Postmodernism, and the bizarre way that evangelicals define 'religion'

Why don’t gay groups like calling themselves homosexual? Why should you avoid using ‘capitalism’ to talk about capitalism? And why have evangelicals redefined the word ‘religion’? The answer is that modernism was wrong about language.

Language has drift, and capitalism has a bad rep

One great contribution of Postmodernism has been to point out that language is not neutral. Modernism got it wrong: language is not a transparent medium, words do not represent things unproblematically. Rather, words are steeped in cultural prejudices and loaded with public presuppositions—ingrained grooves that carry one in certain directions.

This is obviously true of certain phrases. If I said that in 2007, CDOs had lulled bankers into a false sense of …, you’d immediately think ‘security’. People rarely seem to be lulled into anything else.

But these ingrained groves don’t just hurry our thoughts towards certain words, but also towards certain ideas. We start to associate particular concepts with words, associations which influence the way we think and speak, associations which are governed by the views of our community or culture.

Take the word ‘capitalism’. It didn’t always conjure up warm feelings before the 2007 crash, it was strongly linked to greedy bankers afterwards, and since Piketty it suddenly sends one off down some mental train track thinking about inequality. If one wanted to praise that ‘economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state’, one might even want to avoid using the word capitalism altogether. As our culture changes, the value and direction of words changes too.

Community meanings and homosexuality

Postmoderns also tell us that every community moulds language to justify its beliefs and practices. Members of different communities might use the same word, but associate with it different ideas or even use it to mean something different. By shaping their language, communities can subtly shape the way their members think, arranging their thoughts so that the community’s values naturally seem correct.

One recent example is the way that certain groups variously call gay people gay or homosexual. I just typed ‘homosexuality choice’ into Google, and four of the top five results were:

Yes, Homosexuality Absolutely Is a Choice - Huffington Post

Being Gay Not a Choice: Science Contradicts Ben Carson

Are you born gay or is it a choice? - PinkNews.co.uk

Homosexuality and choice - Conservapedia

The trend roughly held through the rest of the results. The anti-gay websites call gay people homosexual, and the pro-gay sites call them gay. Why? Well, says Wikipedia,

some recommend completely avoiding usage of homosexual as it has a negative, clinical history and because the word only refers to one's sexual behavior (as opposed to romantic feelings) and thus it has a negative connotation.

Perhaps those who think that being homosexual is a choice prefer the word homosexuality because it sounds more like a curable disease, while those who think that being gay isn’t a choice use the word gay because it sounds more neutral and harmless. This may or may not be precisely true, but I think the general point stands. Different groups are choosing their own vocabularies because those vocabularies subtly support their positions.

The funny way that evangelicals define ‘religion’

Another example is the extraordinary way that many Anglo-American evangelically-leaning protestants use the word ‘religion’. (I’ll call them evangelicals from now on. It’s inaccurate and ludicrously broad-brushed, but the label has some truth and it’s better than AAELPs.) They have developed a new meaning of the word which confuses those outside of their context. They say things like ‘religion never saved anyone’ and make videos entitled ‘Why I hate religion, but love Jesus’. And they use the word in this way because it subtly reinforces some of the distinctive beliefs of their community.

The word religion normally means (according to Google), the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

On the other hand, when evangelicals use the word religion, they refer to a miserable man-made system of doing good, a laborious legalism by which people try to avoid God’s anger and gain his pleasure. Christianity, by contrast, isn’t primarily interested in what we do. For one, it’s concerned with what God has done for us in Christ’s substitutionary death for our sin. And secondly, it’s concerned with the possibility of joyfully obeying God as one’s Saviour and Lord. Hence, the logic goes, Christianity is not a religion.

Lots of things are now in the religion box that weren’t there before. In addition to all the world religions, there’s any sort of rules-first version of Christianity like those unpleasant American groups who attended church weekly and have very stringent ethics, but who are loveless and sneeringly proud of their personal morality.

It’s not surprising that evangelicals want a word to express the difference between do-gooding and having faith in Christ alone. The difference is critical—so critical that the protestant reformers died for it.

It is odd though that evangelicals have chosen to express this difference with the word ‘religion’. Many religions aren’t concerned with good works in the way that evangelicals understand the term, let alone with doing good works to appease the eschatological wrath of a deity. There are also religions that believe in a kind of grace. Shin Buddhism, for instance, holds that unconditional grace from Amida is a person’s only hope, as humans are too deeply rooted in karmitic evil to save themselves out by good deeds. Yet evangelicals tend to see the grace/works dichotomy in all belief systems.

Another odd thing about the choice of ‘religion’ is that ‘grace not works’ is neither only thing that differentiates Christianity from other religions, nor the most important thing. The Trinity, by contrast, is more central to the Bible’s message and more distinctive than grace, but consider how odd it would sound if evangelicals used the word ‘religion’ to mean ‘a system that denies the triunity of God’. This reflects, once again, the way that evangelicals often place such a heavy emphasis on grace-vs-works that they effectively reduce the Christian message to the doctrine of justification.

The choice also strongly enforces the uniqueness of Christianity, to the detriment of showing how other religions are like it. The usual usage of religion puts Christianity in the same box as all other religions; evangelicals use the word to differentiate it from all other religions. Christ is unique, and salvation is found in no one else, but the religion/Christianity differentiation feels so strict as to suggest there’s nothing commendable in other religions at all. In reality, there’s some bad and some good, and Christians should praise the good while showing how that good is best expressed in the Christian story.

The uniqueness of Christianity is enforced even more effectively because the new definition creates a verbal barrier to talking about Christianity and other religions in the same light. The word that you’d naturally use to compare religions (‘religion’) now means something different, so if you want to use religion in its normal sense, the sense that puts all religions are in the same box, you have to specify which definition of ‘religion’ you’re using. It’s awkward and prohibitive.

So the new evangelical definition of religion promotes the ideas that, (1) grace-not-works is the chief element of the Gospel, (2) world religions are all concerned with doing good works, (3) Christianity is different from other religions primarily because it believes in grace, and (4) Christianity is unique in every aspect, utterly different from other religions. The new definition also (5) constrains one’s language, making it harder to talk about how Christianity and other religions are similar.  These ideas subtly reinforce evangelicalism’s emphases on grace/works and the uniqueness of Christianity.

Or, at least, the new definition might do those things. There are ways to use it well, and contexts in which it might be powerful. In Britain, the works-grace distinction is not widely understood among non-Christians. Many do not realise the Bible says that only the cross can put one in the right with God or that grace might be prior to and might motivate doing good. Christians who wholeheartedly follow Christ are often told by non-Christians that they’re ‘so religious’, as if they followed Christ not from joy but rather through extreme willpower or madcap zeal. In this context, to respond by saying that ‘Christianity isn’t a religion’ can be a helpful polemic.

The new definition of ‘religion’ should, however, only be used polemically and irregularly. It’s too imbalancing and too distorting to be useful for making any substantial claim. Even if it was not born out of imbalance, it has grown popular through it and is used so widely and so assertively that it perpetuates that distortion.

Language is not neutral, and communities mould it to their advantage. And modernism was wrong.

Parliament Part I: Parliament's Path to Prominence

We all have vague ideas about parliament: it’s the gargantuan Gothic building next to Big Ben; it makes laws; it’s something to do with the government; and for some reason the Queen submits to it, instead of taking charge and, say, re-colonising America. But we’re probably a little less sure how Parliament became so important, or what its present importance even is. In this post, we’ll look at the first of these: the winding, erratic history of Parliament and its half-fraught, half-harmonious relationship with king and power and government. In the next, Part II, we’ll examine the diminishing place of Parliament today. We’ll consider whether the power and government which Parliament once controlled now control Parliament.

But for now, back to the past. Our story has two big themes. Keep a weather eye out for them. One is the relationship between Parliament and king. Are their swords crossed and their eyes shooting daggers? Or are they working together? And if they are, who’s the top dog? The other theme is how power, especially the king’s power, was slowly limited and institutionalised to protect liberty and promote the interests of the whole nation.

The Magna Carta & Parliament give the Barons a share in the king’s power

Our story begins with the Magna Carta, the same Magna Carta whose 800th anniversary we celebrated last year, partying, as all of us did, til the early hours and burning banners blazoned with ‘vis et voluntas’ (force and will), the slogan of naughty king John, this very Magna Carta is at the start of Parliament’s story. You see, 13th century barons had a problem: kings had a lot of power, and tended to misuse it: the phrase ‘vis et voluntas’ basically meant, I can do what I want. But, 13th century barons also had a solution: they had a big punch-up with the king, and made him agree to the Magna Carta. In it, the barons demanded that the king must stop being such a loose canon, and govern through their council. This meant, among other things, insisting that the king should only collect taxes if the baron’s council permitted him to. The king had to agree because if the baron’s didn’t pay their taxes then he wouldn’t get any dollar. No dollar, no power, no fun. So the king agreed to the Magna Carta.

Not long afterwards, the barons’ council was amalgamated with the parlement. Parlement comes from the French word parler, meaning, to have a chat. So parlement, or Parliament, was a gabfest, and the people who ran it gabbed about law, specifically judging legal cases, as a high court, and making laws, as a legislature. And soon Par-lee-a-ment became an opportunity for big wigs to chat about all things government. Government and council and parliamentary court and legislature--all these institutions were all integrated under the king’s power.

This would be a good time to Define a Term: government. Government, funnily enough, comes from the French word governer, a fact which is, funnily enough, irrelevant. The government is also called the executive, and its job is to execute, to do stuff and administrate, to wage war and enforce law.

The king is the chief executive: he’s in charge of the government. The barons wanted to weasel their way into government as minor executives, which was why they busied about with the council and parlement. So Parliament didn’t oppose the king. Quite the opposite: it was jolly useful for running his legal system and helping him govern. But Parliament did give the Barons a share in the king’s power, shielding them from the king indiscriminately taxing their cash, or arbitrarily acting against them. Parliament protected their liberties.

Parliament’s rise & the king’s diminution

Parliament became more powerful as rulers used it more. Henry VIII is well known as the king who was fond of women and executions, but he was also really fond of Parliament, and he used it a lot. He used it to break with Roman Catholicism, and to eliminate many of the English church’s privileges, bringing it under his assertive thumb. The arrangement worked so effectively that he once exclaimed in a speech, ‘we at no time stand so highly in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament’. Ding ding ding. Acts of Parliament became the highest expression of law. If I may Define Another Term, institutions that make laws are called legislatures. As the most important legislature, and Parliament began to take itself awfully seriously.

… which set it on a collision course with the incompetent and tyrannical Charles I. He tried to rule without Parliament. He claimed his governmental power derived from divine appointment. He said stuff like ‘the king can do no wrong’, a phrase that a less understanding ear might hear as ‘the king can do whatever he wants’. That’s what the parliamentarians heard anyway, and they weren’t impressed. They had started to think that governmental power wasn’t derived from God, but from the People; and if the government derives its right to rule from the people, it shouldn’t use its power against the people, against their liberty. Though once integrated, Parliament and the King start to separate.

Things came to a head when Charles ran out of shekels and had ask Parliament if he could please levy some taxes, please my good chums. The answer was ‘no way, Jose’ (or, Charles), there was a civil war (you’ll recall all that stuff from school about Roundheads and Cavaliers biffing each other) a civil war that was won by Cromwell, who set up a parliamentary republic, and who was followed shortly afterwards by the brief and blundering rule of his useless son, which was soon followed by the brief and blundering reign of Charles I’s son, James II, before Parliament finally asked William of Orange to be the new king. Phew. There was also a new constitutional settlement, expressed in Parliament’s Bill of Rights (1689), a settlement which specifically limited the king’s powers.

Parliament had now made a man king, by law, and defined his powers, by law. That, dear readers, is what you call absolute legislative authority, and Parliament felt pretty chuffed with it. The technical term is Parliamentary Sovereignty, that is, Parliament can make laws about anything, and their laws trump everything. Let’s quickly take stock of our themes. Firstly, though the monarchs still had control of the government, Parliament really held the reigns of power. For instance, the monarch still controlled the army, but Parliament could legislate to control its size. It’s hard to get anything done if the law-makers don’t work with you. As for our other main theme, the monarch’s powers had been limited, and were now restrained by an institution that believed in protecting liberty, not just the liberty of the barons or parliamentarians, but the liberty of the people.

The king found the new restraints galling, so he tried to get a stake in this wretched Parliament business by appointing influential MPs as his ministers. The king’s ministers ministered to the king by running the government for him. By ordaining MPs as ministers, the king was basically bribing them with power, hoping that they could get all the other Members of Parliament to support his policies. This cunning plan backfired, because if a minister annoyed Parliament too much, Parliament could just take a vote and force the minister to resign as an MP, a fate too horrifying for most ministers to even contemplate. So instead of the ministers manipulating Parliament for the king, the king’s ministers were manipulated by Parliament. The king carried on appointing ministers, but they did what Parliament told them to. Power was now strongly institutionalised: it could no longer be wielded by the whims and injustices of an absolute ruler.

Parliament and the People

Although Parliament was in charge at the start of the 19th c., not the monarch, the people were still underrepresented. MPs were mostly aristocrats and the people who were allowed to vote for them were mostly their aristocratic buddies. But a succession of reforms (1832-1928) made adult suffrage universal. In other words, everyone got the vote, and Parliament focused itself on the interests of the whole nation. People also started to vote in less aristocratic MPs, so much so that the Marquees of Sailsbury bitterly complained that he ‘expect[ed] that the House of Commons will mainly be filled by tradesmen trying to secrete gentility’. Tradesmen these new MPs might have been, but they were the people.

Not only so, but when in 1909 the House of Lords—read, house of aristocrats—opposed the government’s budget, the government demonstrated the people’s support by calling and winning a general election. The Lords backed down, and the government passed the Parliament Act, 1911, an act which removed the Lord’s veto power and legislated that “money bills” would not require their consent. If you cast your minds back to the Tax Credits kerfuffle, you might recall that Parliament passed a bill, that this bill had something to do with money, that the Lords blocked said bill, and that some MPs glowed scarlet with constitutional indignation. That’s a boring story for a more boring day, but the interesting point of it all is that elected politicians should have the biggest say, because they represent the voice of the people. The people’s voice was authoritative, and power was there to listen to them.

Postscript

And that’s roughly the story of Parliament until the early 20th c. I say roughly because aside from the fact that it’s been an impressionistic whirlwind, we’ve ended with Parliament in charge and government ministers underneath it. In fact, by then, the government was subordinating Parliament. In the next post we’ll discuss what changed: whether Parliament plays much of a role any more; whether it has been demoted to the position of second tree on the stage of politics; and whether government has risen from understudy to be the chief actor. Look out for Part II!

Budweiser's Stupid Copywriting

The other day, in a moment of despondency about my unending unemployment, I tried to cheer myself up by buying a bottle of Bud. It didn’t work. I became marginally less happy when I realised that I don’t like the taste of light, fizzy lager; but my mood went disastrously downhill when I read the rubbish they’ve scrawled on their bottle. Lots of beers claim absurd things for themselves, but Budweiser trumps the lot.

The label begins, This is the famous Budweiser beer. This is an unremarkable start, if a little smug. The next sentence seems to completely undercut it. We know of no brand, it tells us, produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age. What exactly are Budweiser boasting about? I think there are two options, each as unimpressive as the other.

They could be bragging that their manufacturing processes are not just slow and expensive, but the very slowest and most expensive in the whole world. A few reflections on this: first, their margins must be terrible; second, their management must be terrible; third, they’re spending a lot of money, and they’re coming up with Bud.

Perhaps, then, we could read them more charitably: when they say they know of no other brand whose production is even less efficient than theirs, we should infer that they literally know of no other brands. Their production costs might actually be pretty cheap, but they can accurately claim to know of no other brand that’s more expensive because they know of no other brand. But knowing nothing about your industry (or the universe at large) doesn’t seem a very spectacular claim either.

So Budweiser is either telling us that they’re desperately inefficient, or knowingly ignorant. Why they want to advertise such things is beyond me.

The next sentence of promotional material doesn’t improve matters: Our exclusive Beechwood Aging produces a taste, a smoothness, and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any price. On face value, this seems to hold a lesson for patronising, capitalist pigs like me who scoff at inefficiency and ignorance, but who don’t understand that true craftsmanship is invaluable. If Bud really is spending more on their beer than anyone else ever, it’s because they’re artists. Maybe my mechanistic mind can’t comprehend the pricelessness of Beechwood Aging and the internationally-recognised categories of taste, smoothness and drinkability.

Or maybe their craftsmanship isn’t so special. Bud’s taste is a matter of taste: like every drink, some people like it, many others don’t, and the people hawking it claim it’s ambrosia. Bud isn’t smooth: unlike, say, Guinness, it’s exploding with the prickliness of trapped CO2. And Bud is exactly as drinkable as every other liquid, including sulphuric acid. In other words, their exclusive Beechwood Aging produces a taste and a drinkability that people already find everywhere else, and a smoothness you won’t find actually find in Bud at all.

Here’s the label is really saying:

This is the famous Budweiser beer. We either produce it inefficiently, or maybe we don’t know anything. Our unique Beechwood Aging produces three attributes: one subjective, one imaginary, and one common to every beer at any price.