[Editor’s note: This week we begin a series of incredibly controversial articles that focus group testing scientifically proves will be highly offensive to Atheists, Christians, Teenagers, Southerners, Tapeworms, some Fertilizers, and all people from the Great State of Minnesota. As a result, we have required the lead author to make conciliatory and positive remarks throughout as a way of, you know, making nice.]
Sometime last month, a minor league baseball team in Minnesota called the St. Paul Saints had an Atheist Baseball Night sponsored by a group called Minnesota Atheists. For the game, the team had new uniforms made that said – I am not making this up – the Mr. Paul Aints.
Get it? Saint becomes Mister because a saint is associated with religious people…cute, huh? And the Saints become the Aints because, as the atheist leader organizing the event said, “we ain’t got no belief in God.” My Southern kin would be proud of such a…let’s say flexible…use of the English language.
(My vast social skills tell me that it’s time for a Positive Remark: Did you know that a large percentage of atheists use excellent grammar?)
Now you wouldn’t think that an atheist baseball night for a minor league team that you’ve never heard of would be a big deal, would you?
Seriously, if you really wouldn’t think that, you must not be living in this country right now. The truth is: If you walked down the street by yourself in the middle of the ghost town of Bannack, Montana, and said the word “God” in a quiet whisper – well, the next day you would be a Controversial Figure that Divides the Nation with Religion. It really doesn’t matter what you said about God. “God is awesome”? Controversial Figure. “God doesn’t exist?” Controversy. “God is a tapeworm named Lucinda?” You get the idea.
So you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Mr. Paul Aints didn’t exactly sit too well with some folks. Indeed, the president of the Minnesota Baptist Association of Churches said that it was “…an attack against principles that I believe in and that our country was founded upon.“ He elaborated:
I personally have attended Saints games in the past and enjoyed the family atmosphere and the spirit of fun that is found in baseball. When it becomes a means of supporting those who mock the very foundation of our great nation I will voice my opposition and will no longer continue to attend any of the Saints baseball games.
Basically, my whole reason for writing this article is to say that tapeworms get a bad rap. (OK, no, but that was my Positive Remark directed at tapeworms. Happy?) Really, my reason for writing this is to say that, as an aspiringly-devout Christian who believes in the Bible and the Creeds and goes to an Evangelical Christian Church, I find this response from Minnesota Baptists to be rather ridiculous.
(My Positive Remark sensors are tingling, so here goes: Did you know that the city of St. Paul contains more people than the entire town of Bannack, Montana? True fact.)
I could go so many different ways here. I could point out that the “principles our country was founded on” include freedom of religion; I could also point out that, while our country was and still is heavily influenced by Christianity, many of the folks who founded the nation weren’t Christian at all.
But really, that kind of argument would require me to think hard…and I say poo-poo to that! (Positive Remark: Did you know that poo-poo is one of the world’s most valuable fertilizers?) I instead simply want to attack the spirit of the thing. Let’s do this in three ways.
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(1) The response just seems kind of…petty. Small. As Christians, we’re supposed to love everyone, even our bitterest enemies. And the Bible tells me in the book of Jude to “be merciful to those who doubt.” Call me crazy (and you wouldn’t be the first), but perhaps it isn’t the best way to show our genuine concern for atheists by crashing their baseball party? Maybe it isn’t quite at the pinnacle of mercy to tell folks who want to organize a baseball game that they are mocking everything the nation stands for? I mean, are we really going to act like the teenager who didn’t appreciate that her girlfriend showed up with the same dress and then stormed off in a tizzy? In some way, I have to believe that Christ calls us to be bigger than that – to rise above mere petty squabbling and find a way to express our disagreement in love.
(2) Secondly, there’s the issue that psychologists in my field have named the seriously-dude-who-cares factor. Really: Why on earth are we threatened by a baseball stadium full of atheists? Seriously, if our faith is that weak, I say shut the doors of the Church. Our Faith has stared down a whole world of Romans who were openly hostile to it, and challenged it, and won. If what we believe is true, and there is a God, then I’m pretty sure atheists eating hot dogs and having a good laugh is not high on His list of national evils.
(3) Then there is the quite complicated issue of access. I said I wasn’t going to write about the legal/political issue per se. It turns out I can’t be trusted. So I am going to mention that, technically speaking, the St. Paul Saints can do whatever they want, because they aren’t a government organization. They can be completely atheist or completely Christian, the same way any private organization can be completely atheist or completely Christian. So the legal arguments I’ve made in the past about, say, the Jesus statue on public land do not apply directly here. It’s the same distinction we would make between a public school (must respect religious diversity) and a private school (can be as religious or irreligious as the heart desires).
That caveat aside, what I’m talking about here isn’t the right of the St. Paul’s Saints to become the Aints; I’m talking about how it makes me feel as a Christian. Yep – I’m that vain to ignore legality and focus only on myself. And really, what I want from folks is not the suppression of viewpoints I disagree with; what I want from folks is that everyone has equal access. Which leads me to wonder: If there are enough atheists to fill a minor league park in Minnesota, then for crying out loud, why shouldn’t they have their own night? What’s the big deal?
(Definitely time for a Positive Remark: Did you know that the Apologetic Professor’s favorite football team is the Minnesota Vikings?)
The truly comical thing is that the St. Paul baseball team also regularly sponsors Christian and Jewish events; provides a chapel for its team members on Sunday mornings; and has several prominent former and current members doing missionary/church work. My point is simple: I’m talking about me here – don’t lose focus. And I, personally, honestly might feel a little differently about it if I thought the team was somehow biased against Christians; if they didn’t provide equal access. After all, I respect the right of the atheist group Freedom From Religion to exist, but I don’t feel particularly warmly disposed towards them because they clearly hate me and everything I believe, and they want to see what I believe repressed in every possible way. But obviously the St. Paul Saints don’t hate me and what I stand for; they just want to give a minority group their own night, too. What’s the fuss?
(And now it’s time for my weekly segment known as: When a seemingly sensible person suddenly does an about face and irritates the people he appeared to be defending a moment before.)
Don’t get me wrong. There is a real issue here that the pastor is responding to…and it’s an issue that I don’t think Christians should back away from. Christians are getting shouted down quite a bit in the public sphere these days, and I have much to say about that – some of which I will likely say in the coming months. We are letting a tiny minority of elite atheists change the culture of our national fabric by dictating their own narrow and exclusionary views to the nation. They have a right to those views, same as I have a right to mine – but they don’t have the right to suppress mine. What I’m trying to say is, if you are offended this week, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Stay tuned.
So I’m not saying that Christians should meekly accept the rise of atheism. (Though it turns out the rise of atheism in the U.S. may have been exaggerated a bit; for example, contrary to popular belief, atheism may actually be on the decline among academic scientists…just sayin’). As I’m sure my readers have noted, I certainly don’t meekly accept it. Loving your enemy doesn’t mean agreeing with your enemy. It doesn’t mean standing idly by while you watch your enemy run roughshod over the whole world. So I have no intention of backing down from the current intellectual assault on Christianity, most of which I find misguided. But, really, what does a vigorous public debate have to do with denying atheists a night of baseball? This feels a little like refusing to feed an atheist who came starving to my door on the grounds that he is “attacking principles that I believe in and that our country was founded upon.” The spirit of the attack on the Mr. Paul Aints seems a little wrong.
Really, what I want is an open, honest, fair, public debate – because I think Christianity will win that debate. I may be wrong; but either way, as long as Christianity isn’t suppressed (which is actually happening), then give atheists their day(s). I don’t want any atheist to be a Christian just to be able to enjoy the admitted pleasures of Lutheran baseball night. I say, instead, that as Christians we actually pay the bill for Atheist baseball night! That maybe, just maybe, we try the shocking experiment of enjoying the jokes about Mr. Paul Aints in the spirit that they were given…as jokes. If I were to write a response to the atheist baseball night, it would go rather something like this:
As Christians, we welcome the Minnesota Atheists to St. Paul! We want you to know that, while we of course disagree with you about God, we truly want you to have a blessed and awesome evening. In fact, our churches have pooled money together so that every person can have a free hot dog and soda! So, enjoy those hot dogs, revel in the crack of the bat and the smell of nachos. And, if you are ever interested in having a debate about God, give us a call! We love each one of you and believe that our Lord does, too.
“Atheist Baseball Night”? The “Mr. Paul Aints”? If only you were inventing this whole thing…but alas, you’re not. I guess it’s true that, as Mitt Romney might say, “Atheists are people, my friend,” and just like other people, atheists are sometimes inclined to do silly (and even stupid) things. This conclusively proves, however, that atheists (or at least the Minnesota Atheists) are no smarter than theists, no matter what Richard Dawkins says. On the other hand, I cannot believe they actually got the team to wear special uniforms: those should quickly become collectors’ items.
I have to say to begin with – I don’t care at all about baseball nor whether or not they host religious or non-religious themes. I do find it ridiculous that people would become ‘outraged’ at it, as if the Saints were heel-turning and becoming Atheists forever to flaunt it at their oddly endeared Christian fans. On both sides I can see fence-pushing – the stuff that little kids do against their siblings when they want the moral justification of retaliation. “Oh I’m not directing this at YOU, I’m just doing my own thing… in your face. What, are you mad?” Atheists host silly events such as these and nit-pick religious monuments for attention and occasionally justified reasons, while Christians demonize Atheists in a sometimes creepy way.
That latter point is what I’ll actually focus on, as I saw it in this post. I read in Nietzsche awhile ago his theory on the Good and Evil Morality which replaced the Heroic Morality of old. In Heroic Morality terms, the Good is simply the Hero’s way – the strong guy who goes out for adventure, pillaging, and whatever it is Heroes decide to do. Not much thought into it, and the Bad are not ‘Evil’, they are simply non-Heroes contrary to their ways. Peasants weren’t condemned so much as disdained for being, you know, lowborn peasants. Kind of like how bugs may be disliked, but we don’t run crusades against them cause what’s the point of that? That’s just the nature of peasants.
The Good and Evil Morality however turns it around as Nietzsche saw it, where now the strong Heroic guy who does whatever he wants is now the Evil – a force that MUST be opposed by the forces of Good (i.e. meek and mild and mostly weak so far as he was concerned). And not opposed like, “Oh, you’re in my way. Get out.” in the Heroic Morality, but actively Annihilated and Purged. Because by its very nature Evil is Corruption and Heresy and the eternal Enemy. It is, should Nietzsche be right, a creepily hateful viewpoint that is fueled by resentment and vengeance masquerading as ‘love’.
Well, so, I thought of that when references were made to Atheists such as (paraphrasing here) “Well we don’t believe in the same things they do – that’s ok! I mean, we are taught to love our ENEMIES, right? They are our ENEMIES, but as good Christians we’ll respond to them with love against their oppression and defeat them.” Granted, there are many militant Atheists out there that frame things in much the same way, but what they are doing isn’t loving or kind at all. They are attacking a foe, an Enemy, for a similar reason – to convert them or render them silent. And in terms of Good and Evil, Enemies are to be destroyed – Atheists are enemies so far as they have ‘sinful thoughts and ideals’ (i.e. not Christian), and those sins are the Enemy. But they are quite intertwined so far is rhetoric is concerned, aren’t they? That isn’t a mistake in my observations considering how it works.
It is subtle I think, but ehhh… I personally find it amusing, but it does touch a creepy discordant note when I get that sense of lust for destruction hiding behind a smile and open arms. Weaponizing love is what Christianity has done VERY well and in many ways. There is a reason why Christianity is the major religion on Earth, why some governments do their damnedest to suppress it, and why it overwhelmed mighty civilizations like Rome. It isn’t because it is necessarily ‘true’ (that’s a whole other debate), but that it smothers over other religions and religious thoughts using the idea of ‘love’ – which in Neitzsche’s perspective is perverted with that Good-Evil hatred-fueled crusade against evil, which seems to fit fairly well – to seep into the lower classes and then rise up to burst open entire civilizations. It works WONDERFULLY as a conversion weapon given enough time and sacrifices (remember, martyrs only promote the process, which adds to the difficulty of rooting it out once established), and I think that’s clever and cool. Honestly, I do. But that line of thinking is largely foreign to my religious friends and sometimes taken as an insult when it isn’t meant to be.
Anyway, the point is beyond my rant is to say at the core of this, your opposition to the outrage side is agreed by me and probably all the sensible people who read your blog. Labeling Atheists as Enemies does strike that chord with me, though I personally don’t mind, I think it is weirdly ‘not-Christian-though-it-is’ sort of deal. From my non-Christian perspective, I don’t see Christians as my enemies, nor most people. Not even bugs. My rule with bugs is if they attack me without good reason or they just breach my irritation factor, then they become enemies and soonafter are crushed, removed, avoided, or otherwise opposed for being offensive towards me. I suppose the same could be applied to my view on people, aside from the crushing-bits, and that isn’t requiring nor would work with the labeling of the Evil Enemy the Christianity does very often.
Perhaps food for thought.
Jack and Uh-Oh,
Enjoyed both of your thoughtful comments as always! Time is becoming increasingly scarce (coming off sabbatical + teaching a week-long seminar next week + term starts in two weeks = lots of prep time), so I’m going to limit myself here to one clarification.
Namely: I just wanted to say (and I hope this does not come as a surprise) that I don’t think all atheists are my “enemies.” Re-reading my original article, it could easily be interpreted that way, but for the record, that wasn’t what I meant at all. What I meant was something more like “even for those atheists who are my enemies, I believe Christ calls me to love them.” So, while of course atheism as a philosophy is opposed to what I believe (though not all parts of what atheists usually believe are opposed, BTW…there is often some common ground), I don’t view all atheists as enemies — and certainly not the thoughtful commenters on this cite! (I know it is cliche and you are not supposed to say this kind of thing, but it is true all the same to say: In my non-blog life many of my best friends and dearest colleagues are atheists and agnostics, and I certainly don’t consider them my “enemies,” though I disagree with them about the question of God.)
Please keep those comments coming!
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