One R, Two Ms', and a B: Why All Belief Systems Are (R)eligious and Why (M)ormons and (M)uslims Do Not "(B)rainwash"

Recently I had a conversation with someone about a Mormon friend who was starting to question his own faith. The reason for his doubts was not related to points of theology or history, but rather stemmed from a burgeoning suspicion of religion in general. Interestingly, this Latter Day Saint (LDS) had been watching a lot of Fox News lately and was seeing numerous reports about kids in Islamic nations being raised from early childhood to hate Westerners and chant things about how they would be honored to die as suicide bombers. Our Mormon friend started to conclude that these little Muslim kids were being “brainwashed” and then started asking himself if his repetitious stating of beliefs in the LDS church growing up was fundamentally brainwashing as well. Basically, he is at a point of almost believing that religions are tools to control people and is wondering about his Mormon upbringing.

As someone who respects Mormons but heavily disagrees with LDS theology and historical claims, you might think that I would be relieved to hear that my friend is questioning his Mormon faith. But I am not. While I think that in many cases it is a good thing for one to question one’s own faith, it concerns me when the reason for the questioning is rooted in a growing suspicion of the notion of religion itself. In this essay I would like to make two connected arguments: 1) It is not fair to dismiss the notion of religion in general as non-sensical and ultimately unintelligible, and 2) Using the term “brainwashing” to refer to the ways in which Mormons, Muslims, Evangelical Christians, or any other group teaches their own people is unintelligible, unhelpful, and unfair (I openly admit that the people that seem to love the word “brainwashing” are the people in my own camp—Christians—and I find this troubling).

Dismissing Religion in General

Many people who walk away from so-called “organized religions” tend to walk toward a belief that what is deemed “secular” or non-religious ways of thinking and reasoning are what is “real” and what is “objective.” Such people—who may still consider themselves “spiritual”—may say that religion is fine for the private sphere of a person's life, but in public relationships and interactions religion is inappropriate and secularism is appropriate or at least neutral ground (This view is actually held by many, many people in organized religions in the West as well).

While I wholly acknowledge that it is difficult to figure out how to talk about religion in a society full of different faiths, I would argue that a suspicion of religion in general and the relegation of faith to some “private sphere” of life actually does not make much sense. Christian theologian, Paul Tillich (whom I tend to disagree with on nearly everything), defined religion as any system of belief or thought that deals with "ultimate concern"(See Footnote 1). In other words, any definition or explanation of the ultimate meaning of life or ultimate concerns in life qualifies as religion. By this understanding an atheist’s "faith" in the belief that there is no god and that science and human progress represent the highest good qualifies as religion because it is a belief about how things ultimately or actually are. Any story that tries to explain how life "actually is" is a religious statement. Again, “religion” deals with ultimate meanings and purposes. Tillich states, "You cannot reject religion with ultimate seriousness, because ultimate seriousness, or the state of being ultimately concerned, is itself religion"(See Footnote 2).

With this in mind, a person could become suspicious of Islam, Mormons, Evangelical Christians, or any other traditional religion(s), but where ever this person stands intellectually is already in a place of "religion." That religion might be secularism, science, Americanism, democraticism (yes, I am making this word up), communism, or whatever. "Religion" is simply inescapable. One does not escape the dangers of traditional religions by rejecting or being suspicious of religion in general. Such a person still has all of the same dangers of religion, but has simply traded one system of religious thought for another; this danger is inescapable in this life.

Brainwashing

In regards to the term or notion of brainwashing, I do not find the term to be terribly helpful, fair, or useful when considering the beliefs of groups outside of one’s own. While one can become suspicious of this religious group or that religious group--whether Muslim, Mormon, or Evangelical--one cannot really escape being involved in something that, at root, is similar. One can say that the Muslims are brainwashing their children or that the Mormons are brainwashing their children, but when one uses "brainwashing" language one is assuming that there is a "normative" baseline of thought and reasoning that universally applies to all human beings and that these groups and their brainwashing are deviating from it. I would argue that that is simply a statement that cannot be made. What would be "normative?" Democracy? Science? Capitalism? Communism? Individualism? (Of course I think it is horrible and atrocious that certain Islamist groups would actually teach their children that it is okay to kill other human beings. My point here is simply that "brainwashing" is not technically the appropriate word to use to describe such horrendous, evil teachings.) (See Footnote 3 for instances in which I think "brainwashing" language can be intelligible.)

A person cannot say that particular religions are objectively bad because they continually reinforce what to think about what life means, who god is, about what ultimately matters, etc. ALL systems of thought do this. When you send a kid to public school in this country they are indoctrinated beginning at day one. They say the pledge of allegiance to the flag every single day for years and years. This is indoctrination just as much as making a kid say their prayers every day before bedtime or at the dinner table. Having to take history classes that tell you how America threw off its evil oppressive British overlords for the sake of freedom and hearing this story ALL OF THE TIME in school is a way of getting kids to see history, the world, and "ultimate meaning" as an American. This is fundamentally no different than telling a kid that Moses liberated the Hebrews from the Egyptians or that Brigham Young led the persecuted out West to escape oppression. Whether "secular" American history or religious stories that you are raised to believe are true, they are ALL "brainwashing." "Brainwashing" is inescapable; it is everywhere and in every thought, which is why it is functionally useless and meaningless. The details of the stories and what they encourage may be different—behavior in Islam is different than behavior in Mormonism, which is different than behavior in capitalism or Americanism—but the reality-creating aspect of these systems with their teaching by repetition is the same.

So, one can watch stories on Fox News or CNN about look at Muslim and declare that they are brainwashed, but "brainwashed" only means something in relation to the story that one has in one’s own head about what is "normal" or about how things "really are." Now, quite frankly, I do have "faith" in what I think is the "normative" story for how things really are and that is the orthodox Christian story of the meaning, purpose, and nature of life. I do not know with scientific certainty that this faith is actually how things are--but there is philosophically no such thing as scientific certainty, there are only various degrees of faith--but I have FAITH that this story is true and I try to live according to it. That is all I can do. And I will choose this Christian faith any day over the faith of secular Americanism. If I ever do have kids I will absolutely "brainwash" them with my Christianity, because I would rather do that than "brainwash" them with some secular patriotic story that says that the government or nation or business or democracy are what provide ultimate meaning; I don't believe they do.

So, to end at the beginning, while I would normally think it is healthy for a person to question and/or think critically about their own faith, in the case of my Mormon friend--who is doing so in the particular context that I mentioned--it makes me nervous for him because I think his reasons for walking away from it are actually dangerous and unhealthy in the end. I disagree with Mormonism not because I think they brainwash their kids (they do what every religion on the planet does, they teach their kids their beliefs constantly), but because I do not think their teachings and beliefs about history accurately reflect the nature of how things actually are. I believe that orthodox Christianity does. As it currently stands if my friend walks away from Mormonism because of a suspicion of religion in general, what he will in fact end up doing is replacing it with another "religious" system, whether it is some privatized new age-y belief in god or it is a belief in Reason. My fear is ultimately that becoming suspicious of religion in general can lead to its own form of oppression for all people of traditional faiths There have been several books that have come out by folks that are being called “the new atheists” that have attacked religion aggressively as being bad for humanity. Biologist, Richard Dawkins, in his book, The God Delusion, actually argues that raising children with any religious beliefs at all should be considered child abuse (See Footnote 4). In his theoretical picture of how life should be, governments should discourage religion entirely. Imagine saying that religion is child abuse. Dawkins never stops to think that his viewpoint itself is "religious" and that atheistic regimes have been the most brutal in the 20th century ( i.e. Communist countries). My fear is that my Mormon friend will not only turn on Muslims and his own Mormon background, but that he will ultimately turn on orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Hindus, and any other faith in such away that would wish to change American policy that would harm us all….and that, ironically, he would be doing so from the vantage point of the Western-rooted secular humanism “religion” in which no god is safe, but the god of science and human self-worship.

FOOTNOTES:
1. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp.7-8.
2. Ibid., 8.
3. I will concede that the term “brainwashing” can have meaning within a particular group. An Evangelical Christian might say to another Evangelical Christian that if a Christian person were lead away from Christianity by a non-Christian group that such a person was being “brainwashed.” The word “brainwashing” in this context of discussion about a Christian between two Christians can be intelligible because all three of these Evangelicals have started out assuming that the Christian story is the “normative” baseline. However, if an Evangelical Christian starts talking to another Christian about a non-Christian person being raised with non-Christian ideas, then “brainwashing” as a term makes little sense; the non-Christian in this context never started out with a non-brainwashed brain to then become brainwashed. Likewise, it makes little sense for a Christian to talk to a non-Christian about another non-Christian group being brainwashed because the Christian talking to the non-Christian person do not even share the same baseline view of what a non-brainwashed brain looks like.
4. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), Chapter Nine. It should be noted that Dawkins' specialization area and training is neither in philosophy or theology, but in biology.

A Hymn to God the Father

Wilt thou forgive that sin, where I begun,
which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I run,
and do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin, by which I won
others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
a year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.

I have a sin of fear that when I've spun
my last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore.
And having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more.

---

by John Donne (1572-1673)

Breakfast with Christ and Grandpa: The Pain and Beauty of the Past

Having left my home state of 29 years recently to go away to grad school, I find myself in a strange place and looking back to the past quite often. Certain memories make me smile or even laugh, either because they were good, funny, or completely ridiculous. And like all people, there are other events I would prefer to forget (unfortunately my brain usually chooses not to cooperate on that front). Ironically enough, the thing that good memories and bad ones have in common is that they are both tinged with sadness, the bad ones because they are…well…bad, and the good ones because they are now only reachable in the mind. With all of this, I began to wonder the other day what the ultimate value of memories as a phenomenon really is. After all, with each day we get further and further away from the events that given memories point to. Intuitively I know they matter, but why? The following is what I came up with.

You can’t really talk about memories without thinking about time. Time and memory are inextricably related. Time passes with the events that it carries and memories and circumstantial evidence is what is left. There is no way to stop it or to pause it; time keeps going on. Sometimes I have a really hard time with that idea. After all, there are moments and seasons I wish I could get back to and such a feeling gets elicited by remembering moments long gone. This most recently hit me when I went home for Christmas this past December. One morning I met up with a friend and her two little kids and went to a McDonald’s for their pancake breakfasts (Breakfast snobs, please hold your disgust at bay. The ultimate point here is not about fine cuisine.) While eating and watching the kids eat, I had one of those TV-movie-of-the-week style flashbacks to a memory of my grandfather taking my older brother and I to McDonald’s for breakfast. I don’t remember exactly when or what the circumstances were, but we were little and quite excited about pancakes and sausage (as kids we rarely went to McDonald’s for breakfast). Fast forward to December 2006 and I am 32 years old and having McDonald’s breakfast with two excited little kids. At that moment I wanted to go back in time so badly and have breakfast with my grandfather again. What am I to do with that memory and the sweetness and pain that it evokes.

While I can’t claim to know what all of God’s intentions are for the notion of memories, I think some of them became clear to me. While they are not always fun or pleasant, memories serve an important and powerful function in our lives. They orient us within the story of our lives in a way that helps us understand who we are and why we are who we are. Each of our stories is interwoven in such a way that our past touches both the present and the future. For instance, my maternal great-grandparents and their life stories have shaped my life, helped me understand who our family is, and yet I never met them. They died before I was born. Nevertheless, I was raised by and heard my great-grandparents stories from the children and grandchildren that they had. Their story is connected to mine and, in a way, lives on. For those of us who are Christians, we learn through remembering what God did through Israel and Christ that we are all a part of a larger story. It is “THE” story that has priority and precedence over all other stories.

This mentioning of the God of Israel’s story relates to one of the other values that memories hold when properly recognized: memories act as witness. They witness not only to others when we recount them, but they witness to us as well. This brings me back to my McDonald’s story of when I was little and having breakfast with my grandfather. The actual event of my grandpa taking us to breakfast and all of the happiness and excitement wrapped up in that moment was a glimpse and a manifestation of the Kingdom of God. That single moment back in the early 1980s said that God was real, alive, and active on the earth; it was Christ at breakfast. As I remember that breakfast it acts as a witness to me that while I wait for the Kingdom of God to be completed at Christ’s return, the presence of his authority and his Kingdom is already here. While I absolutely need the witness of the Bible to God’s plan and glory—Scripture is that witness that provides the lens through which to see and understand all other witnesses—I also need my childhood memories, both good and bad. They show me that God is good, that God takes care of all of us, that God loves us, and that God shows up at McDonald’s breakfasts’.

God’s goodness and providence in our pasts gives us reason to hope in his future goodness. Sometimes I am not sure where I am at—both figuratively and literally in this new town I am in—or where I am heading. I am definitely not always at peace with life and its many uncertainties. But in my memories I try to remember that I am in Christ, that my grandfather is in Christ, and that though, “we all must endure our going whence,” we shall all rise again in Christ sometime. I know that is true, in part, because of a breakfast at McDonald’s I had with my grandfather a long time ago.

What a Communist Taught Me About St. Paul

Recently for a class on Pauline anthropology--how Paul understands the nature of human beings--I had to read a book about the apostle written by an atheist, communist French philosopher named Alain Badiou. Given such a description of the author of Saint Paul: Foundations of Universalism (trans. Ray Brassier, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003) you might think that it would be a book ready to make the old Marxist case that "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Oddly enough, it was a book that took next to no interest in religion and instead praised Paul as a model for revolutionary action.

Badiou argues that Paul could be considered an "anti-philosopher" of sorts. He says that Paul's central conviction was not about proclaiming a particular philosophy or rationality, but was rather proclaiming an event, plain and simple. The event itself is not a system of philosophy and is not contingent upon some abstract system of thought that can be linked with the particularities of culture, ethnicity, education or philosophy (If this sounds crazy read 1 Corinthians, chapters 1, 2, and 15). It is "happenedness" itself. A dead man was raised. Paul's encounter with the risen Christ--not an encounter with ten steps to a better, moral life-- on the road to Damascus changed who he was at his core and propelled him to proclaim this event. Badiou claims that Paul recognized that the resurrection of Christ was not pointing to some philosophy that could be bound to a particular group or particular way of thinking. It was pure event devoid of such particularities and was therefore a universal truth in Paul's mind. Hence, the "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female" of Galatians 3.28. The event leveled all differences in terms of ultimate significance (of course, differences on another level are quite wonderful, but do not give one favor in relation to the truth that the event happened and transforms). And Badiou believes that as people encountered Paul's proclamation of the event, the event would grasp them as well.

"So what?" you ask. Well, the "so what" for Badiou--who thinks the resurrection of Christ is a fable--is that there can be singular moments or events that can completely grasp a person in ways beyond rationality and change the course of their life and actions. For a communist like himself, that event was the communist student riots of 1968. Though the riots were in France and made up of the French, the revolutionary action itself said something universal about love to him (in this case, perhaps a love to counter the intrinsic dominance and control of class and capitalism). The "so what" for me of Badiou's reading of Paul is a little different then it is for Badiou. For me, it reminded me that the Paul and his epistles that have been domesticated and made respectable by 1700 years of Christendom are at their core revolutionary. What Paul was saying was "craziness" in his own time of Roman dominance and religious class stratification and is still "craziness" now. For me the resurrection of Christ is a real event that ruptured history and has changed the direction of all reality. It is an event beyond my education and ability to comprehend it. In fact, it doesn't require much of anything other than an encounter with the proclamation of the Good News itself and the Spirit of God working through the proclamation to transform and bring you into the very Body of Christ. Funny that it took a French atheist communist to remind me of that.

Remember That Time I Attempted to Take Over The World

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