“Two Systems of Science” — Good one!
I did not work as a reporter for all that long, but I do remember the elation I felt when a “source” (as journalists like to call people they talk to on the phone) gave me a really awful, colorful quotation. The key was to find some exponent of a ridiculous or distasteful cause who liked to talk a little too much. I imagine the writer of the recent New York Times story on the latest evolutionary leap of the anti-evolution cause must have been pumping her fist in the air on the other end of the phone (or inwardly), when the head of the Texas state education board uncorked the following explanation of why it is perfectly appropriate to teach the evangelical Christian critique (a.k.a. “weaknesses”) of evolutionary theory in science classes:
Dr. [Don] McLeroy, the [Texas state education] board chairman, sees the debate as being between “two systems of science.”“You’ve got a creationist system and a naturalist system,” he said. . . .
Dr. McLeroy believes that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. “I believe a lot of incredible things,” he said, “The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.”
Believing incredible things – now that’s science. I imagine Dr. McLeroy is perfectly sincere about the “scientific” truth of his Christian beliefs. I have never been able to find a good book to read about this — please advise — but American fundamentalism does seem to have this strange scientistic streak. In literally interpreting the Bible, they believe one can find “the facts,” the objectively, universally true principles of all existence. They even tend to use scientistic, quasi-scholarly methods to get at the “real” meaning of the text.
At least this was how it was explained to me by a former graduate student who had attended a conservative Christian seminary. We were talking about the apparent contradiction between the belief in the transparent and complete inerrancy of the English-language biblical text and the requirement that students learn ancient languages in order to translate the originals. It seemed to me that anyone who had translated more than a few sentences of any foreign language, let alone ancient ones using a different alphabet, would twig to the gaps and multiple possibilities involved in the process. But if you think of translation as a quest for scientific fact, then perhaps that is less of a problem.
The scientistic streak that you correctly point to in American Protestatnf undamentalism has multiple roots, I”m sure, but I’ve always thought that one major source is the Fundamentalist reliance on the Scofield Reference Bible as the edition of choice (KJV, of course). It’s interesting, because it brings the history of the book to bear on 20th-century religion and politics in a pretty important way. It was first published in 1909, and again in 1917, a congruity with World War I that made its focus on modern dispensationalism and the “end times” that much more resonant. But it is in its study “notes”–which were published next to the text, instead of in a separate volume–that it promoted the “scientism” of fundamentalist Christianity, particularly with respect to the age of the earth. It’s not the edition of the Bible that I was raised on, but I’ve always been dimly aware of its impact in the quite conservative evangelical (but not fundamentalist) circles in which I grew up.
Comment by Mr. Sidetable — June 11, 2008 @ 10:41 am
Well, here’s the likely explanation (sans historical facts):
I’m in the middle of an article by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker (June 2), “The Rebellion Within,” about serious cracks in Al Qaeda’s terrorist ideology. Central to the account is one “Dr. Fadl” (bunch of names for the same guy; this is easiest), about whose 1000-page manuscript (ca. 1994) Wright says, “Few books in recent history have done as much damage.” Basically, it is argued, the book provided a theological/ideological justification for murder and terrorism against any person or organization that did not conform to its narrowly drawn criteria for membership. The activist leader(s) of the movement eargerly awaited this text; they supported Dr Fadl economically so he could finish it.
1. There was a group or, better, would-be leader(s) of a could-be organized group, looking for legitimizing authority.
2. The desired authority would legitimize group norms of inclusion and exclusion.
These jihadists, not unlike (I suppose) the evangelical leaders circa 1900, had to justify their authority in a larger climate of opinion that could well deny their authority. Islam hardly dictates violence on the breadth and scale desired by certain jihadists; Christianity at the turn of the 20th century tried to embrace modernity and science.
The challenge for fundamentalist leaders was to lay legitimate claim to authority over and against the existing, highly institutionalized authority of maninstream Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. These institutionalized orders produced legitimate, authoritative priests/ministers through a process that constituted, among other things, norms of exclusion. Officials had to clear a lot of education/traing hurdles.
The explicitly anti-scientific content of fundamentalism was necessary to justify the preacher’s authority in a world that denied his authority on grounds of education; the scientism gives this message a competitive, “alternative” quality, more like “secular science is incorrect and/or deformed, rather than “knowlege of the scientific kind is invalid per se”. Likewise, Dr. Fadl has to say, “Western infidels must die,” but also, “Incorrect interpreters of Islam must die.” He’s got to keep Islam’s authority while driving a wedge between his rules and the rules of mainstream Islam.
The main point, imo, is that the movement finds a belief system that works for them, not the other way around. And it’s the entrepreneurial leader(s) who find and promulgate the belief system. The followers/members of the group do not become so, typically, because of the group’s specific ideology; they acquire the ideology as part of their membership initiation/maintenance. It’s part of the set of inclusion/exclusion norms. So the question should be more like: What “good” is membership in fundamentalist group that justifies their members in holding exclusionist/separatist beliefs? Sometimes, as in Amish communities, the “good” is all on the leadership’s side, so that parents and leaders try to indoctrinate their children to the point of innoculation against the outside world before letting them contact the outside. Other times, the latent group may be out there, unable to provide itself with leadership. Then the entrepreneur tries to provide an ideology that will draw membership and maintain it.
Comment by Rod Bell — June 15, 2008 @ 3:17 pm