The Atlantic [Monthly] is a magazine I respect and enjoy. Most of my friends think that I place too much trust in "liberal" media outlets but I appreciate good writing, not that anyone reading this blog would have drawn that conclusion, and most of the best writing today is in the so called liberal media. (The writers of The Economist may take exception to my comments).
I was intrigued by an article in the April issue with the following teaser; "
Why God Loves Globalization." I studied "globalization" in undergrad. Well, that's what I did if I wasn't playing rugby and singing rude songs, (alas I
am the marrying kind), so maybe it's better to say that I have a mild interest and cluttered background on the topic. Suffice to say that I read article with interest.
The article was adapted from Robert Wright's book, The Evolution of God. Wright's point is that the three Abrahamic religions; Christianity, Judaism and Islam all benefited from globalization. There are many definitions for globalization but one of them is, the rapid flow of people and ideas to all parts of the globe. So one could argue that any religion (idea) would benefit from globalization. Most of the featured text concerns Christianity, and Wright's first statement concerning Christianity regards the accuracy of the Gospel of Mark in contrast to the other gospels (John, Luke and Matthew). He bases this assumption on the fact that Mark was written first and the assumption that the other Gospels are merely copies of Mark. This is a very popular idea these days as Bart Ehrman leans heavily on it in Misquoting Jesus.
Wright spends the rest of the portion on Christianity convincing the reader of what a great globalist the apostle Paul was. How he recognized the Roman need for a social organization, and filled that need with the church, how he used the latest technology and Rome's great road system to spread his epistle's all over the world, and how he took advantage of wealthy, privileged people to help him host his churches.
I don't know anything about Robert Wright, but he echoes every other Johnny-Come-Lately expert on Christianity that I've heard. Instead of examining the Gospel, and Paul's writing as if they are divinely inspired texts which fit into a place in time specifically designed to have maximum impact on the history of the world, they put the cart in front of the horse. Matthew, Luke and John were not inspired eye witnesses, but poor copiers of Mark. Paul was not a humble servant of God, penning the ideas divined from the Holy Spirit, but an evil genius, inserting his own ideas about a good man (Jesus) that he never met. To what ends I don't know, for Paul was executed because of his belief. Ehrman, Wright, and others who share their ideas, seem uncomfortable calling the whole of Christianity a sham, instead they just want to do away with all the miraculous bits of it.
The trouble is that the whole idea of Christianity is miraculous. It is the account of God becoming a man, being killed, then being raised from the dead. Throw out the supernatural from that statement and one is left with nothing but murder. Wright has made some wonderful observations about the placement of the early church in history. But instead of seeing this as evidence of God's providence, he blames Paul for spreading a sham that could not have been spread one hundred years prior. Only, Wright doesn't have the integrity to call Christianity a sham outright, he just leads the reader there.
If we are to believe in the Jesus that today's scholars are trying to convince us existed, we must throw out anything that makes him worthy of worship. Every time I read stuff like this I am more convinced of divine influence throughout history, exactly the opposite of what the authors want. I guess Robert Wright isn't near the globalist that Paul was.
