An Interview with a Liberal Christian - David Ryan Andersson

David Anderson (@Crayon Canyon) might be a breath of fresh air to some atheists.  He's a liberal Christian.  When we first began interacting with one another on Twitter, I thought of him as somebody who believed in Yahweh, Jesus Christ, and an allegorical Bible.  To be honest, I thought he could very easily be converted to atheism.  Though my counter-arguments haven't budged David from his faith, I have enjoyed getting to learn more about his thought processes, and I asked him to be interviewed so that I could learn more about his past and what makes his brain tick.

@GodsNotReal_ :
How were you brought up, as far as religion?  Were you taught religion from a young age?  What did your parents tell you about religion, God, and Jesus?

David:
I grew up in Chicago with a Christian mother and father. We attended a "Bible-believing Non-Denominational Church" growing up, although it was a pretty standard suburban conservative Evangelical church. Neither of my parents had grown up in that kind of setting and it wasn't uncommon to see them disagree on issues with other members of the church, but their core beliefs were (and are) that Jesus was God and that putting your faith in him was an essential step in your personal salvation. But aside from that they provided me a lot of independence growing up (my friends call them hippies, but I don't see it). They fostered in me a desire to learn and modeled that by changing their own views on their faith over time as they learned more. Sometimes they leaned more Sarah Palin (around 9/11), sometimes they lean more N.T. Wright (like today). We have a lot of boisterous Latino blood; it's extremely common to speak our minds and disagree and learn from one another. I don't know if we'd recognize ourselves ten years ago.

I could say a lot more, but I'm trying to stay concise for your benefit.


@GodsNotReal_ :
Growing up, did you ever question a faith-claim (such as "Did Jesus really come back to life?" or "Did people really live to be 900 years old back in biblical days?")?  If so, what did your parents/pastor say to you?

David:
I questioned everything. I still try to. At our church you didn't attend Sunday School in Sixth Grade. Instead you attended a class that outlined specifics of Church Theology, how it evolved over history, and where it came from in the first place. The class was taught by a Professor from Wheaton College. And in spite of all the grief I give conservative Evangelicals, that class was one of the most formative parts of my childhood. It was an invitation to think critically about where these ideas come from and why people believe them. Plus, the guy who taught it, along with my parents, weren't the Young Earth Creationists that I usually encountered in church (whose opinions I rarely sought), so from a really young age I was already comfortable with the concept of wrestling with the Bible to discern not only how to apply what I read, but to even comprehend how I was supposed to read it in the first place. I would take other people's opinions about those issues, but I never trusted them as much as I trusted scholarship and my own investigating. So most of my questions were answered by studies I'd conduct on my own. My family always encouraged reading, so they'd buy me books, but they were usually light Apologetics like Lee Strobel. By high school I decided that I wanted a wider range of viewpoints so I would read everything from dry histories, to Catholic Mystics, to Dan Brown, to Atheist blogs online (I never thought that the Flying Spaghetti Monster would still be going strong a decade later). To be honest, my focus on knowing what I should believe was so intense that I never studied the Bible for how to live until very recently.

 @GodsNotReal_ :
Very interesting.  So what do you think the Bible tells us about HOW to live nowadays?  Many passages, including some of the commandments, make reference to shekels of silver, keeping livestock, and ancient labor law.  Much of this stuff doesn't seem to apply in today's world.

David:
I agree that much Old Testament law doesn't have any place in the modern world, and that viewpoint originates with the words of Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is a good example of this. In particular, the statement, "you have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,' but I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." The sentiment of retributive justice (Lex Talionis) is found throughout Ancient Near East law, including the Jewish Scriptures. This is a clear moment of Jesus directly saying to ignore the Mosaic Laws and listen to Christ instead. He did that often in his words and actions.

Christians can disagree about exactly WHY Jesus overturns the old system, but the core of Christian theology is that Jesus is the direct image of God and therefore his teachings are timeless. The Mosaic Law is at best obsolete and at worst a purely human invention that God was given credit for (I find myself somewhere in between).

The Church is always tempted to employ Old Testament legalism, but Jesus rarely prescribed laws for his followers. His preferred model was establish values and guiding principles while abolishing laws. When Jesus was asked to valuate the Old Testament Law he says "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." We're not bound to Old Testament Law, but that's not to say that there is nothing of value to be found there, we just have to remember to use the standard of Loving God and loving one another if we want to find what is valuable.

But the word "love" is pretty vague. Jesus defines it as a sacrificial love. The crucifixion is a model for us, that we would put aside our lives for the sake of others with no expectation of compensation or acknowledgment. That can look like a sacrifice of time, resources, labor, energy, or life itself. If we measure value according to this model of love then slavery has no value; bigotry has no value; the Lex Talionis has no value, along with other things we'd find in the Old Testament. We may live out our values differently, but if anyone claims to be a Christian who doesn't valuate their morals by this model of love then I think they have a warped understanding of being a Christ follower.

@GodsNotReal_ :
You say that Jesus was all about abolishing laws, but in Matthew 5:17 NIV he is quoted as saying "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."  This seems to indicate that Jesus intended to keep Old Testament law.  How do you respond?

David:
I wouldn't say Jesus was exclusively about abolishing laws. Jesus clearly lays down rules for following him, most famously in the Gospel of John's Last Supper account: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." But Jesus did often overturn Mosaic Law. There's some debate over the exact interpretation of "fulfill" in Matthew 5:17(completing the law vs. carrying out the law). Based on personal research along with the rest of Jesus' teachings and behavior I think "fulfill" means fulfilling a purpose. The Hebrew Bible had a purpose: to reveal God and instruct people on how to follow God. But Jesus, as the incarnation, was the perfect revelation of God who could reveal the truly best way to follow him. So Jesus fulfills the purpose of the Laws and the Prophets, which they could not fulfill themselves. But even if "fulfill" meant that Jesus intended to keep Old Testament Law as it stood we can see that immediately in the next verse Jesus says the law will persist "until everything is accomplished". Essential to our theology is that the "accomplishment" is Jesus' death and resurrection; Christ's ultimate purpose on Earth. Once that was completed the Law has no authority over us anyway.

@GodsNotReal_ :
So many Christians talk about sacrificial love, claiming Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice.  Why does it seem Christians are so obsessed with blood?  They sing about it, declare they are washed in it, drink it, and appear to be obsessed with blood sacrifice, both human and animal.  "The Passion of Christ," the most successful movie about Jesus of all times, is almost entirely about chronicling graphic violence, suffering, and gore.

David:
Ha. This is a very Hitchens-y question. I'm not totally sure what it's getting at, though. I don't think I'd say Christians are "obsessed with blood." There is a lot of blood imagery, which is admittedly pretty strange in a modern context, but it's rooted in what I understand to be a common symbol for life and vitality. Blood was just a common part of life through most of history so the origins of that blood talk were pretty mundane. I never saw The Passion, mostly because of the reasons you listed, but if I had to guess I'd say people liked it because it's a dramatic image of how far away from God we could go, yet he would still love us and invite us to be with him.

@GodsNotReal_ :
Let's talk about modern, mainstream issues.  What are your views on homosexual relationships, homosexual marriage, and the transgender community?

David:
I hope I can answer this well, because it really is an area that I feel I have a lot of uncertainty about. So I'll outline my thought process. Right now The Church (big "c") is really split on the issue. It may be one of the biggest theological divisions in history. The Old Testament is pretty clear that homosexual behavior is a punishable offense, but the Old Testament also says not to mix fabrics or eat shellfish, which are hardly moral issues that should be observed today. But the letters of Paul in the New Testament do clearly list homosexual behavior among moral sins. But many Christians (such as Matthew Vines in his book God and the Gay Christian to name one) argue that homosexual relationships of that time were either pederasty or abusive in other ways, and that was why they are called out in the New Testament. Also, there's the simple argument of why would God care about that stuff?

All that to say I don't know exactly what I make of all that. But I do know a few things:

·  Jesus says to love even our enemies, so there's no excuse to having anything less than love for the gay community.

·  No one has the right to force others to live by their religious convictions. That means there's no ground to oppose marriage rights or any other legal benefits.
·  Other things listed as sin in the Bible are greed and hate, and lots of Christians are willing to overlook those extremely prominent sins in The Church to call out homosexuality. If homosexual behavior is a sin then it'd still probably be the bottom of the list in terms of damaging the world.
·  There are gay Christians.
·  I don't see anywhere in the Bible that suggests being trans is a sin.

@GodsNotReal_ :
Deuteronomy 22:13-29 also says that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding day, she shall be executed; as well, it states that the punishment for being raped is that the woman must marry her rapist and never be allowed to divorce.  I have to mention these when a Christian trumpets for "Traditional Marriage" or "Biblical Marriage."  Although you didn't use those terms, how do you define "traditional" or "biblical" marriage?  What are your thoughts on pre-marital co-habitation and pre-marital sex?  What are your thoughts on sex for non-procreation purposes, such as having sex using birth control as well as oral and anal sex?

David:
This could be a whole topic on its own. I'll start with this: Christianity is not monolithic. Like I mentioned earlier, Jesus and the Apostles taught mostly by establishing principles for behavior rather than the strict laws of the Old Testament. Therefore, many denominations try to live by those teachings differently (sometimes by latching on to OT laws that suit them). The terms "traditional/Biblical marriage" are usually owned by a particular brand of conservative denominations. As for non-procreative sex, the idea that it's a sin basically comes from the story of Onan, one of Joshua's brothers, who was called sinful for pulling out during sex (a story always left out in Sunday School). But the sin wasn't the act itself, it was that he was trying to deny his wife a son to screw her over with Jewish inheritance laws. To use that instance as a blanket ban against non-procreative sex is a huge stretch to me. And the Catholic Church pretty much unanimously voted to repeal the birth control ban at Vatican II, but Pope Paul VI chose to ignore it. It's a fascinating story. Some places I do agree with the Traditional Marriage crowd are that sex is for marriage and that marriage is a commitment to unconditionally love and support another person as they unconditionally love and support you. If one or both people aren't doing that then all you really have is a tax benefit.

@GodsNotReal_ :
If the love in a marriage is truly "unconditional," then you are also against divorce, correct?

David:
I can only speak in the context of a Christian marriage. I'm against divorce in the sense that we should pursue reconciliation and selfless love if we commit to it. But if one or both members of the marriage refuse to do that then the marriage vows were broken anyway, which I think are grounds for divorce.

@GodsNotReal_ :
If a 1 is the most conservative of all conservative Republicans and a 10 is the most liberal of all Democrats, where do you fall on that scale?

David:
My politics are very utilitarian and tend to be all over the place. Jesus outlines that we should care sacrificially for the poor, the imprisoned, the sick, the immigrant, etc, which is achieved much better by the Left. The Laissez-faire ethic of the Right does appeal to me, but from what I can see they aren't actually meeting a lot of practical needs. I'm cautiously Pacifist, but openly acknowledge that I'm living in the U.S. and don't know anything about the realities of war. I guess I'd say I'm a 7. Although I really don't have much love for the Democratic Party.

@GodsNotReal_ :
How do you feel about some other hot-button Conservative/Liberal debate topics, such as abortion, immigration, and taxation?

David:
I don't consider most political issues to be religious issues. My politics are informed by my faith, but rarely dictated by it. I think everyone would agree that US immigration policy needs heavy modification. I think a lot of the issue comes from the fact that we live in a globalized society now and no one is totally sure what that should mean. Simply barring entry for Central/South American immigrants ignores that The West is complicit in perpetuating many of the conditions driving people to illegally enter the country in the first place. But series of amnesties are just passing the buck for finding actual long-term solutions. I think the real solution to most of our issues is reflected well in the debate on taxation. The "1%" hold a lot of wealth that doesn't get circulated back into lower-class economies, and it seems practical to have some sort of method like a sliding tax scale, or higher minimum wages to compensate. In essence I do think the rich need to make that sacrifice. And a nation like the US is comparable to the "1%" when viewed globally, so if I advocate for the rich to make economic sacrifices for the poor here then we as a nation definitely need to make the same sacrifices on behalf of the rest of the world. I agree with Sam Harris that overall quality of life is improving, but our culture has expectations beyond the general global trend. A significant amount of pollution, economic oppression, desperate immigrants, etc. are the result of our consumerist society's demands on the global market. Of course these issues are a lot more complex than all that, but this is a general overview of my political mindset and this is response is getting really long already.

@GodsNotReal_ :
Do you believe in the absolute separation of church and state?

David:
I'd say I definitely support the separation of Church and State (if we agree on what that means). I don't want religious observances to be mandated, whether it's praying the Salat or the Lord's Prayer. And I want positions of political and religious authority to be distinct. But people always vote according to their personal beliefs, which are shaped by all kinds of things, including their faith; I don't have anything against that. But for me as a Christian I've noticed that many laws have a motive of social engineering to them, and I think that using social engineering as a tool of the Church is pretty much the opposite of Christ's teaching. That means I tend to oppose laws that prescribe anyone's idea of moral living such as banning same-sex marriage.

@GodsNotReal_ :
Where do you stand on evolution?  Is it true?  Is it guided by God, or completely random?  Should creation be taught in public school as an alternative to evolution?

David:
I know that a lot of conservative Christians disagree with me on this, but I don't think the method of how the universe came to exist has anything to do with our faith as Christians. The sticking point for a lot of people is that they can't/won't accept that the Bible is not really a book; it's a collection of dozens and dozens of documents ranging from histories, to poetry, to legal documents, personal letters, ancient oral traditions, transcribed dreams, etc. Never does anything in the Bible attempt to be an academic scientific text. Everything is written for an immediate audience of ancient Near-East cultures, and it's written in their language. So we need to read the (very short) Creation Account in Genesis with the original author and audience in mind. If you want to create a long-lasting oral document then the structure and story have to fit into a certain pattern or mnemonic device. Genesis is filled with stories using those types of structures (including the Creation Account). The details were not as important as the underlying message that they helped the audience absorb.  This is why you'll often see conflicting accounts throughout the Bible (especially when it comes to numbers), our modern day interest in specific details wasn't shared by most authors of the Bible. Lots of American Christians get uncomfortable when you say that because lots of grey starts to appear. No one takes issue with saying Revelation is filled with imagery, and Christians agree that the Gospels are meant to be historical and literal, but what about Job? What about the fish that swallows Jonah? What about the Creation account? How do we know where to draw the line between literal and figurative? It really is an academic question, but unlike many Atheists suggest, it's not a recent question. I really like Augustine's writings (usually). He was a Bishop around 400 A.D. and wrote pretty extensively on the appropriate ways to interpret the Creation Account, coming to the conclusion that it is a metaphorical account to convey more basic truths: that creation is like a seed that God plants, but it has the potential in it to become something larger and more complex.

All of that is to give some foundation to what I believe. The point of the Genesis Creation Account is to emphasize that God is the creator and has control over it. Also, once that creation is set into motion God allows it to direct itself for the most part, for good or bad. But God will always allow us to return to Him. From a faith standpoint I don't care how it happened, but evolution seems to be the best explanation we have today, and to ban teaching it in schools would mean essentially throwing out most of the Sciences, because evolution is so inexorably linked to every field. As for whether or not evolution is random, I don't know exactly. I think it has to have been in many ways. God often uses what creation provides (whether it's nature or humanity) to make something more than the sum of its parts. So I don't have an issue saying that God allowed evolution to occur, and stepped in when necessary. But it's all really up in the air. None of that is expressly stated in scripture. But I do think the Bible is very clear that we are part of creation, and mostly agree with Carl Sagan that "we are a way for the Cosmos to know itself". And in the words of Stan Marsh, "isn't it possible evolution is just the answer to 'how' and not the answer to 'why'?"