Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
And unsurprisingly found at the Worldnutdaily, which seems to specialize in this sort of counter-factual whining. This time it's Greg Laurie with a column entitled The ugly results of banning God from the culture. The first and most obvious question: what culture could he possibly be talking about? It surely can't be the United States of America. Banning God? In no developed nation is god belief and god talk so large a portion of the public discourse, not by a long shot.
There are tens of thousands of churches in this country, probably hundreds of thousands. There are thousands of Christian magazines and newspapers, hundreds of Christian radio and television stations, millions of Christian webpages. It is virtually impossible to be elected to public office without professing a belief in God; in a legislature of 535 people, exactly one admits to being an atheist - and he's the first one that we know of in our entire history. Where in the world has god been banned from this culture?
Laurie offers this quote, for some bizarre reason:
Years ago, G. K. Chesterton made this observation about our culture: "You are free in our time to say that God does not exist; you are free to say that He exists and is evil. ... You may talk of God as a metaphor or mystification ... and it is not merely that nobody punishes, but nobody protests. But if you speak of God as a fact, ... as a reason for changing one's conduct, then the modern world will stop you somehow if it can."
Really? Chesterton was one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century, writing more than 80 books and 4000 essays, many of them speaking of "God as a fact." I don't recall anyone ever even attempting to stop him. He was never thrown in jail or even threatened with it. Bertrand Russell, author of Why I Am Not a Christian, was thrown in jail; Chesterton never was. How exactly has the "modern world" stopped anyone from speaking about God?
The rest of Laurie's column is a tired rehash of the same old "God will punish America just like he did Israel if we don't fall into line" jeremiad we've all heard a thousand times. One really has to wonder what color the sky is in the bizarro universe these people seem to inhabit.
Comments
"There are tens of thousands of churches in this country, probably hundreds of thousands."
Tens of thousands in Texas alone, I'll bet.....
The poor persecuted babes.
Posted by: Coragyps | February 25, 2008 10:33 AM
I found a possible citation for the quote, if anyone wants to check for quote mining.
G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw, Christianity Today, November 9, 1992, p. 37
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | February 25, 2008 11:08 AM
G.K. Chesterton wrote this excerpt as part of a 1909 essay titled George Bernard Shaw (pages 223-224). Here is the full paragraph:
It appears that Chesterton was talking about GB Shaw's plays, as well as the character of GB Shaw. This whole paragraph is based on a clipping in the newspaper about a censor (I'm not going to track down which sensor in what country) banning a play, possibly because a person stated a belief in God that might well be construed as being a blasphemous position (that "God has got him"). The rest of the paragraph ends (imho) in non-contextual drivel (possibly like Laurie's).
Posted by: Umlud | February 25, 2008 11:21 AM
If anyone is interested, Dorothy Parker described Chesterton's writing as the work of:
"A queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples" -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | February 25, 2008 11:24 AM
btw, the essay was 249 pages long, and mentioned "God" 23 times. I would argue, therefore, that Chesterton was likely not writing about the perception of God in 1909 throughout much of his book, save for this one short comment.
Posted by: Umlud | February 25, 2008 11:26 AM
Posted by: C.W | February 25, 2008 12:08 PM
To be fair (and unless I'm not mistaken) Russell was not thrown in jail for his atheism, rather for his pacifistic 'activism' in World War I Britain. Ironically, nowadays, his atheism contributed quite a bit with his not getting tenure in New York in 1940.
Posted by: kamenin | February 25, 2008 12:20 PM
To answer the question, the Censor was an arm of British Parliament. Project Gutenberg's version of the play has an introduction written by Shaw that details the events (about 40 pages long - I skimmed it). It appears that the play was censored for blashpheme. This may be the quote Chesterton refers to:
Of interest - apparently, Chesterton was one of a number of writers that testified at the parliamentary proceedings that resulted from this brouhaha.
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | February 25, 2008 1:05 PM
Bertrand Russell was jailed for his pacifism in England during The Great War. He was denied a teaching position at The College Of The City Of New York for both his atheism and his support of open marriages in 1940. He was called morally unfit to teach young people. Much of the frenzy against Russell was fueled by The Catholic Church in New York.
Posted by: Janine | February 25, 2008 1:34 PM
Geez, I didn't know Bill Donohue was that old!
Posted by: NJ | February 25, 2008 1:50 PM
If we are talking about the modern world then you are right Ed. If we are talking about the Post Modern world then I think you may be mistaken. Any type of absolute is discouraged in Post- Modern thinking. This goes for Science as well as I think you pointed out in a post weeks back.
It will be interesting to see what survives into the next era. I think the whole battle over Science in the classroom is symptomatic of a new line of thinking in America. Without taking sides, I think your camp may be in trouble. The article a while back about the ID people using post-modern terminology was insightful.
It will be interesting to see what this new movie with Ben Stein does. The politically correct world seeks to equalize all things. This means in the end no viewpoint is invalid unless it invalidates someone else's viewpoint. I can tell you from being a teacher that this is how kids are taught to think now.
This will affect the Science classroom sooner or later. The atheist vs. Christian debate is not getting as much play as it used to. That is a modern world debate in which the Christian had all the power(and in many cases used it to persecute dissent) for most of the last 200 or 300 years. I agree at least for American. But please do not miss that as this country becomes less conservative and more post modern there is no guarantee that it will stay that way. In many ways this is good but in other ways this is bad.
Posted by: King of Ireland | February 25, 2008 1:55 PM
NJ, the body is not that old but the attitude is ancient.
Nice line.
Posted by: Janine | February 25, 2008 2:46 PM
So... the quote from Chesterton was referring to an incident of the [British] Censor disallowing a play of GB Shaw's because it was blasphemous. And Laurie says that this quote taken from Chesterton is a good example of how God is not allowed in the public sphere?
Yes, Ed. Now with all the evidence, I, too, can't understand why quoting Chesterton on an incident of censorship in the Pre-WW1 UK of blasphemy against God would have any relevance with "our culture."
The problems that quote-mining will get you: misrepresentation of an ally, and a myopic view of "our" culture.
Posted by: Umlud | February 25, 2008 5:03 PM
Too bad televisions don't come with a G-chip as well as the V-chip. I'd love to ban religious whackery and God-talk at least from my own household.
Posted by: tired of it | February 25, 2008 5:40 PM
King of Ireland:
I can see why you get that impression, but it's not true. It's more correct to say that in post-modern thinking, speaking in terms of absolutes is one way out of many of approaching a problem. For some situations, it's correct, for others, it isn't.
It's kind of like how historical fiction or science fiction authors sometimes bend the facts a bit because it suits their literary purposes to do so. No scientist or historian would stand for that sort of thing in their field, but the overwhelming majority are willing to forgive peccadillos like that in fiction, so long as it's not too misleading. The rest just don't understand fiction.
(And, I might add, this example is not random. It's no coincidence that postmodernism comes from literary theory.)
Posted by: Pseudonym | February 25, 2008 6:08 PM
It's funny how modern-day martyrs don't throw themselves to actual lions (not that that happened historically anyway), but they love to write and publish about how they're being thrown. Which of course defeats their entire point. Self-mythology, indeed.
Posted by: Tyler | February 25, 2008 7:58 PM
Laurie offers this quote... Years ago, G. K. Chesterton made this observation about our culture: "...in our time ...if you speak of God as a fact...then the modern world will stop you somehow if it can."... G.K. Chesterton wrote this excerpt as part of a 1909 essay
Well if Greg Laurie doesn't like living in 1909, then maybe he should just move.
Posted by: Coin | February 25, 2008 8:07 PM
According to Appendix 2, the Censor thought the play was blasphemous. I don't understand Chesterton's remarks in this context; it certainly doesn't seem to support Laurie's position. Would someone care to elaborate?
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/gregory/theatre/appendix-II.html
Posted by: j a higginbotham | February 25, 2008 8:39 PM
It's interesting that the same folks that complain about being persecuted, have put the rights of gay people up for a vote on the ballot. They then brag in fund raising letters about how they can use their numerical superiority to decide just what types of rights others will be allowed to have.
Posted by: soboco | February 25, 2008 11:47 PM
First, Chesterton was working off of a newspaper(?) report. He may not have had the full knowledge at the time he wrote the paper.
The second elaboration is to examine the style of Chesterton. Admittedly, I knew nought of him ere the subject arose, but he is styled "the prince of Paradox"
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | February 25, 2008 11:54 PM
Well, by now I'm sure that many of you have read [about] the recently released Pew report of the U.S. religious landscape. For those Xtians who feel they are being a persecuted minority, let me just quote these numbers:
Xtians (as % of US population): 78.4%
-- Protestant: 51.3%
-- -- Evangelical: 26.3%
-- -- Mainline: 18.1%
-- -- Historical black churches: 6.9%
-- Catholic: 23.9%
-- Mormon: 1.7%
-- Jehovies: 0.7%
-- Orthodox: 0.6%
NON-Xtian religions: 4.7%
UNAFFILIATED: 16.1%
-- Atheist: 1.6%
-- Agnostic: 2.4%
-- Nothing in particular: 12.1%
I don't know what sect of crazy Laurie is in, but I would guess that he's a Xtian (majority of US population). I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that he's a Protestant (majority of US population). He might even be an Evangelical (largest Xtian sub-group). Until they (Xtians, Protestants, Evangelicals) actually show up as a minority group, I will justifiably find their "persecuted minority" status laughable.
Posted by: Umlud | February 26, 2008 9:54 AM
Of course, what theists/Christians who say these things really mean is that they don't want a bunch of people openly criticizing their religious beliefs for lacking rational justification (i.e., for being superstition), and if you do, then they'll whine and moan about being "persecuted." They really want to keep a lid on this open criticism of faith-based beliefs in "polite society."
This is one reason I have found the religious criticism of the "new" atheism for being "militant" so amusingly ironic. What religious people who say these kinds of things really mean is that they have enjoyed the free ride they've had when the expression of religious belief is "respected" (not questioned rationally) - and they've had free reign to bad-mouth atheism and atheists for centuries - and atheists in society have basically kept their mouths shut. What irks them is that atheism has grown enough in U.S. society that now atheists are not willing to just keep their mouths shut anymore. A "militant" atheist is simply an atheist who doesn't automatically keep his mouth shut any more just because someone says, "Well, I believe this because it's my faith." Now we increasingly have "militant" atheists who won't let that be the end of discussion, but continue on, "Okay, so what? Now I want your reasons for that belief. Oh, you don't have any? So, what you're really telling me is that you arbitrarily believe it just because you wish to believe even though you can't rationally justify it. Therefore, there's no reason for anyone to believe it. And that's my point. That's why I don't accept your belief, and furthermore that's exactly what I'm openly telling everyone else when it happens to come up in conversation." It is this openness of basic criticism that makes us "new" atheists so "militant." ;-)
Posted by: SteveG | February 27, 2008 12:07 AM