{"id":16089,"date":"2018-01-25T13:15:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T21:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=16089"},"modified":"2018-01-25T13:15:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T21:15:58","slug":"soul-of-doubt-or-reason-to-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/soul-of-doubt-or-reason-to-believe\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul of Doubt…or reason to believe"},"content":{"rendered":"

“For some time now\u2014at least since John Wesley\u2019s work in the eighteenth century\u2014sharp minds have noticed that an intensified religious consciousness may paradoxically stimulate secularization. Wesley as cited by Max Weber makes a poignant lament: the increase of religious virtue necessarily increases industry and frugality, which increases wealth, which may in turn diminish the appeal of religion”.[1]. While reading\u00a0The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx<\/em>, I started to gain a new appreciation for the responsibility of religious organizations for the push back of unbelief. Vincent Pecora’s quote above put it better than I could have. While Pecora sees the work of Edrozain as incomplete as noted in the following quote “Dominic Erdozain has written a clear, efficient, and witty book for a popular readership newly rehearsing such themes. Unfortunately for that popular readership, beyond perfunctory references to Nietzsche and Weber,… (it) cites none of the modern scholars mentioned above and seems innocent of the critical heritage they form” [2], I found the book engaging from a point of view which has always seen the “sunny” side of both Luther and Calvin without taking a good look at the darker side they both produced.<\/p>\n

In reading Erdozain’s treatment I found myself wondering if we as Southern Baptists have done the same thing. When I look back to 2002 when Jerry Vines as the SBC president said at the annual conventions ‘”Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives — and his last one was a 9-year-old girl,”[3]. These kinds of statements push the average person away from Christ. I am not here to debate the veracity of the claim, what I see is hatred for a group of people. In fact, Erdozain quotes Luther when he states “See what wise lords these are who wish to drive out heresy, but succeed only in fortifying their enemies and making themselves suspect and in the wrong,” he scoffed. “With force you will merely entrench, not expel”‘ [4] The change which Erdozain shows in Luther’s later life is born out in his response to the peasants uprising. He is shown, “at first sympathetic to the the revolt with an ‘Admonition to Peace,’ which addressed the demands of the peasants and blamed the princes for escalating conflict”[5]. Peace is what Jesus calls us to with all, in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” This is an admonition to live at peace, and a good idea for all Christians. Then after seeing the violence Luther penned Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants,\u00a0<\/em>in which he wrote “Let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful or devilish than a rebel.[6]<\/p>\n

As a pastor, I cannot imagine encouraging those in authority to do damage, much less murder, to those who oppose them. I know it is a part of human history. I know it is a part of American history, see the indigenous people, and slavery, but that has never made it right. We saw this in South Africa, where Mahlatse Mashua Mashua told us Christianity is seen as the white religion of oppression. How disappointed God must be that his love is perverted for these things. These things were done in the name of Orthodoxy which is defined as an authorized or generally accepted theory, doctrine or practice. Orthodoxy can be wrong. We see this in the sale of Indulgences by the Catholic Church in medieval times. There is no\u00a0 such provision given in scripture but the Church said it was so, and it became part of the orthodox Catholic stance. So we can find orthodoxy in a secular setting, we see this in the band U2’s lead singer Bono’s life. He has never professed the band as a Christian band, but he himself is Christian. I am pretty sure no one is about to sing Sunday Bloody Sunday as a special in church but the man himself professes a life given to Christ.<\/p>\n

While Alexander Ayris states “Erdozain\u2019s thesis that religious certainty (i.e. dogmatism) breeds religious doubt is both illuminating and defensible”[7] he also argues “Calvin and Luther also described faith using terms such as \u201crest\u201d and \u201ctrust\u201d in addition to \u201cbelief\u201d.”[8] It almost feels as if Erdozain had a disdain for the reformers and a certain affinity for those who would stand against them. I understand this aversion since both Calvin and Luther moved towards an authoritarian stance against those who would disagree, but there are also points to laud them on, no one is perfect.\u00a0 I have heard it said if you have left your faith because a pastor or church member has hurt you, your faith was in people not God. I believe this to be true, if we truly seek God, both in the scriptures and in our lives, we can find him. If the church pushes you away, it can be painful, I have dealt with this, but I had to come back to the reason I have faith in God to begin with. He called me out of my sin and into a relationship with him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Pecora, Vincent P. “Dominic Erdozain . The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx.” The American Historical Review 122, no. 4 (2017): 1300-301.<\/p>\n

[2] Ibid.<\/p>\n

[3] “Muslims angered by Baptist criticism.” CNN. June 13, 2002. Accessed January 25, 2018. http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2002\/ALLPOLITICS\/06\/13\/cf.crossfire\/.<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0Erdozain, Dominic. The Soul of Doubt : The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016. 19.<\/p>\n

[5] Ibid. 28-29.<\/p>\n

[6] Ibid. 29.<\/p>\n

[7]Ayris, Alexander Austin. “The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx.” Intellectual History Review 26, no. 2 (2016): 305-07.<\/p>\n

[8] Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“For some time now\u2014at least since John Wesley\u2019s work in the eighteenth century\u2014sharp minds have noticed that an intensified religious consciousness may paradoxically stimulate secularization. Wesley as cited by Max Weber makes a poignant lament: the increase of religious virtue necessarily increases industry and frugality, which increases wealth, which may in turn diminish the appeal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1113],"class_list":["post-16089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-soul-of-doubt","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16095,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16089\/revisions\/16095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}