ;-))
I’m fine with Rick Warren trying to get Sam Harris to think about his presuppositions. What I didn’t like was the demeaning way (according to Newsweek) in which he did it. Saying this to an atheist “You just don’t want a boss. You don’t want a God who tells you what to do.” is very patronizing and demeaning unless it’s demonstrably true that the atheist has never considered the evidence for and against God and has indeed rejected God solely because he/she “does not want a boss”.
It would be equally demeaning if Sam Harris said to Rick “You just don’t want to grow up - you can’t handle the reality of adult life so you need to cling to a Big Parent in the sky.”
Let’s see if Sam Harris makes the assertion that Christians are Christians for emotional reasons only, or whether he credits them with basing their beliefs on what they consider to be true.
These are the very first words of Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation”:
What do we learn from this?
1) Sam Harris is more generous than Rick Warren because he acknowledges that Christian faith is based on what Christians believe to be true rather than simply being an emotional response to life.
2) Sam Harris has considered what Christians believe is evidence for God because if he hadn’t, how could he be able to point out what he perceives to be problems with it?
So, Rick is wrong about Sam and Sam is more generous than Sam in that he does not assert people who don’t share his worldview reject it for entirely emotional reasons.
Not only is Rick demeaning and patronizing, which I see no justification for thinking Jesus approves of in conversations with people who aren’t believers, but Rick is role-modelling to all Newsweek readers and to his church of 25,000 people “this is how to talk to atheists - be patronizing and demeaning”. That bothers me. Surely it’s possible to ask someone to think about his presuppositions in a more respectful way. But maybe I don’t need to take this on because according to the Bible “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” (James 3:1)
I agree that would be a valid problem with atheism but I don’t find that atheists say that. In my experience they say things like “I have no belief in any gods” or “I haven’t come across any evidence that’s convinced me any gods exist”. Neither of those are universal negatives.
Thank you for being honest that you disagree with me and think it was inappropriate of me to use sarcasm. I do wonder about that and often decide not to but I guess this was not one of those times.
Comment by: rcm-steve
6I think the whole debate was lopsided to begin with. It’s virtually the apples and oranges comparison. Rick Warren is a preacher above all else. He pastors and teaches from the Bible. This is his area of expertise. Sam Harris is a philosopher/scientist with a whole different academic experience. He’s good at what he does. My question is why did Newsweek choose these two in the first place? Would it not have been better for Rick to have debated some authority affiliated with the American Atheist organization? Or perhaps Sam Harris debating the now deceased Dr. Wilder-Smith? From the very beginning of the article my take was that they were mismatched. It’s almost like taking the welter-weight champion boxer along with last year’s tour de france winner and having them downhill ski to determine who is the best athlete in the world.
Comment by: Janet Green
7I’m really bothered when people say Warren & Harris are mismatched. Is Warren not holding himself up as an expert by preaching & writing on this critical topic? If he has not asked himself these very same questions that Harris asked, and come to a conclusion he can live with, then maybe he should not be talking about issues that he knows little about. He works FULLTIME on the subject of God. That’s all he does! If he has a grasp on truth, especially as an expert on the topic (which every preacher holds himself out to be), shouldn’t he be able to go head to head with any atheist and come out smelling like a rose? The real truth is that most christians only associate with their own kind. They have been spouting the same lines for generations. But they refuse to really question with an open mind or to grow. If they did, they would evolve over time and not just say the same tired things over and over. This is called “growing”. And I believe it’s our main job as humans to seek out truth. I URGE you, Christians. Please don’t assume just because you’ve been told that christianity is true! Find out for yourself and start on a path of truth-seeking. It is extremely rewarding. I grew up in a christian home and am so grateful that I didn’t stay at that place.
Comment by: Helen
8Janet, thanks for your comment.
I agree it’s a problem that some Christians only associate with Christians.
But I’m not prepared to say that no Christians have questioned or sought the truth. I know they have and they have come to different conclusions from atheists.