Opening Our Minds to Secular Philosophies
Taking off the blinders & digging up the heretics
My high school English teacher tried to teach us philosophy. Our class slogged through Henry David Thoreau, performed dramatic read-alouds of Paradise Lost, and drew diagrams of “ultimate chair-ness” on the white board to understand the Platonic ideal. But while Mr. Robinson was a phenomenal teacher, but these lessons were lost on me. I, like most Christian fundamentalists, had long been warned of the evils of secular thought. There’s a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in conservative Christianity. 1 Corinthians 1:27 was often trotted out to refute secular arguments: “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Likewise, being “open minded” was derided in Christian Contemporary Music, like in this 90s ska banger.
This hesitance to intellectually engage with the outside world now seems like a desperate attempt to retain control. As science has advanced human understanding and secular morality has evolved, fundamentalist Christianity is wedded to the past. Its hesitancy to engage with outsiders feels like a tacit admission that it can’t out-argue its secular counterparts. The only way to survive, it seems to say, is to retreat. Silo ourselves with our own media, our own education system. Focus on recruiting children who haven’t yet developed critical thinking skills.
This isn’t to say that conservative Christianity hasn’t been shaped by philosophers. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and C.S. Lewis are just a few of the philosophers who’ve left outsized marks on contemporary Christianity. But whereas philosophy is a method of looking at something from multiple different angles, with philosophers arguing and building upon each other’s views, Christianity tends to label divergent thought as heretical, effectively ending the conversation. Many theological arguments seem to dead end with an appeal to authority; it feels like a layperson doesn’t have a right to question certain tenets unless they’ve been to seminary and can read ancient Greek or Hebrew.
This rigidity is, I believe, one reason why so many young people are leaving the church. Most of us under the age of forty were raised online; the internet has been as radical a disruption to the dissemination of information as the printing press ever was. The latter’s invention helped spur the protestant reformation. Perhaps the democratization of information is spurring the church towards another breaking apart and reformation?
Whether or not that comes to pass, rediscovering philosophy feels like an important part of figuring out what I want to believe moving forward. Particularly I’m interested in moral philosophy and the question, “What do we owe each other?” So this April I’m going to be looking at a few different philosophers on that topic. I’ll also be looking at The Good Place, one of my favorite sitcoms of the last decade, and showrunner Michael Schur’s wry companion book, How to Be Perfect. I’m also listening to the podcast, Philosophize This.
And I want to hear from you! I’d love to read your answers in the comments.
Journal/Discussion Questions:
What does it mean to be a “good person"?
What are the books/shows/podcasts/etc have shaped your thoughts on morality? Share your recommendations, please!
Drop your favorite philosopher memes in the comments!
This is something I’ve been discussing with my boyfriend. I come from a conservative evangelical background and he does not. As I continue to think through my own deconstruction I’m hitting different road blocks of fear of the secular world. It’s been drilled not only into my psyche but it seems that every fiber of my being vibrates with “be careful, Satan is lurking behind every corner.” I love how my bf provides a new perspective for me, and at the same time, as Im figuring out how to move forward and evolve as a person, it’s hard to know what beneficial things from Christianity I actually want to keep vs what things Im holding onto simply from the panic of being demonically influenced. I feel angry for being kept so shut off from the rest of the world. Angry for not truly being able to make an informed decision about what I believe, yet thankful I have the opportunity to do it now despite how hard and terrifying it feels. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on stuff like this. It helps me not feel so alone or bad for being open to other perspectives.
The conclusion I've come to more and more is once we remove "the afterlife" from Christianity it's a pretty mediocre operating system for life. And I'm referring to the institutionalized version of course. I think the teachings of Jesus himself, especially those focused on creating a society framed upon love and harmony, are inspiring, but incomplete. In the not so distant future we'll begin to see philosophical systems that take the best of all the traditions and blend them together. How exciting and beneficial that will be!!