Humanity has been ill-served by Christianity, which was born in deceit — the virgin birth, miracles, the resurrection of the body, the promise of eternal life — and nurtured into life by the totalitarianism of Constantine and his episcopal thought-police.
Far from protecting intellectual life through the ”Dark Ages”, it closed down the rational enquiring mind it inherited from the pagan world — Aristotle survived thanks only to the Arabs — and remains an affront to intelligence.
It hinders the emergence of real freedom and of mature adult societies; it demands preference for blind faith over evidence; it makes a virtue of obedience; and it frees the conscience from the burden of choice (”Jesus told me to do it”; ”the Bible says homosexuality is wrong”).
Christian theology is incoherent. The Trinity, for example, is incomprehensible outside the circular, self-supporting framework of faith. Indeed, it is a central tenet of Christianity that it cannot be defended by reason. Reason would render faith unnecessary, and Pauline Christianity would collapse.
Many people fondly believe there is something called ”Christian morality”. This is a concept of breathtaking smugness, suggesting that secular people are incapable of love, forgiveness, pity and compassion.
But no argument is needed from a secular source to contradict this claim, because Christianity contradicts it itself. Paul says that there is no human virtue, nor can there ever be. Whatever good people may do does not reflect to their credit, on their volition or moral strength — it reflects the grace of Jesus, who does the work of goodness through them.
Striving to live a good and balanced life, therefore, has no place in Christianity. Instead, Christians must simply love Jesus and put their faith in him, thus qualifying for redemption from sin. They have no power of their own.
Needless to say, most Christians do strive to live good and balanced lives. But that is because they are good human beings, not because they are good Christians.
Many would say this description of their faith is unfair and inaccurate. Such a disclaimer highlights the arbitrary nature of Christianity — irrespective of what stands in its holy book, it can be whatever its adherents want it to be.
For example, John Shelby Sponge, Christian bishop and author of the book Why Christianity must Change or Die, dismantles every tenet of Christian belief while claiming to remain a Christian.
No rational person, he says, can believe the creationist stories of the Old Testament; the virgin birth story is preposterous, as are the Biblical miracle stories; he does not believe in the Resurrection; he rejects the Nicene Creed; and most stunningly of all, he rejects with contempt the conventional notion of God, which in effect means the Christian God.
He describes his fellow Christians as ”people drugged on the narcotic of religion … the mental lobotomy that one suspects is the fate of those who project themselves as the unquestioning religious citizens of our age”. What religion does this man share with fundamentalist Roman Catholic Mel Gibson?
A useful idea to use in contesting the claims of Christianity, and in particular its claim to represent the best way of conducting our lives and building society, is Karl Popper’s concept of the ”open society”.
In the ”open society”, the making of truth is a collaborative, democratic, human affair. As wrong as our judgements may be when we arrive at them by this process, they are the only judgements that can be tested in the court of human experience.
Human truth is not infallible, but that is its strength. Knowing it to be fallible, we create the opportunity for endless inquiry and revision.
Popper shows that when the making of truth serves some non-human purpose — the will of God, the divine right of the monarch, the necessity of historical forces, or the spiritual consciousness of the nation — the inevitable result is the destruction of freedom.
There is no way of investigating or disputing authority and truth derived from non-human sources. And these always come to humanity mediated by self-proclaimed spokespersons, who dignify themselves as ”priest” or ”president”, but are effectively shamans.
Morally, the consequences of belief in non-human truths are equally parlous. Humans who have no means of knowing truth except by the revelation of their leaders, or by the divinity, become mere instruments.
Thus, if the kingdom of God is destined to arrive, the role humans play in bringing about this pre-ordained destiny must be irrelevant. As Popper memorably suggests, moral choice then amounts to making sure you back the winning outcome.
In this paradigm, our moral choices are made for us: we refrain from killing not because killing is wrong, but because God tells us it is wrong.
The appeal to a higher, non-human truth or authority leaves humanity utterly vulnerable. Thus, for instance, Mijailovic, the man who murdered Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh, testified that he committed his crime under instructions from Jesus.
Nothing in Christian theology could invalidate such a claim. God appears in dreams to Christian writers from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. Since the ways of God are held to be inscrutable, what Christian can say Mijailovic was wrong? Which spokesperson for God do we choose to believe?
The 20th-century witnessed the calamitous consequences of humanity’s seduction by the collectivist myth of group responsibility and group identity. Resulting in Fascism, communism and racism, it caused untold misery.
Human beings may have largely abandoned this ghastly flirtation — but they have not yet abandoned Christianity, the ultimate collectivism.
The notion of universal human unworthiness creates the universal human burden of guilt. This offers the church collective power over all of us, for we all need the forgiveness that only its sacraments provide.
A belief system that makes everyone guilty, while validating personal revelation as authentic truth, is the most lethal enemy of open societies and human aspiration for improvement.
Christians will respond: people like Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu have been outstanding champions of the open society. But it was precisely not in their Christianity that the greatness of these men consists — it is as human beings.
We can revere them for their achievements and still reject their insistence that we are all equally sinful, children in the eyes of God and in need of the sado-masochistic sacrifice of the putative son of God for redemption.
The theological notion that we are ”children” is a scandalous libel against the adult achievements of the millions of secular human beings who discharge their obligations with courage, of the thinkers and scientists who explore the universe of knowledge to increase our understanding of life, and of those who die in war and live in peace in the service of their fellows.
Christians profess to find something elevating in the notion that ”God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son”. Secular human beings will retort that while they need the help and love of their fellows, they did not ask for, nor want, the manipulative love of a father who wants credit for his creation, who obliges us to love him in return and who set us all up for a Fall in the first place.
As we face the prospect of building free communities, societies and civilisations based on the values, truths and goals we set for ourselves at our human discretion, it is time to leave the myths and distortions of Christianity behind.
Colin Bower is a freelance writer, and author of the book Open Minds, Closed Minds and Christianity: Why Humanity Must Abandon Christianity Now, soon to be published
A nation of believers
Christianity remains the dominant religion in South Africa, with about 84% of the population professing to be of the Christian faith.
About 3% of South Africans adhere to other faiths, including Hinduism (1,5%), Islam (1,5%), Judaism (0,2%), Buddhism, Confucianism and Rastafarianism.
About 13% of the population has no affiliation with organised religion, with many adhering to indigenous belief systems.
An estimated 86% of whites are Christian and almost 1,5% are Jewish. Nearly half the South Africans of Indian ancestry are Hindus, with the remainder being either Muslim (23%) or Christian (20%).
More than 90% of Africans are Christian, while almost 84% of coloured people adhere to Christianity and 7% to Islam.
Freedom of religion is protected by the Bill of Rights, and there are no major conflicts between members of various religions. On the whole, relations between religious communities are amicable.
The only parliamentary party with an explicitly Christian policy platform — it tends to follow the right-wing American evangelical churches on moral and social issues — is the African Christian Democratic Party. The ACDP registered 1,6% of the vote in the April election, a marginal improvement on 1999 (1,43%). — Motlatsi Lebea