The Exposed Lies of "Saints"
This month’s issue of Christianity Today has an interesting piece on William Wilberforce, and, in […]
This month’s issue of Christianity Today has an interesting piece on William Wilberforce, and, in particular, the dark side of the abolitionist that has just recently come to light. It turns out that Wilberforce, a 19th century politician best known for bringing down the slave trade in England, was the very same politician who sanctioned the use of apprenticeship (thinly-veiled slavery with a different name) in Sierra Leone.
To be honest, I’m pretty glad this sort of story hasn’t caught significant national attention. It has parallels to “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith” from Time a few years back, only on a smaller scale, as Mother Teresa is a far bigger name than Wilberforce. While one exposé (Wilberforce) deals with hypocrisy in his actions, the other deals with internal doubts Mother Teresa feels while living the life of a “saint”. Despite this difference, a similar public reaction occurs: scandal. We are told to feel betrayed, not only by the individual on trial, but also by the religion they espouse.
In the case of MT, we have Christopher Hitchens coming out of the woodwork with some pretty harsh words: “She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself.” We are supposed to hear these stories and think that religion can’t possibly be true, because of what horrible things these heroes have done or thought.
I don’t know about you, but I come out of these articles thinking the opposite. I see people that are as screwed up as me doing so much good in the world, whether it’s abolishing slavery or caring for the impoverished people of the world, and I think about how amazing it is that God can work through anybody, including those with imperfections that are so glaring that the whole world scrutinizes them. In fact, it makes God that much greater. Our anthropology, and the level of credit we give to humans, is inversely proportional to our Christology, and the credit we give to God (words originally coined by PZ, I believe). There are countless stories of God bringing about good through blubbering idiots, in the Bible and everywhere else. If you need proof, look at everything Peter says in the Gospels, and then his speech at Pentecost. The more we realize the lowness and ineptitude of the humans God works through, the greater we realize our God, and our need for Him, to be.
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The more we realize the lowness and ineptitude of the humans God works through, the greater we realize our God, and our need for Him, to be.
Well said! Great post.
Hey Davis… thanks for the news about W, and what a thoughtful piece you wrote!
I was curious to read the Christianity Today piece you link to, but I couldn't find anything about Wilberforce.
Can you help?
I couldn't find the article that I read in the printed magazine on their website, thus the general link to CT. Hopefully it'll make it to their site soon.
A wonderful post. Just wonderful.
Hitchens sees the doubts and failings of historically important people as evidence that faith is self-willed illusion. Davis sees the same and finds hope that God will use him too. What I want to know – and the question is not academic – is what accounts for the difference in their perspective.
I guess that's a version of the $64,000 question, not to be answered till we see His face.
For all his animus toward religion I haven't spotted that Hitchens has repudiated Solzhenitsyn yet. Or has he already covered that and did I just miss it?
Maybe it is good we don't at the "St." label to Anglicans anymore. No doubt this "new revelation" came about with the attention given to "Amazing Grace".
It's amazing how we look back in retrospect upon "the heroes" and wonder why if they could do one great thing why they weren't perfect or their life was all about great things. Historical perspective…
I can tell you, this post helps me articulate the paradoxical fear and serenity I have at being a new father. A lot of good I may do, and much ill I will do. Always for the need of Him.
Very special post. And commentary. I am in my 60's and for years I heard about victorious living…and I saw my life as B Manning would say "a great disappointment to God". It was a work of grace for me to begin to have a different perspective. I was like Luther and could flog myself raw.
One of the things about Mockingbird that I love…it is real. It is from a very human perspective looking up at a great and gracious God.