In a letter written on March 21, 1801, to the scientist Joseph Priestly, Thomas Jefferson expressed concern about religious opposition to science. Jefferson wrote, "What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in Politics and Religion have we gone through! The barbarians really flattered themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power & priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the education of our ancestors. We were to look backwards, not forwards."
Yet guests on "Larry King Live" and "Meet the Press" propound Pop Christianity with evangelical zeal. No one challenges them when they use circular logic or assert beliefs scarcely different from secular or pagan superstitions.
To paraphrase Jon Stewart, Pop Christianity is bad for America. Anti-intellectual, anti-traditional, and ahistorical, it is the religious equivalent of Cliff's Notes. If it were a beverage, it would be not communion wine but diet soda.
Worst of all, with the cooperation of politicians and television, it is imposing its superficial worldview on everyone in the United States. No one in the American public sphere would dare write the sort of sustained, blasphemous satires that Mark Twain published a century ago.
There are a few exceptions to this generalization. The Onion has published some hilarious satires on fundamentalist simple-mindedness. Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason," Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian," and Freud's "The Future of an Illusion" are still in print. Thomas Jefferson's version of the New Testament, with the miracles and resurrection deliberately omitted, has been republished by Beacon Press. Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Christopher Hitchens have spoken out against the rising tide and manifest illogic of contemporary Christianity.
If only serious theologians, thoughtful politicians, and courageous secular humanists would dare to join them.
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