Bombs in London

We're all mourning the bombs in London this morning. These are familiar places. I went through King's Cross several times a year--it's the northern station from which the bulk of the trains going north leave. I had an amusing run in with a purse snatching gypsy women around Russell Square involving her eventually walking topless and pointing at me to get me to stop following her (that will have to wait another day).

But I am not scared--I'm furious. God will have to help me love or at least pray for the repentance of these types of people. The first thought is to do something that would start a World War. You know, give these people some sort of concrete object lesson to show that "Allah" isn't exactly who they think he is.

Of course this is neither a wise nor the correct course of action.

So what is? What is the right antidote? Here are a few thoughts:

1. Subtle Bribery
Many of the driving forces behind these militants are rich Saudi Arabians, and I don't suggest this tact with them--they have money. But I think a lot of fundamentalist Muslims are in that camp because they are impoverished and live under oppressive circumstances. Despite Bush's rhetoric, America really only intervenes with other nations when we perceive it to be in our best interest. Accordingly, we have generally ignored the Palestinians and other disempowered people in the Middle East.

We can no longer do so. If not for noble or Christian reasons, we must pay attention to the needs and desires of these people so that their children like us. Money corrupts, and as much as prosperity is dangerous to the life of a Christian, it can undermine the militant Muslims. While Hussein was horrible, he was actually a corruptive force in Islam that bin Laden despised. I wonder if we need more "bad Muslims" in power right now rather than democracies that, in a group oriented society, simply empower the Imams and Mullahs.

2. As much as possible, we should move to the subtle rather than directly confrontational approach.

Obviously we need to hunt down the specific individuals who fly into world trade centers and bomb train stations. Obviously we need to be working big time to find the people planning these things before they happen. But tangential invasions of Islamic countries that aren't planning to attack us generally fuel these fundamentalists. You can tell them we have their best interest in mind until you're blue in the face. They're not listening. You lose. Everything you do will be interpreted in the worst possible way.

3. Invent things that stop the need for oil. Cut off the prosperity of that part of the world by inventing cars, planes, and things that work on something else.

4. Truth
This is a hard one. Religion is so tied to the non-rational, even irrational. We live in a climate today in America that emphasizes tolerance of people who disagree with us. We respect people of other faiths. Our university religious study departments are filled with teachers of every kind of religion imaginable. Our postmodern milieu even has gained access of evangelicals to big "liberal" universities. The underlying assumption is who's to say one religious viewpoint is better than any other. So let's bring an evangelical in and a Hindu and a Buddhist and an Islamic professor, etc...

I doubt that the apologetic approach to Christianity will work--there is too much disagreement among Christians. In other words, by "truth" I do not mean that I think a militant Christian assault--Christianity is true; all other religions are false--will work. By truth I mean something that is more dangerous and perhaps I am mistaken.

By truth I mean an honest assessment of all religion in accordance with the evidence. I do not mean in accordance with reason, the battle cry of the Enlightenment, although reason is of course involved. Faith is not the opposite of reason. It is the opposite of evidence.

Do you want to be a certain kind of Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist? Almost all viewpoints on the world are a mixture of evidence and faith. The only instance in which evidence is conclusive is that something exists. In all other cases the evidence is inconclusive in itself; faith fills the gap between evidence and conclusion.

So are we to be Christians? Let us be honest about the points where the evidence is strong and where faith is the greater element. I believe that Abraham really existed. But the only evidence I have is texts written many centuries after his existence. Could he be legendary? Of course he could. Let's be honest. My belief in him is a matter of reasonable faith.

Being truthful about the evidence leads individuals of all faiths into many a sticky faith wicket. I believe that it seriously undermines fundamentalist faiths of all kinds. Knowing Ugaritic texts, for example, undermines the orthodox Jewish practice of not eating dairy products with meat. Ancient historical texts of all types completely undermine the claims of some Muslims that there never was a Jewish temple standing on the Temple Mount. And the New Testament's use of the OT undermines a view of Scripture that sees all its words as timeless and unchanging.

Truth about the evidence is a potentially dangerous thing. But maybe the ignorance that is so often involved in the way humans use religion is pushing us to its reassertion. I believe Christianity stands up in the light of the evidence as a reasonable faith. But are we ready to face the possibility that we sometimes spin the evidence? In the interest of curbing the destructive ways that religion in general is affecting the world today, could someone please reintroduce a rational, evidentiary awareness into religious dialog? Is anyone ready to stop hiding behind cop-outs like "radical orthodoxy" and Kierkegaardian dodges to face the music? I say that if our faith can't cut the mustard, then it's not worthy of our God.

God is a God of truth. He is not a trickster. I have to believe that most of the time, an honest assessment of the evidence points in the right direction. If it doesn't, then how is God anything like what we believe Him to be?