Ignatieff's Absences: Why the Iggy Enigma Is My Personal Issue

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has received a fair bit of stick from Conservatives for his 30-year absence from Canada. Long before the 2011 federal election campaign, the Tories were running attack ads against Iggy: "He didn't come back for you."

Every time I hear that, I want to respond: "That's okay. I didn't come back for him either."

I'm a dual British-Canadian citizen. I was born in BC, moved to England at the age of five, returned to Canada for a couple of years in my twenties, and moved back to the UK from 2003 to 2009 before returning to Canada. So it stings a bit when I hear criticisms that suggest absence from Canadian soil is a reason for questioning a citizen's loyalty, commitment or patriotism. Dual nationality is a blessing and a curse, and I've lived 33 years with the joys and the hurts that come from being tied equally to two nations. But I'm no less Canadian because I'm British and no less British because I'm Canadian. I love both my nations.

It's far from certain, however, that all the criticism of Ignatieff's Canadian credentials stem from the mere fact he was away for three decades. It's an undercurrent I've detected in some attacks; but there are legitimate questions, too. It's an unavoidable fact that Ignatieff ran for a seat in the House of Commons almost immediately on returning to Canada. Once an MP, and following Paul Martin's 2006 election defeat, he unsuccessfully ran for leadership of the Liberal Party. He succeeded in his leadership bid in 2008, and now he has a good chance of becoming Canada's Prime Minister. He spent those 30 years outside Canada as a historian, scholar, commentator and writer. Politics, in one form or another, is what he's always done. Maybe that makes him a careerist, an opportunist. Maybe that just means he knows his stuff and that's what he's good at.

Ignatieff's detractors have exploited his statements to the hilt. The most common soundbites don't hold up. He referred to the Canadian flag as "an imitation of a beer label," but read in context, it was clearly ironic, self-deprecating, affectionate, patriotic humour. He told Maclean's the only thing he missed about Canada was Algonquin Park, but I haven't been able to find the original article anywhere. (It definitely exists; I just can't check the context.) Given that, I doubt more than a handful of Ignatieff's critics have seen it either. These are cheap shots.

Then there's the question of whether Ignatieff voted in other countries. He and his office have gone back and forth on this, although it appears now the fact is he voted in the UK as a member of the Commonwealth. He claims not to remember how many or which Canadian elections he voted in while abroad. As for voting in other countries, his prevarication only fuels the erroneous and offensive (to me) assumption that voting in another country puts a person's loyalty to Canada into question. As well as being enshrined in law, it's perfectly possible to be a loyal Canadian and vote in or be a citizen of another country.

His opponents have confronted Iggy with more than just his absence from Canada. In Tuesday's Leader's Debate, NDP leader Jack Layton charged Ignatieff with a dismal 30% attendance record for parliamentary votes. It turned out the actual figure was 41% -- an improvement, but hardly impressive. Ignatieff dodged Layton's question and visibly lost his temper, snapping: "At least we get into government. You'll be in opposition forever." He later appeared to dodge a French reporter asking the same question in the post-debate scrum. Bad move, Iggy. You owe it to voters to explain a 59% absence.

Iggy is an enigma. There are some questions, but those questions are clouded by popular suspicions about Ignatieff's Canadian credentials based purely on his absence from residency in Canada. That merits asking whether he knows enough to govern Canada. It doesn't merit questioning his loyalty or patriotism. That is offensive.

It may be that questions of loyalty and patriotism are a Tory problem, however. I haven't noticed anyone but the Conservatives making a big issue of Ignatieff's Canadianness. As a dual citizen, this concerned me, and I looked into the issue a bit. I learned that in 2006, the Conservative government challenged Canada's laws on dual citizenship in the midst of an influx of Canadian citizens from Lebanon, due to the Israel-Hezbollah War.

Should I be worried that the Conservative Party doesn't like the laws on dual citizenship? Should I fear for my own status as a dual citizen? I have a history and a heritage in this country, and the mere thought of losing that is enough to bring tears to my eyes. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees my right to come and go from my country.

(Would it be far-fetched to suggest I probably don't need to worry because, unlike my fellow Lebanese-Canadians, I'm white, Western and not "ethnic"?)

I don't know what I think of Iggy. I have an idea what I think about his policies, but for me the jury's still out on whether the man himself is more opportunist than anything else. One thing I'm not prepared to do is to question his identity and loyalty as a Canadian purely because he lived outside the country for 30 years. That kind of unpatriotic thinking is just too close to home.

Signed,

Canadian and British and Very, Very Proud

Did Jesus exist?

A group of self-described "Jesus mythicists" have announced a $1,000 prize for anyone who can write an essay proving the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. The 2011 Historicist Prize will be awarded to the author of any essay demonstrating that Jesus lived--in the opinion of the judges. Who are those judges? Members of the Mythicists' Forum, the creators of the prize: Earl Doherty, Robert M Price, René Salm, Frank R Zindler.

The caveat is that you must pay $50 to enter the competition. "If no submission demonstrates the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, then there will be no Real Jesus Challenge Award (Historicist Prize)."

This is bizarre. Who would want to pay to have their essay judged by an institution whose existence depends on disagreeing with the conclusions of the essay?

The obvious-but-flawed comparison would be with the JREF, the skeptical institute headed by James Randi, which offers a $1 million prize to anyone who can show evidence of a "paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event." In their case, however, participants agree to the conditions of the test and its outcomes in advance, and the claims are tested according to scientific principles and judged by independent scientists.

The Mythicists' Forum, on the other hand, will judge the winner itself and on its own principles. The prize stems from a corresponding Mythicist Prize, which awards $1,000 to the winner of an essay that "sheds light on the origins of Christianity and, at the same, time, supports the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist." The first such competition was held in 2010, and no one won, although two participants were given honourable mentions.

I propose another challenge. Pay $50 and demonstrate to a panel consisting of Lee Strobel, Dinesh D'Souza and Ravi Zacharias that God does not exist. If they agree, you get the prize. If they disagree, they keep the money. Deal?

Hat-tip: James F McGrath

What the Archbishop did - and didn't - say

Ruth Gledhill reports that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, made a "profound apology" to gays and lesbians in his presidential address to the Anglican Church Synod today.

Here is the relevant part of ++Rowan's speech:

The debate over the status and vocational possibilities of LGBT people in the Church is not helped by ignoring the existing facts, which include many regular worshippers of gay or lesbian orientation and many sacrificial and exemplary priests who share this orientation. There are ways of speaking about the question that seem to ignore these human realities or to undervalue them; I have been criticised for doing just this, and I am profoundly sorry for the carelessness that could give such an impression.

I am not sure the apology, or the apparent acknowledgment of gay priests and parishioners, extended to all gays and lesbians. For ++Rowan glides over the fact that the "many sacrificial and exemplary priests who share this orientation" also share their lives - and their beds - with same-sex partners.

Did he not include them in his apology? Or did he hope that by not mentioning them, he could escape the fact that this debate is not primarily about "sexual orientation," but about the actual day-to-day lives of gay Christians and priests and the partners they love?

It is a telling omission. I suspect the man in the middle has once again tried to please both sides, expecting the conservatives to say, "He's quite right, as he was only talking about non-practicing (ie celibate) homosexuals," and the LGBTs and liberals to say, "Look, he's said we're okay and he's on our side."

Unfortunately, by dodging the real issue, ++Rowan has only succeeded in insulting those on both sides of the debate.

Navigating the TWU controversy

I've been engaged in some interesting discussions regarding the controversy over Trinity Western University, the Canadian Christian college blacklisted by CAUT for limiting academic freedom. Since TWU requires its faculty to assent to a fairly rigorous Statement of Faith, the charge (at least my main concern) is that its professors are hindered in free academic inquiry. Some major questions (eg the inerrancy and authority of the Bible) are settled in advance, and therefore they are forbidden from reaching conclusions outside the university's narrow scope.

Dr Todd Pettigrew at Maclean's Blogs is more concerned with the effect on students. How does the Statement of Faith affect assessment of students' work? How does it influence the content of teaching in the classroom?

My latest discussion turned sour very quickly, unfortunately. It can be found in the comments thread here. In the first response to my contribution, I was accused of a litany of offenses, including a "brutally literalist reading of the concept of inerrancy," being wilfully ignorant of basic comprehension and interpretation and denying the historical existence of Jesus, among other nonsense.

I am more than aware of the range of views on inerrancy within evangelical scholarship. I wrote 25,000 words on the subject for my degree. I don't for a minute ascribe to TWU a "scientific textbook" approach to the Scriptures, or any of the other things I was intemperately caricatured as saying.

But even within a very flexible, nuanced evangelical view of inerrancy, the actual historicity of key events cannot be avoided. For example, at the very least, the Virgin Birth, Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Jesus must be treated as historical events. For most inerrantists, even those with a very broad definition of inerrancy, other events such as the existence of Adam and Eve, the Fall, the Noahic Flood and the Exodus, are also historical. The bottom line is that if the Bible treats something as a historical event, it should be accepted as historical truth.

Some of these are directly required in the TWU Statement of Faith:

We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan.

We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures. Jesus—Israel's promised Messiah—was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate.

That is not to say (and I made this clear in the discussion, but in vain!) there isn't room for maneouvre in the details. On Adam and Eve, for example, the broadest definitions of inerrancy can accept the interpretation that Adam and Eve were simply the first hominids to bear the image of God, thus squaring with evolution. Details such as talking snakes and forbidden fruit would usually be taken as allegorical. But this doesn't detract from the basic historical assertion: there was a couple called Adam and Eve; they sinned; sin was brought into the human race.

In this I was accused of attributing "the wackier literalist beliefs to the entire institution in order to discredit TWU."

How far can the TWU Statement of Faith be stretched?

In response to TWU's position on Adam and Eve, Theresa (who appears to be connected to the college in some way) wrote the following:

I would say that even this insistence on an historical Adam and Eve (far removed in the distant past… even if it were a couple hundred thousand years ago…) is still building a straw man. The point, again, of this symbolic passage in the Bible (yes, Symbolic – not strictly historical) has primarily to do with morality and faith and not empirical history. Whether or not Adam and Eve were the first “sinners” is not so important as the very obvious fact that no human being since “then” is free of sin or error. If there is historical truth to the Fall narrative, you need not look any further in the past than a moment ago to see the truth of the matter.

I am not sure how this matches up to the TWU Statement of Faith. The main reason is that even I can agree with this. How is the Statement of Faith evangelical in any meaningful way if it can be interpreted so loosely as to accommodate even a liberal agnostic? I am very doubtful if Trinity Western would accept a purely symbolic interpretation of Adam and Eve. And in retrospect, it seems Theresa still wants to insist that the story is of a historical event, just that the historical aspect is not its primary meaning.

I am eager to (and perhaps will, soon) talk to someone from Trinity Western about how broadly the Statement of Faith can be interpreted. There is no doubt it requires inerrancy, and that, in its broadest form, requires at least that the Bible is historically true when it intends to be taken as historical truth.

The basic issue remains: Under the TWU Statement of Faith, a scholar is forbidden from reaching certain conclusions. If the Bible makes a truth claim, it must be accepted as truth. Sometimes it is truth about history, occasionally about science, often about morality, and frequently about God, and at various times it is allegorical, symbolic or metaphorical truth. But it remains the truth. And it seems no TWU scholar is free to challenge that.

Dispelling myths about leaving fundamentalism

When I was a fundamentalist, I had a perception about those who had left the fold that I can now see was far from the truth. My perception was that those who had left born-again Christianity were never really as committed or convinced as I was. I knew I could never forsake my faith; therefore anyone who left their born-again, Bible-believing, conservative evangelical faith never truly had the relationship with Jesus that I had.

I was wrong. I know that now that I'm on the outside.

I can think of some reasons why I thought that. First, to admit that ex-fundamentalists, liberals, agnostics and atheists were once like me would be to admit that I too could be that way one day. Second, I had such certainty, I couldn't fathom why or how anyone who really knew God could consider any way other than straight-down-the-line, Bible-believing religion.

Pastor, preacher, saint, brother, sister: I was once just like you.

I believed, yes, really believed that Jesus died to save me from Hell. I knew the Bible was true. I shed tears as I worshiped. I spoke in tongues, received words of prophecy and fell to the floor under the power of the Holy Spirit. I talked to God and he talked to me. I stood on street corners and proclaimed loudly that Jesus was the only way to heaven. I even got the call, went to Bible College and interned as a pastor.

Some Christians will suppose that there was always something deficient in my Christianity. They will say I lacked some essential element of faith, or my foundation was insecure. My faith was all in my head and never in my heart, they will say. They will suppose that I never had the quality of relationship with God that they have. Some will have to believe that, or they would have to open their minds to the potentially terrifying possibility that one day they too might stop believing.

No, brothers and sisters, sorry. I was pretty much where you are now.

This is just one of many myths about those who leave fundamentalism. Stay tuned, as I'll be addressing a few others in the coming weeks.

I opened the closet door, I found grace in the room

Last week, I wrote about "coming out" - coming out gay, coming out liberal among Christian friends, coming out as "David L Rattigan," my writing alter-ego.

It provoked a mixed response among friends, but there was one particularly gracious response that stood out. It was from a Pentecostal pastor, a fellow Bible College student and the wife of my former Principal, no less. If anyone were to take offense at my often-harsh assessment of my days as an evangelical Pentecostal, it would be someone closest to the situations I wrote about. So it was a welcome surprise that Alison recognized my integrity and greeted my story with openness and understanding.

She has given me permission to post from an exchange we shared on Facebook. In it, we discuss my Pentecostal days and my sexuality, and I think the discussion exemplifies a "generous space" (an expression I owe to my friend Wendy Gritter) we all need to find ourselves in if we're to live together.

Alison began:

I've just spent some time reading your open letter and a couple of the links to your writing which is, of course, challenging to those of us who haven't shared your journey. I thank you for your intellectual honesty and ability to analyse. Also for not misrepresenting the Christianity of your past and my present and not, therefore, having rejected it out of hand. There's a lot of ongoing discussion which could be had - my own thinking re sexuality attempts to be faithful to biblical revelation which I still believe to be God's word (with all that implies); my hermeneutics are very influenced by a feminism which makes me, I think, more liberal than many of my fellow Pentecostals, but wouldn't take me nearly far enough in your estimation, I have no doubt.

I am uncomfortable with the anti-homosexual rhetoric of much of my community but retain a belief that God's intention for sexuality includes the element that both genders should be involved. That men and women together make up the image of God seems to me to be important: faithfulness; vulnerability; give and take; complete openness to the other are all expressed in sexual intimacy with one person for life - sex is to that deepest of human relationships what worship is for the human and God. But I also have to acknowledge that all those things are possible in a gay relationship and that heterosexuality is no guarantee of healthy sexuality.

I am therefore much less sympathetic to heterosexual promiscuity and abuse than to homosexual monogamy or monoandry (is that a word? - it should be). And probably feel that the current controversy re sexuality is analogous to the NT example of meat offered to idols, to which Paul's response in Rom14 is not to attempt to convince those on the other side of the fence (though you know which side he is on and that he is firmly convinced he is right!) but to accept that we all must stand before God and follow our own conscience with regard to how we act. Notwithstanding Rom 1, maybe a 21st century Paul would include sexual orientation issues as a 'disputable matter' (14:1). Thanks also for the Tillich quotation re grace; an unexpectedly lucid Tillich-ism (sorry, I always struggled to read him and usually fell asleep - liked this bit though!)

Let mercy triumph over judgement.

I responded:

Hi, Alison. I sensed from our conversations that you were definitely one to "live and let live," and that you were the sort of person who would be open to other people's stories - but still I am surprised you are so liberal compared to your Pentecostal peers.

I am so warmed to hear that you don't feel misrepresented as a Christian by the things I've written. I look back with a genuine affection - if ambivalence at times - on my days as a Pentecostal, and even though I have some harsh criticisms for evangelical Christianity, I strive to be evenhanded. It means all the more to me that you sense no malice in my writings, since if anyone is going to interpret me as unfair or spiteful, it would be someone so close to the situations I wrote about - an Elim pastor, a Regents member of staff or the wife of the RTC Principal!

Re: homosexuality, I agree that even from a perspective that treats the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, there is room to ask how someone like Paul would answer *today's* questions, and whether he might answer them quite differently from the questions of *his* day.

I can see a real honesty in the way you approach the sexuality question. One thing that led me initially to question the traditional teaching on sexuality was that so many Christians seemed to rely on slandering and misrepresenting homosexuals. It occurred to me that if homosexuality was wrong, surely the case could be argued without recourse to all kinds of myths, slurs and pseudo-science. (I'm talking about the old standards here: gays are a risk to children, being gay is just about sex, there's no love in gay relationships, all gays are promiscuous, being gay is a mental illness, the "lifestyle" is dangerous and ends in early death.)

You seem unprepared glibly to repeat the same deceptions and half-truths, and that's wonderful. When you show a grace like that, I can live with you being on "the other side of the fence," just as you've shown you can live with me as I am.

PS The Tillich quote comes from a sermon found in The Shaking of the Foundations. I've never persevered with Tillich's heavier academic writings, but I've really enjoyed his sermons. That particular one is called You Are Accepted. You can read it online here.

Facebook comments became too restrictive by this stage (the above exchanges had to be posted in tiny parts), so Alison wrote a full-length 'Letter to David' in reply:

David, thank you for the warmth I perceive coming from you. I was bold enough to write that i didn't think you had rejected our brand of Christianity out of hand, so I am cheered by your reference to genuine affection and I can affirm that I did not read malice in your writing, though there was, of course, lots of criticism.

There is plenty that is cringeworthy in Pentecostalism certainly; I can't defend excesses though I sympathise with people who are genuinely trying to hear from God and often make mistakes. Actually I don't have to sympathise with those people: I am one! Ah well. I happen to highly value the American prophetess about whom you have written and don't consider her to be extreme. I don't remember the particular prophecy about banks etc. so can't comment on that. As far as her workshop session goes, I was part of that and know that from her angle it was an introduction to teaching people to listen for God's voice. To give Christians the confidence that they are able to hear from God more than they think is, in my pastoral experience, an important thing. We do have the mind of Christ and most sincere Christians who wonder if they have anything to say which might be used by God to speak to others need to be given the confidence to speak out. Then there is the process of weighing and discernment which is where the Christian community and sensible leadership comes in.

What is indefensible is the sort of rhetoric which you mention which 'demonises' gay people. But (oops maybe I am approaching a defence? call it an attempt at explanation?) most evangelicals don't know any gay people personally (that's to say they don't knowingly know any ...) and when one's information comes from media which, referring to any kind of sex, is more concerned with titillation than information, they are afraid, uncomfortable and suspicious. Also there is the concern that society is concerned with equality to the detriment of Christian sensibilities and we are presented as less tolerant than we really are.

Still, I am happy to affirm that gay and straight (don't like that term) people probably: think about sex as much (or as little) as each other would rather not be defined by their sexuality - it is part of a person not the whole are capable of long term commitment and loving relationships often sin sexually.

I'm not sure of the value of vicarious repentance, but as part of a Christian community whose members have often made hurtful comments to you and others, I'm sorry.

BUT ....

I value relationships where I can genuinely disagree with someone without personal abuse intruding and I sense I have one here. I agree with you that if I think homosexuality is wrong then I should be able to justify that position "without recourse to all kinds of myths, slurs and pseudo-science." So here's the beginning of such an attempt.

For me the first two chapters of Genesis are foundational to a meaning of sex. Male and female are made in the image of God and as such express that image most fully when they get their relations right. I argue against many men (including church fathers) that women do not possess God's image in a secondary sense, but just as much as men; against some radical feminists I would insist that women need men too! Gen2 describes the creation of one being which is then divided into two. "For this reason" men and women have sexual relations, thus restoring the original (one flesh) complete image of God. The one-flesh relationship must therefore include the two. Not only that, it is a productive relationship: the two become one who then bear offspring.

So our sexual ethics must reflect our view of God. Promiscuity and prostitution are wrong because we must not create a one flesh relationship casually (1Cor6). Sex outside marriage is wrong because it should entail complete giving of oneself to the other for life, as God has given himself to us and we to him. That's the ideal: God knows that we are also sinners and Jesus said it was because of hardness of heart that Moses allowed divorce. It is no accident that there is so much sexual sin in the world as it is the one area which directly attacks the image of God in humans and when we get it right it is so good.

The danger of what I just wrote is that people will think I mean that single people or infertile people as well as homosexuals are somehow less than God's perfect image. That would be a gross misinterpretation. Man and woman as one flesh says something about God. But every individual also bears God's image and is precious.

There it is - a very imperfect offering which I hope does not wind you up too much!

I must thank you for recognising grace in my previous comments and hope there is just as much in the above. At root, though I'm clever enough to have been an academic, I am really a pastor who finds that my ethics have to work in practice. You said you thought I am the sort of person who would be open to other people's stories; thanks again. I believe it is a pastor's lot to listen more than she speaks, support and value. Please take these two long responses to your original letter not fundamentally as an attempt to (re)convert you to a particular point of view, but as the sort of serious response you deserve. To do less would have been to value you less.

Anyway will shut up now. I hope this has not been too polemic.

Grace to you,

Alison x

True to her signature, I found grace in Alison's words. I responded thus:

I'm really glad we're having this conversation. You have a lot of grace, and as someone whose experience of evangelical Christians has all too often been graceless, I cherish that openness.

Thanks for your exposition of Scripture, which I didn't find too polemical! For you the Bible is primarily the (infallible?) Word of God; for me it's primarily the word of humans. So biblical arguments may inspire me or lead me to reflection, but they'll never be authoritative in the same way as they are for you. The biblical idea of the image of God in humans strikes me as a beautiful way to view ourselves and our relationships, but I'd want to extend the metaphor to other kinds of human relationships. Since Eve was formed from Adam's side, perhaps Genesis contains the suggestion of androgyny in Adam. From that, can we ask whether two males joined together might adequately reflect the image of God? This is just a thought.

Onto the American prophetess. Following the lead of social scientists, I don't dismiss religious experiences such as prophecy out-of-hand as simple fakery. I think some of those experiences could be valuable. I regard them as "altered states," temporary "alternate realities," or "heightened states of awareness," but also I believe they originate in the human psyche, not the supernatural. My major problem with these experiences in Pentecostal circles is not the experiences themselves, per se, but how they are interpreted for and by the community. I think I would be more comfortable with Pentecostal prophetic experiences if they were framed as indirect impressions of where God might be leading, viewed more tentatively as subjective experiences and open to critical exploration, rather than being considered the "voice of God," or direct "messages," or "words" from God.

I know there are pastors and teachers who try to various extents to emphasize the provisional nature of prophecy, but in my experience the effect is often nullified by the language of "words," "messages" and "voices."

Alison couldn't see my point about androgyny in Genesis, so I elaborated:

I think the androgyny point actually originated in rabbinical interpretation, but I could be wrong.

What I mean is that Adam had in him both male and female. I guess you could interpret that as either very anti-feminist (man is complete without woman) or radically pro-feminist (Adam was *neither* male nor female, so gender distinctions postdate creation).

The exchange continued somewhat, but it widened to include other commenters' points, so I shall leave it there.

Since I've outed myself as Rattigan to friends who only know me by my "real" name, perhaps I should step a bit further out of my closet for readers who know me only as Rattigan. I won't reveal my name (though it probably wouldn't take a great deal of detective work to find out), but I will share a bit more about my background, to put the above discussion in context.

I spent 1993 to 2001 in the Elim Pentecostal Church, which I think I'm right in saying is the second largest Pentecostal denomination in the UK (it is to Assemblies of God what Foursquare is to Assemblies in Canada and the US). I earned my theology degree through Regents Theological College, the organization's official Bible college. Despite being a conservative denomination, the college gave me a fairly thorough theological education, which introduced me to the full array of biblical criticism and alternative, non-conservative Christian and non-Christian ideas. (Not that everyone approved. I remember my decidedly anti-intellectual pastor warning me in advance of the heretical ideas that were "floating around" at Regents. Many pastors, and even some students, scoffed at the college's increasingly academic emphasis.)

I think the broad scope of my education this was partly the result of my choice of classes - I opted for the more academic modules, such as New Testament Interpretation, Philosophy of Religion and Contemporary Theology. Had I chosen just the more pragmatic subjects, such as Evangelism and Missions, it would have been quite easy to coast through college without ever encountering non-evangelical approaches.

Ironically, then-Principal William Atkinson's NT Interpretation classes were ultimately the most formative in my later liberal approach to the Bible. I think this is a credit to his ability to teach without simply imposing his own biases on students. I recall raising laughter by hugging William enthusiastically as I stepped up to the platform at graduation - but it was an embrace of genuine affection, which remains today.

Against this background, it's been a risk to share my changed perspective, my writings and my journey with friends, acquaintances and colleagues from those days. But I opened the door and I found grace.

Coming out liberal: an open letter to my Christian friends

Peggy Campolo once wrote a wonderful short essay entitled In God's House There Are Many Closets. In it she describes how she once hid from others, afraid to be honest about who she really was, and she relates it to the experience of closeted gays and lesbians.

I can identify at least two closets in my own life, and although I with at least one of those I can point to a single moment of "coming out," at the same time I'm always having to come out of the closet. Every time a conversation turns in a certain direction, or every time I catch up with an old friend and face the inevitable questions, I come out all over again.

The first of those closets is of course my sexuality. I am (if it's necessary to put labels on these things) gay. I was over halfway into my twenties before I had the courage to accept myself for who I was, and almost in my thirties before I brought myself to tell others. And each time I am asked, "Are you married yet?" or "Do you have a girlfriend?", I'm coming out for a second, a third, a fourth, fifth, sixth and hundredth time.

The second closet is my faith. Or the ambiguity of it, lack of it or at least its strange metamorphosis over the last seven or eight years. Ten years ago I was a fiery born-again Christian, thoroughly evangelical and unabashedly Pentecostal. I studied theology and was an associate pastor for almost two years. I spoke in tongues, preached the Bible as the inerrant Word of God and condemned unrepentant unbelievers to an eternity in hell. Now I am a confirmed Anglican, too liberal for most liberals and pretty much agnostic on the question of God's existence.

It is unsurprising then that bumping into a Bible College friend, an old church pal, or someone who once knew me as Pastor Dave, is yet another coming-out. Coming out gay and coming out no-longer-evangelical often coincide, since the two journeys are closely intertwined.

The response from Christian friends varies. (Edit: Let me clear up some confusion here. I'm not eager to pigeonhole friends into the following categories. They're just broad categories based on my observations. Chances are if the issue of my sexuality has never come up in conversation, I don't expect a response.)

The most common response is simply to continue as if I never said anything. Some old friends and acquaintances seemingly pretend they didn't hear me. They don't affirm me, but nor do they condemn me; they just go very quiet for a while and then never bring up the subject again. It's odd, and in many ways I'd prefer it if they bit the bullet and just told me I was going to hell. It's strange to exchange emails with people and go through the motions of taking an interest in each other's lives when it's obvious they're avoiding the elephant in the room.

A related response begins the same way, but ends with me gradually dropping off their radar altogether. Eventually I'll notice they're missing from my Facebook friends list, or they've blocked me from their Messenger.

Another response is simply to live and let live. They don't affirm me, necessarily, and they don't go out of their way to condemn me, but nor is there an awkward silence as if I'd said nothing at all. It's not a big deal, and I'm not made to feel there are parts of me and my life that are off-limits.

Then there are those who patently don't have room for what and who I am. Perhaps surprisingly, this has been comparatively rare, but it still happens. These are the people whose only response is to condemn me, exhort me to repent, or worse, try to fix me. This response baffles me, since it indicates to me they haven't heard a word I've said. If after hearing my story you still think that quoting Bible verses at me is going to change my mind, you either haven't been listening or you think I'm a bit dumb. Frankly, when I get this reaction - especially after I've made a heartfelt effort to share my journey - I just feel patronized and insulted. This is what I hear: I don't care about your story, where you've been and where you're going. I'm not interested in hearing about you. I just want to fix you so your story fits my agenda again.

Lastly, there are those who affirm me. They listen to my story and they accept me for who I am and where I am. They affirm me for being who I am and being true to myself, and they know that even though many of the externals have changed, I'm still me. They know I'm still the same Dave and that inwardly I still have the same grace, love, character and integrity that I always had. It goes without saying that this is my preferred response.

Those who choose the last option prove that their hearts are spacious enough to accommodate me. They accept my story as I accept theirs. And you know the conversations I most enjoy? The ones I find the most gracious? It's not when an old friend lets me spout off all the arguments I have against their religion and then turns round and says, "Hey, Dave, you're totally right. You've convinced me. I'm going to be a liberal like you!" (as if it ever happens that way, anyway). The conversations I love most are those when a friend genuinely listens to my story and I genuinely listen to theirs. We compare journeys, share openly where we're at in life, and sometimes puzzle over how we ended up at such different destinations. But our differences? No biggie. Friends like that prove that it's not our churches or creeds, but our common humanity that binds us.

This week I took a big risk and stepped out of the closet on Facebook. I've never been secretive about the fact I'm gay or that I'm a (very) liberal Christian, but I've also never publicly revealed the pseudonym I write under. Outing myself as David L Rattigan opens up dozens of old church and college friends to the whole scope of my writings - and some might be offended, some might be shocked, and some might not really want to know me any more. It's a risk I take, but as others have already pointed out, those who can't accept where I am are probably not worth knowing anyway.

If you're a Christian friend or acquaintance, don't mistake the brutal honesty of my writings with a desire to reject you. If you're still an evangelical, I don't want to fix you. My heart is wide enough to love and accept you if you can open your heart wide enough to love and accept me. When I emerge from the shadows of my closet, that's the kind of welcome I love best.

Addendum: For anyone wanting to get to grips with my writings, here are a few links to get you started:

Fantastic Voyage: Surviving Charismatic Fundamentalism from Leaving Fundamentalism: Personal Stories, ed G Elijah Dann (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008)
Out and Cowed? Ex-gay in the UK from Third Way magazine (2006)
Leaving Fundamentalism (various articles from myself and others)
Rattigan Writes (my blog)
DavidLRattigan.com (my website)

Loftus defends Bill Maher's Religulous

Atheist John Loftus writes a thought-provoking defense of Bill Maher's Religulous, the 2008 documentary that pokes fun at religion, mostly through interviews with and about Christian fundamentalists.

Though I've watched the movie, I don't remember many of the specifics, truth be told. Perhaps that says something about its nature - it really isn't anything new, but a compilation of idiotic Christians saying and doing the same silly things we're used to hearing and seeing them say and do day in, day out.

I'm with Loftus in agreeing with Sam Harris for "calling upon thoughtful people to cease granting religion a free pass from criticism."

For the record, I generally agree with the atheist arguments against the existence of God, or rather I agree that the evidence for God is lacking, which I think amounts to the same thing. The best argument for atheism is simply the principle that if you're to believe something extraordinary, like the idea of God, you need some evidence - and it's just not there.

However, I think it's a mistake to jump from "God does not exist" to "therefore all religion is bad," as if it were self-evident. This is why I don't think I can let Dawkins off the hook as easily as Loftus does:

I myself question how much scholarship it really takes to reject any given religion. ... That best explains why Dawkins probably thought it was a waste of time researching into religion for his book. He already knew from the fact of evolution, his stock and trade, that religion is a delusion. Until someone can show him that evolution does not explain everything in the biological world, he has no need for the God hypothesis, and no need to put a great deal of time researching into it.

This more or less equates religion with God, and assumes that religion is only useful as long as theism is literally true. I'm not sure that is logical, and even if it is, surely it is primarily a social-scientific and philosophical question, and not one that Dawkins can presume to answer purely on the basis of biology?

What about about religion as metaphor? As a basis for philosophical thought and action, even apart from a literal interpretation? As a human creation that can nevertheless be a meaningful way for (some) people to connect to something sacred, but not supernatural? As a creative framework within which to explore, reflect on and bring meaning to the world around us, but again, apart from a literal interpretation? In other words, are the myths, language, values, rites and rituals of religion only of value if they describe a literal reality? Or can a religion still be a framework around which to structure life and thought, even a community?

I also think Loftus lets Maher off the hook too easily when dealing with the objection that the film deals only with the "fringes" of Christianity. Of this objection, Loftus writes:

This raises the question of “who speaks for Christianity?” There isn’t a consensus. There only seems to be a rabble number of voices each claiming to know the truth. The truth is that Christianity has evolved and will continue to evolve into the future. The Christianities practiced and believed by any denomination today are not something early Christianities would embrace. And future Christianities will be almost as different. The trouble we atheists have when attempting to debunk Christianity is that we have a moving and nebulous target which evolves in each generation. So how can any of us be faulted for not knowing which specific sect to take aim at if there is no consensus between believers on what best represents their views?

This strikes me as a little lazy: It's impossible to pick a single target; therefore no one can be blamed for picking any old target. There is an excluded middle here: we can at least strive for approximation. While Maher's targets represent a very large and disturbing swathe of religion, the extent to which it approximates religion in general is debatable.

Maher claims to adhere to the gospel of "I don't know," and I can agree with Loftus's protest at the suggestion that this makes Maher a dogmatist himself:

Professor MacDonald faults the movie for it’s own kind of dogmatism, especially the ending. But I think there is a huge epistemological difference between rejecting a metaphysical answer to the riddle of our existence, and affirming the correct one, since affirming an answer demands verifiable positive evidence that excludes other answers.

Here Loftus rightly identifies a fallacy frequently used by the religious to attack their critics.

I have mixed feelings about this final argument:

So who really cares if the New Atheists are attacking what liberal scholars don't consider true religion or true Christianity? They are attacking a real threat to world peace regardless! And who really cares if religion doesn't poison everything as Hitchens’ extreme rhetoric proclaims? Religion causes a great deal of suffering.

The first rhetorical question is fair enough. It is a ubiquitous, but unjustified trick of liberal Christians to argue that they alone should be allowed to define "true Christianity," thus insisting that any valid argument against the Christian religion should engage with their version alone. In terms of openness to critical scrutiny, in no other arena does (or should) one group have the unique privilege of representing the whole.

The second rhetorical question is more than a little blase, perhaps irresponsible. I would suggest that statements as strident as "Religion poisons everything," if false, are not harmless exaggerations, but as potentially dangerous as generalizations like "Homosexuality is destructive," and "Jews ruin everything."

Even if I do think there's a lot of danger lurking in religion, even if theistic arguments don't hold up, and even if a lot of people do a lot of bad in the name of religion, I don't think religion poisons everything. In fact - and I think this is a reasonable position that has no logical connection to the question of God's existence - I think religion motivates a lot of people to do a lot of good in the world.

The Conservative Bible Project has to be a joke

The fundamentalists behind the ludicrously bad Conservapedia have announced the Conservative Bible Project, an attempt to produce a new Bible translation that avoids "liberal bias."

The manifesto comes across like satire, but seems to be a genuine addition to the site. Here are a few excerpts to illustrate the thinking behind the project, which appears to be entirely politically and theologically motivated (mainly by hatred for "liberals") without any thought for linguistic or hermeneutical principles:

Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms ...
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning ...
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story [John 7:53-8:11]

Conservapedia attributes everything that's wrong with the Bible to liberal corruption, where it is clear most of the things they object to go back centuries, far beyond modern liberalism. "Government" is a liberal term that ought to be replaced, for example, and Luke 23:24 is a liberal interpolation.

Risibly, Conservapedia aims for conciseness, since wordiness (a "high word-to-substance ratio") is apparently a liberal trait, too.

None of the proposed changes is defended with appeal to good scholarship, linguistic principles, textual criticism or better methodology. Every one of the changes is justified by appeal to doctrine, political ideology or unsubstantiated claims about liberal corruption. It's all amusingly anachronistic and ought to embarrass any conservative with the least academic nous.