What it means to be Christian

This posting certainly does not belong on the “Funnies” listserv since this guy, Bill McKibben, certainly exemplifies the old saying of…

“There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics.”And his ability to simplify the “Gospel of Christ” while leaving out its complexities is truly astounding.  His ranting would be more appropriate on a listserv dedicated to the spreading of falsehoods and half-truths.

See comments in context below…

At 02:21 PM 8/8/2005, you wrote:

http://www.harpers.org/ExcerptTheChristianParadox.html

The Christian Paradox
How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong
Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005. What it means to be Christian in
America. An excerpt. Originally from August 2005. By Bill McKibben.
Sources

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten
Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the
Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure
to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence
of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all
that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does

While I am no fan of teaching “religion” in the public school beyond an understanding of a class like “Comparative World Religions” (I took that class in my High School in Savannah GA) and an understanding of their basic beliefs I would not equate the decline in this listed failure on the horrible (for the most part) public school system but rather on groups like the ACLU that would throw a hissy fit if a class about Christianity was actually taught in a public school while at the same time seeing nothing wrong with teaching a class on Islam.  And while the spiritual side of a class on religion would not be appropriate in the public classroom he is “dead” wrong that it doesn’t matter in political terms.  As evidenced by the lack of understanding about how religion impacts life and death in the world.

I am probably more surprised that 40% actually can name that many of the Ten Commandments.  It is certainly a higher percentage than can probably name an equal number of the 50 states and the twelve percent that think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife are probably the same percent that understand that the word and concept of privacy does not appear in the Constitution except as an “emanation of a penumbra”  Meaning “arising from a shadow” which is almost like applying perverted algebra to the English language.  A = F and if F kinda sounds like S if you slur your words than S must also be equal to A.

Who cares what any percentage of morons think about anything? While we have a “Right to Vote” I for one am certainly happy that we do not have 100% of the eligible voters voting because then we would be stuck with all those morons and know nothings casting votes for the name that sounded the “funniest, prettiest or which they could spell” take your pick.

matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God
helps those who help themselves”. That is, three out of four Americans
believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current
individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben
Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is

Interesting that this guy can extrapolate words and meaning to fit his preconceived ideas but obviously has never cracked the “Good Book” himself nor given thought to what the statement from Franklin meant or what the ideas behind the statement mean.  Since he is obviously trying to draw his lesson from the New Testament where the Old Testament concept of an “Eye for An Eye” was replaced with the “Turn the Other Cheek” lesson I’ll keep to the New Testament too.  First it is odd that he would use the quote from Ben Franklin of “God helps those who help themselves” since Franklin was a deist and while he certainly believed in God his own philosophy was that God did not play an active role in the lives of men.  I guess finding other concepts that the colonists espoused and brought with them to the Americas and which have as much credence to the “American Way of Life” got in the way of his article.

Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be
further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of
neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans — most American
Christians — are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists
believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.

This guy’s ideas on religion are as messed up as his understanding of physics.

While one of the messages of the New Testament is certainly to love your neighbor as yourself still the idea of your needing to DO something beyond just saying something is certainly to be found in the scriptures. The Book of James to be exact. Verses 14-26 to be more precise.
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¹⁴What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

   ¹⁵If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

   ¹⁶And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

   ¹⁷Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

   ¹⁸Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

   ¹⁹Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

   ²⁰But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

   ²¹Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

   ²²Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

   ²³And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

   ²⁴Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

   ²⁵Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

   ²⁶For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
———————–

Even Christ himself says this in the same sermon where he preached against an “Eye for and Eye” and for “Turning the other Cheek”. The entire sermon is in Matthew Chapters 5 – 7.  He concludes the sermon with this admonishment in Matthew 7:20-23
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20. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
————————

Everyone gets hung up on the idea that salvation is entirely through Grace as if that absolves man of actually “doing” something to assist in that salvation.  Yes, only God can grant salvation – hence the saying the “Grace of God”, but you must certainly show something beyond the simple declaration of faith to demonstrate that you are worthy of God’s Grace.
Opening the Old Testament we can even find a great example in Judges 7:18-20 where Gideon triumphs and leads his men with the cry of “The Sword of the Lord, and of Gideon”.  Could God have defeated Gideon’s enemies for him? Sure, but it was done through Gideon.  Same with David and Goliath.

Same with the ultimate story in the Bible.  The Crucifixation and Resurrection of Christ.  Could Christ have “saved” himself from being crucified?  Most certainly.  But at what cost?  I think Christ’s acceptance of the crucifixaion is the ultimate example of faith.  He could have “saved” himself but is act of faith in his father, God, was to do fulfill the work of being crucified so that the resurrection could be made possible.

Asking Christians what Christ taught isn’t a trick. When we say we are a
Christian nation — and, overwhelmingly, we do — it means something.¼br> People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based
on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One
poll found that 11 percent of U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy
to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in
2000.)  When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite
philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the
sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.

Thankfully my Church is not in that 11%.  If it we were how could we explain electing such political polar opposites as Senators Harry Reid and Orrin Hatch? Yes, while the majority of Americans “profess” to being Christian they are actually meaning that they are from a “Christian” tradition even if they do not actually attend church regularly.

And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly
Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its
behavior. That paradox — more important, perhaps, than the much touted
ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and
cheese — illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening
culture.

Here is where the “…lies, damn lies, and statistics…” enters the fray.

* * *

Ours is among the most spiritually homogenous rich nations on earth.¼br> Depending on which poll you look at and how the question is asked,
somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian. Israel, by way
of comparison, is 77 percent Jewish. It is true that a smaller number of
Americans — about 75 percent — claim they actually pray to God on a
daily basis, and only 33 percent say they manage to get to church every

Interesting that he left out some important “statistics”.  But then that’s where his use of statistics crosses the line to become a lie and allows him to setup his straw man that he will later knock down at the end of his article.  Such a cheap High School Debating Society trick.

Let’s grant that 85% of Americans “profess” to be Christian even if it is only as an outgrowth of a tradition from childhood. And let’s even grant that 77% of the population of Israel is Jewish.  What relevance does the percentage of Jews in Israel have to do with furthering his argument?  None, it is just another straw man since he immediately knocks the 85% number down to 33 percent so that he can prepare to call the US population hypocrites for not practicing the tenants of “their” religion.

For the record according to a poll done by the LA Times and the largest paper in Israel only 13% of Jews in Israel choose the option of the practice of religion as the determining factor of being a Jew while 43% say it is merely the shared ethnicity.  32% believe that both are factors in being Jewish.

week.  Still, even if that 85 percent overstates actual practice, it
clearly represents aspiration. In fact, there is nothing else that unites
more than four fifths of America. Every other statistic one can cite about
American behavior is essentially also a measure of the behavior of
professed Christians. That’s what America is: a place saturated in
Christian identity.

Again let’s grant him his argument since he is still just setting up his straw man.

But is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads
of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his
followers. What if we chose some simple criterion — say, giving aid to
the poorest people — as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After
all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message
for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the
damned was by whether they’d fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed
the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. What would we
find then?

Now he gets ready to knock the straw man down using absolutely bogus and made up statistics to show that we are not “caring for the least of these…”

In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy,
among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we each

Ahhh… Government Foreign Aid.  I thought that we had this “Separation of Church and State” (something else NOT found in the Constitution).  Nothing in the Constitution keeps Church away from Government rather the Constitution keeps Government away from Church.  This “philosophy” has been perverted to try and say that the “Church” should have no say in Government when actually it plainly means that the Government cannot establish it’s own religion.  Something that it actually has done in the name of “Secularism”.  So let’s not blame the “Christians” for his false use of statistics in a supposed lack of Government funding of Foreign Aid.

For the record even the UN World Food Program’s numbers for 2004 show what a lie his statistics are.  These numbers reflect Government Aid to just this one charity and does not take into account the Private Aid that he also knocks below.

Contributions to the U.N. World Food Programme in 2004 as at 13 December 2004 (US$):

1 USA 826,469,172
2 European Commission 187,102,068
3 Japan 126,906,097
4 UK 109,247,050
5 Netherlands 77,738,387
6 Canada 74,484,892
7 Germany 65,125,716
8 Norway 51,487,625
9 Sweden 43,755,872
10 Australia 40,201,527
11 Italy 39,993,947
12 Denmark 38,007,366
13 Switzerland 28,312,437
14 France 26,134,188
15 Spain 19,388,450
16 Finland 14,995,276
17 Private 14,779,602
18 Ireland 12,115,368
19 Belgium 10,750,411
20 Kenya 10,044,441
21 India 6,073,497
22 South Africa 5,186,300
23 China 4,852,641
24 Angola 4,013,590
25 Saudi Arabia 3,345,325
26 Luxembourg 3,025,268
27 Honduras 2,987,880
28 Colombia 2,223,956
29 New Zealand 2,094,762
30 Madagascar 2,000,000
31 Malawi 1,454,716
32 Nicaragua 1,347,768
33 Syria 1,000,681
34 Cuba 615,000
35 Cameroon 600,000
36 Austria 596,833
37 UN 529,507
38 African Dev. Bank 500,000
39 Poland 355,861
40 Egypt 353,518
41 Uganda 338,771
42 Portugal 324,874
43 El Salvador 160,000
44 Nepal 144,191
45 Jordan 99,980
46 Czech Rep 98,474
47 Ecuador 88,649
48 Andorra 79,336
49 Iceland 75,265
50 Hungary 65,000
51 Guatemala 52,949
52 United Arab Emirates 50,000
53 Iran 40,000
54 Pakistan 38,073
55 Monaco 30,000
56 Slovak. Rep 24,760
57 Singapore 20,000
58 Greece 15,555
59 Sri Lanka 12,565
60 Ghana 10,000
61 Holy See 10,000
62 Bulgaria 5,000
63 Cyprus 4,629
64 Zimbabwe 4,426
65 Panama 1,000
66 Korea Rep of 1,000
67 Russian Fed. 0
68 OPEC Fund 0
69 Algeria 0
70 NGO 0
71 Kuwait 0
72 Viet Nam 0
73 Thailand 0
74 Qatar 0
75 Morocco 0
76 Eritrea 0
77 Dominican Republic 0
78 Faroe Island 0
79 Indonesia 0
80 Israel 0
81 Marshall Islands 0
82 Malta 0

Just this one charity shows that the US Government gave more to the UN World Food Program than ALL of the countries of Europe combined!  In fact our Governmental contribution was $100,000,000 more than theirs.

provide fifteen cents a day in official development assistance to poor
countries. And it’s not because we were giving to private charities for
relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by
just six pennies, to twenty-one cents. It’s also not because Americans
were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American
children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In
fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want
to propose — childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool
— we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide
margin.  The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the
American nation trails badly in all these categories; it’s that the
overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these
categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention. And it’s
not as if the numbers are getting better: the U.S. Department of
Agriculture reported last year that the number of households that were
“food insecure with hunger” had climbed more than 26 percent between 1999
and 2003.

Let’s look at some real numbers as reported during the Tsunami Relief operations.
———————-

Last year, American government provided 35 percent of worldwide relief aid. In private contributions, American individuals, estates, foundations and corporations gave over $240 billion to charitable causes in 2003, according to Giving USA Foundation. Privately, Americans give at least $34 billion overseas.Josette Shiner, former Empower America president, points out that more than 80 percent of Americans belong to a “voluntary association,” and 75 percent of households report charitable contributions. Shiner wrote in 1999, “Americans look even better compared to other leading nations. According to recent surveys, 73 percent of Americans made a charitable contribution in the previous 12 months, as compared to 44 percent of Germans, and 43 percent of French citizens. The average sum of donations over 12 months was $851 for Americans, $120 for Germans, and $96 for the French. In addition, 49 percent of Americans volunteered over the previous 12 months, as compared to 13 percent of Germans and 19 percent of the French.”

Those last two paragraph just touch on another area where the US does not get credit for “giving”.  How do people think much of the aid that moves around the world in time of need arrives were it does?  Think Santa or the Easter Bunny brings it?  Well think again.  It is the US tax payer that picks up the tab because that aid is moved to the destination via the US Military in the form of the US Navy and the US Air Force and then distributed to the NGO’s and Charitable groups on the ground by the US Marines and the US Army.  Since we don’t bill the aid groups for the cost of distribution we should certainly get a “credit” in the Aid given column.

This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to
political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the
Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on
earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. 

For some reason the world is still beating a path to our door to live here and not in Europe.  In fact there are whole tracts of countryside and towns in Germany that are being abandoned for lack of population and the countryside and abandoned towns are reverting to forest with climbing populations in wolves.

But again he sets up a cheap straw man.  While of course there will be the aberrations like the BTK Killer that professed to be a “Christian” while carrying out a crime spree for decades.  The concept and value of Christianity does not reside in one fallible man but rather in the actual practice of said professed religion.

We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other
rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for

And here again you get groups like the ACLU that protest the fact that there are “Christian” ministries trying to do something with this prison population.  The problem is not what the “Christians” are doing but rather what they are NOT being allowed do to.

visiting the prisoners). Having been told to turn the other cheek, we’re
the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in
those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest. Despite Jesus’

Yes, Jesus did teach in the Sermon on the Mount a change from the Old Testament “Eye for and Eye” but he was far from the weak and passive person that Medieval Church stained glass windows and tapestries would have us believe.  Remember he learned to be a carpenter and since they did not have power tools and Home Depots 2000 years ago you had to build up some pretty strong muscles to wield an axe and pound a chisel to get a table or chair made.   Maybe that explains how he was able to drive the money changers out of the temple and over turn their tables.  I think the ACLU would have sued him for being intolerant for that action and would have called the police to arrest him for being violent.

The lesson of the Sermon on the Mount is directed at how an Individual should live to be more like God.  Not a society of man.  He clearly states how some people will behave and for us to behave better.  I would make the argument that the admonishment against the “Eye for and Eye”, etc… is more against “vigilantism” than it is against the laws that a society imposes on itself.  He is also saying that we as individuals should not judge another individual because we may not understand their circumstances and it will be for God to Judge.  Now where does he say or even intimate that a society should not judge according to its own laws. In fact his final act before the resurrection is to submit himself to mortal law and tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world and because of that his followers will not fight his being handed over.

strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate —
just over half –that compares poorly with the European Union’s average of
about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that
Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where
divorce is difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the

Duh, ya think.  Let’s see Marriage is not as common in Europe and if you do get married it is harder to get divorced.  Think that “might” have something to do with fewer divorces?  Regardless, he resorts to using another “…lies, damn lies, and statistics…”———————–
“…According to the NY Times, the U.S. divorce rate isn’t the 1-in-2 figures that everyone believes…

How many American marriages end in divorce? One in two, if you believe the statistic endlessly repeated in news media reports, academic papers and campaign speeches.

The figure is based on a simple – and flawed – calculation: the annual marriage rate per 1,000 people compared with the annual divorce rate. In 2003, for example, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 7.5 marriages per 1,000 people and 3.8 divorces, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

But researchers say that this is misleading because the people who are divorcing in any given year are not the same as those who are marrying, and that the statistic is virtually useless in understanding divorce rates. In fact, they say, studies find that the divorce rate in the United States has never reached one in every two marriages, and new research suggests that, with rates now declining, it probably never will.

The method preferred by social scientists in determining the divorce rate is to calculate how many people who have ever married subsequently divorced. Counted that way, the rate has never exceeded about 41 percent, researchers say. Although sharply rising rates in the 1970’s led some to project that the number would keep increasing, the rate has instead begun to inch downward…”

————————

Here is the take of statistician that actually makes his living working with numbers.

————-

Pollster Louis Harris has written, “The idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times.  It all began when the Census Bureau noted that during one year, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. Someone did the math without calculating the 54 million marriages already in existence, and presto, a ridiculous but quotable statistic was born.”  Harris concludes, “Only one out of eight marriages will end in divorce. In any single year, only about 2 percent of existing marriages will break up.”

——————–

godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Teenage
pregnancy?  We’re at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline —

The Dutch, like the rest of the EU are marrying later in life – if they get maried at all.  In fact marriage across the EU is down by more than a third over the last thirty years.  What is also not inidcated in his article is the fact that births are also down across the EU with countries like Germany in negative population growth which means they will be unable to sustain their economy as the population ages and there are fewer and fewer workers to bare the cost of their social programs.

But back to the issue of the Dutch 9and the EU) having lower divorces rates.
———————
For younger couples, cohabitation is much more common, with a similar pattern of variation between countries. One study ⁸ found in its analysis of the ECHP that of women in their twenties who live with a partner, 92% in Sweden, 79% in Denmark and Finland are cohabiting, whereas only 5% in Italy and 6% in Portugal are cohabiting. Other data sources also confirm from a slightly different perspective that the balance between cohabitation and marriage for younger couples varies. For example in 1998, the percentage of couples aged under 30 who were cohabiting but unmarried ranged from the high rates of 70% in Sweden, 57% in Denmark, 61% in Finland, 56% in the Netherlands to low rates for Southern countries (8% Greece, 11% Italy, 12% Spain, 15% Portugal) (Eurostat 2004). The proportion in the UK was 53%.
———————

like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running
government deficits? Do you need to ask?

To read the remainder of this essay, pick up a copy of the August issue of
Harper’s Magazine, on newsstands near you.

If the rest of his article is as fraught with debating tricks and falsehoods as what you provided above I think I could find much better uses of my time.

About the Author

Bill McKibben, a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, is the author
of many books, including The End of Nature and Wandering Home: A Long Walk
Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape. His last article for Harper’s
Magazine, “The Cuba Diet,” appeared in the April 2005 issue.