As Far as Opiates Go, You Could Do Worse Than Christianity
Hope might be the least harmful drug we have.
Americans are less religious than ever. Historian and theologian Carl R. Trueman argues that we live in an era of “expressive individualism,” an ideology that originated with thinkers like Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, but took until the 1990s to really ramp up here in the U.S.
Those thinkers saw religion as an unnecessary and oppressive burden, as well as a drug laced with false hope designed to keep people in line, AKA the opiate of the masses. The popular “new atheists” of the early 2000s (Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris), echoed them, arguing that “religion poisons everything.” Freud and Nietzsche in particular, Trueman observes, thought people could find more truth and meaning by looking inward and embodying whatever they found there free from guilt or shame. Far from despairing at the death of God, Nietzsche was hopeful. The freedom from God would allow men to become gods themselves, “ubermenschen” or “supermen” as he called them.
But as a culture, we’re not feeling so super right now. Derek Thompson has been tracking the decline in religious belief and practice in America for The Atlantic and recently noted some concerning trends. “This year, the Pew Research Center reported that religiously unaffiliated Americans are less likely to volunteer, less likely to feel satisfied with their community and social life, and more likely to say they feel lonely.”
Additionally, “The empirical reality has shown that the disappearance of traditional religion often does not lead to an earthly heaven of science, reason, and deliberation. Humans just find other things to fight over,” writes Mustafa Akyol.
These days Richard Dawkins has softened quite a bit toward religion in general, and Christianity in particular. He suggests that there is something inherently religious about the human animal. Most of us fail to embody Nietzsche’s liberated, individualist vision. In the absence of God, we will find something to worship; someone to follow. We crave a deeper meaning and a higher calling. So we tend to replace religious devotion with commitments to various political, social, or identity-driven causes.
These causes often fall into the same traps as organized religion, suggesting that the problem with religion isn’t so much God as it is us. Our political duopoly has devolved into an embarrassing spectacle. Scandals and failures of leadership undercut social movements. Icons betray or disappoint us. Communities falter. Coalitions fracture.
At the same time, the solitary pursuit of self-actualization can leave us empty and adrift. The more we seek to dredge up meaning from within, the deeper the chasm seems to become. And our increasingly online lives don’t help. “Digital life is disembodied, asynchronous, shallow, and solitary,” Thompson observes. “Many people, having lost the scaffolding of organized religion, seem to have found no alternative method to build a sense of community.”
These days, “new” therapeutic trends echo old Christian teachings. It turns out that de-centering ourselves can make us happier than probing the bottomless depths of neurosis. Therapists suggest that clients experiencing hopelessness or ennui find opportunities to volunteer their time to help others. They encourage people to “practice gratitude” by focusing on the “blessings” in their lives rather than stressful or depressing aspects.
This all begs two questions: Why do we find joy in helping others, and from what source do our blessings abound? For me, it’s much more appealing to believe blessings flow from a loving Creator than from a random, unfeeling, and ultimately meaningless universe, and that our impulse to help others flows out of a deep connection to our fellow humans rather than some primal impulse to preserve our species (to what end?).
It’s appealing to me to believe that all human endeavors are fallible, but that our flawed pursuit of a more just, equitable, and sustainable world is an echo of God’s perfect vision for our existence, an existence that will one day be redeemed from the corrupting forces we battle both in the world and within our own selves.
There are plenty of drugs that can help us get through the day. Hope is one with some of the least harmful side effects. And hope, to me, is what Christianity is all about.
I heard a podcast recently about Near Death Experiences (NDEs), during which some people say they met Jesus face to face. One person reported walking along a river where children laughed and played together. Jesus told him these were kids who’d been robbed of such playtime on Earth by war, disease, abuse, or poverty. Here they were making up for lost time.
Even if that’s delusional, it’s beautiful.
My hope isn’t that Jesus will one day come back to punish the wicked and save the righteous. Such a view is not even doctrinally correct. “There is no one righteous, not even one,” Scripture tells us, and “all fall short of the glory of God.”
I think it’s better to look at the Second Coming as a kind of ‘setting things right’ as theologian N.T. Wright puts it. It’s the redemption, perfection, and completion of creation. It’s a playground full of laughter, minus the tears. It’s a raucous Karaoke night without the embarrassing argument that happened toward the end. It’s Disney World without lines. It’s crystal blue waters without pollution. It’s love without betrayal.
And if all of it turned out to be true? Well, that would just be the icing on the cake.
Hey, Jon,
I appreciate and I agree that Americans are a little low on hope right now. I disagree with a couple points.
First, while the universe may not have a purpose as simple and neat as one found in Christianity, that does not mean that existence outside an organized religion is completely unmoored, random, unfeeling, and meaningless. I'm reminded of the beginning of Steven Pinker's novel Enlightenment Now, in which he answers the question "Why should I live?":
"In the very act of asking that question, you are seeking reasons for your convictions, and so you are committed to reason as the means to discover and justify what is important to you. And there are so many reasons to live!
As a sentient being, you have the potential to flourish. You can refine your faculty of reason itself by learning and debating. You can seek explanations of the natural world through science, and insight into the human condition through the arts and humanities. You can make the most of your capacity for pleasure and satisfaction, which allowed your ancestors to thrive and thereby allowed you to exist. You can appreciate the beauty and richness of the natural and cultural world. As the heir to billions of years of life perpetuating itself, you can perpetuate life in turn. You have been endowed with a sense of sympathy–the ability to like, love, respect, help, and show kindness–and you can enjoy the gift of mutual benevolence with friends, family, and colleagues.
And because reason tells you that none of this is particular to you, you have the responsibility to provide to others what you expect for yourself. You can foster the welfare of other sentient beings by enhancing life, health, knowledge, freedom, abundance, safety, beauty, and peace. History shows that when we sympathize with others and apply our ingenuity to improving the human condition, we can make progress in doing so, and you can help to continue that progress."
Secondly, I would argue that some of the ideas within Christianity tend to inflate the importance of the individual. People think that God died individually for them and that they are in direct communication with the Creator of the universe. That's all fine and dandy if God is telling you to feed and shelter the less fortunate, but it gets dicey when God is telling you to kill the infidels, reclaim the Holy Land, or that polygamy is the way to go. Absent religious belief, one gets a sense of perspective on their place in the cosmos--relative insignificance. So, there's less concern about one's place in eternity and more concern about the positive change that can be made now or for future generations and society as a whole.
Finally, I really cannot stomach the idea of all these individual heavens. I remember someone saying at my grandmother's funeral that they had a vision of her happily riding around on a horse in heaven. I just thought that was ridiculous. I understand why it's appealing to think of heaven as whatever makes one feel better about all the suffering that happens during life and all the uncertainty of death. I do not find the idea of heaven as everything we enjoyed in life minus everything we found unpleasant appealing. The playground is fun because sitting still in class is sometimes boring. Karaoke is fun because we don't all have the voices of angels (also, we're usually drunk). Rollercoasters are fun because waiting is hard and feeling the thrill of adrenaline when the ride first plunges is exhilarating. Clean water is fun because it's a valuable limited resource. If everything is frosting, frosting loses its sweetness. And let's not forget that the Christian heaven is going to have a population far smaller than the Christian hell--where everyone will have all the things they hated about life minus all the things they found pleasant.
Nothing about heaven or hell gives me hope. I find hope in working to make a better future for my family and the next generation inheriting the Earth. That fills me with a deep sense of empathy and purpose.