THE FATAL FLAW AT THE HEART OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM

BY DUNCAN HOWLETT (PUBLISHED BY PROMETHEUS BOOKS, 1995.  ISBN: 0-87975-923-2) 231 pages

For many freethinkers, the term “religious liberalism” may seem to be a bit of an oxymoron:  Given the omnipresence of so many religious fundamentalists on the contemporary political scene, and their resounding successes as they attempt to turn these United States into a Christian version of Iran, it often seems as though religious liberals have all but disappeared from view.

This is of course far from the case.  The majority of Christians do not believe, as the fundamentalists do, that the Bible is the inerrant word of god, and many do not believe in certain core ideological dogmas such as the Trinity, virgin birth or resurrection.  And most of them certainly don’t accept the nonsense spewed forth by the fundamentalist extremists in our midst.

Duncan Howlett’s is concerned with the current state off religious liberalism.  For while it is a historical fact that liberalism made significant progress in the religious community until fairly recent times, it has proven itself to be a spent force in recent decades.  Howlett set out to find the reasons why.

The author begins by pointing out that “it was not until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that the idea of questioning official church teachings and of searching out new and better ones gained acceptance within the church” (pg. 12).  This means that, for some 1800 years, the church promoted a reactionary theology and ideology that we today would classify as fundamentalist.  The church, united with the state, was able to impose its will on everyone, making dissent and progress virtually impossible for countless centuries.

I would disagree with the dating Howlett here offers.  The questioning of church doctrines and dogmas began much earlier; it was probably always present although rarely voiced.  Beginning with Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the first voices of dissent, mild and carefully worded, began to be heard.  And it was in the eighteenth century that full-scale rebellion actually began, as exemplified in the work of the philosophes, whose influence spread over Europe and to the American colonies.  Baron D’Holbach (1723-1789) is probably the first person in history who deserves to be called a full-fledged atheist.  Certainly, he described himself in that way.

Given the absolutist nature of the Bible, a basic contradiction arose in the thoughts and actions of those who, on the one hand, insist that their Bible contains words and wisdom to live by while at the same time adopting values that are essentially humanistic, reality based and not to be found in scripture.  They began to rationalize away the discomforting parts of the Bible and insisted that some of the more barbaric injunctions were meant to be taken metaphorically rather than literally.  Todays liberal Christians utilize the same strategy.

While Howlett’s “solutions” as a Unitarian/Universalist minister may rankle many atheists, The Fatal Flaw is still worth reading for its insights into the mindset of those who seek to discover “truth” by mystical rather than rational means.