I was bored today, and noticed a friend had written that she was going to the Hillsong Conference in Australia.
A quick Google search revealed this to be a rather large, well organized, Evangelical Christian gathering.
In other words, something deeply depressing. Basically I have two fundamental problems with Evangelism.
1) It seems deeply seeded in a reaction to the Enlightenment, as exhibited in the Great Awakening, in which religious fervor was substituted for a belief in reason. However, as government became increasingly secular in the 20th century, it shifted to be a reaction to secularism, often times portrayed as hedonism. Although Evangelicalism always seemed to teach that God could solve moral ills in society, it increasingly took an invasive slant into the lives of believers, as well as non-believers, as manifested in the increasing desire to legislate morality. This was obviously a failed experiment in many societies, for it dictates that you can legislated against change.
2) As a reaction to the Enlightenment, it is batshit insane. It is no secret that I hold Voltaire in great esteem, particularly for his views on religion, which closely mimic my own. The section on Voltaire’s Deism in Wikipedia is especially telling.
“What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.”
Voltaire was primarily concerned with opposing the Catholic Church not for its systems of belief, but for it position as a monolithic organization concerned with worldliness. Take a look at the Evangelical megachurches around the world and tell me you can’t see similarities. Furthermore, these Churches hold that the Bible is unequivocally the word of God, a hard-line fundamentalist stance that even the Roman Catholic Church no longer holds firm upon as evidenced by their stance on evolution. Again, to reference Wikipedia for brevity:
“In terms of religious texts, Voltaire was largely of the opinion that the Bible was 1) an outdated legal and/or moral reference, 2) by and large a metaphor, but one that still taught some good lessons, and 3) a work of Man, not a divine gift.”
This is a much more rational and reasoned approach to take, and even allows one to be a functional Catholic, albeit with Deist underpinnings. It is often mistaken that Voltaire was an atheist; however, he was actually a practicing Roman Catholic, often times trying to affect change from within the Church.
In summary -
Evangelicalism is bad because it is predicated on divorcing oneself from rationalism as a philosophical structure, ignores some of the lessons from the Protestant Reformation upon which Evangelicalism is based, and increasingly views itself as a function of political change. In reality, it is nearly superstitious in dogma, often leads people away from the roots of their problems in a humanist context by substituting faith as both a means and an end, and is both restrictive against civil rights and freedoms, not the least of which is freedom of religion. Nothing says you respect another’s freedom of thought than condemning them to hell for disagreement.
I shudder to think what Voltaire would have thought of Evangelicalism, but I suspect it could be found within two quotes:
“écrasez l’infâme” – “Crush Infamy”
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
