I just watched Bill Maher’s “Religulous,” which is more of a withering mock-u-mentary than a documentary. Maher’s sharp, comedic wit drives this film, which opens by showing Bill visiting with and interviewing fundamentalist Christian truckers at a portable church contained in a tractor trailer and parked among all the other semi-tractor trailers at a southern truck stop. With that sort of launching point, it’s not surprising that he treats us to other eccentric religious venues that include a fundamentalist Christian theme park in Florida, and the Creationist museum in Kansas. He interviews a church minister whose claim to fame is using religion to “cure” his homosexuality; a Jewish rabbi who is also, amazingly, a Holocaust denier; and Muslim apologists in Denmark who do a lame job of distancing themselves and Islam from the violence that claimed the life of Theo van Gogh and still threatens the life of Salmon Rushdie. Bill’s point throughout is that all religion and religious expressions are bad for us all and are likely to collectively suck us down the black hole of stupidity, intolerance and violence. On one hand he makes a great point, given the recent historical evidence. Eight years ago, 19 Muslim extremist hijackers screaming “God is great!” caused three planes to crash, killing over 3000 people. The subsequent response from those identifying themselves as deeply religious Christians was to pinpoint human evil in a subgroup of people and then go about the business of exterminating them with an understanding that they were bringing God’s light into the darkness–by bombing, shelling, strafing and slaughtering. And what about innocent civilian casualties? There was barely a collective “Whoops!”
Maher is right to skewer the simple-minded and screwed-up religious people he encounters, and he deftly uncovers their simple-mindedness and screwed-upness in his interviews. He is also spot-on to stand in the great plaza of the Vatican and ask if such lavish papal quarters are truly what Jesus had in mind.
And the bit with Maher standing in the London public square and shouting out the basic tenets of Scientology, which make him appear more lunatic than the other folks spouting their minds, is pure gold.
And yet, as I watched Bill going from the truck stop trailer-church to the Christian theme park to the Creationist museum in America’s heartland, I found myself not so much watching him debunk religion as worthless superstition; but instead seeing him move like I’ve watched a cheetah hunt on National Geographic programs. The cheetah will stalk a herd of critters, then pick out the weakest and slowest members to run down for its meal.
Bill did not interview any religious people of substance. There were no mainline protestant clergy featured, nor mainstream rabbis, nor mainstream muslim clerics, nor any buddhist leaders. There was no one other than a couple of Roman Catholic priests to represent the richer, deeper dimensions of the religions he sized up and shot down using their weakest links. The priests acquitted themselves admirably, though their screen time was limited. Being a cheetah-like hunter and knowing he was only good at short, intense bursts, he chose to ignore other interview subjects who would have been more formidable-and here I’m thinking of someone like former Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, or John Dominic Crossan. Each would have sympathies for Maher’s premise regarding the danger of religion, and each has done amazing work in the overall effort to bring forth from Christianity a more resonant understanding of Christ for our time. Spong, you may remember, was once a determined adversary of the late Jerry Falwell. But Maher was more interested in the quick kill, the easy score. Why go fly-fishing in some unknown stream when there’s a stock pond nearby where the fish are just waiting to jump on your hook; big, stupid, hungry fish.
The film is humorous and it does expose a lot of what is troubling in religious expression today. But my main disagreement with his premise is that I see religion as a bigger, deeper and more impactful part of the human experience. It’s too simplistic to come at religion with a post-Enlightenment, First-World projection of rationalism and denounce all religion by holding up the more lame and ludicrous aspects of it. It would be like, say, a certain Lutheran pastor deciding he didn’t think there was any more use for comedians and talk show hosts in society and focusing in on Paulie Shore and Joe Franklin to make his case. That wouldn’t be fair, would it? Now that I think about it, that also would be a pretty funny film to make, with lots of room for biting satire to boot.
The other sticking point I have with Bill’s take on religion is that it ignores the powerful impact it has had for good change in our history. The American civil rights movement was a predominately religious movement, as was the abolitionist movement that preceded it. The struggle to liberate South Africa from Apartheid was rooted in the religious faith of ordinary people who felt empowered by a force and calling much greater than themselves. The same can be said for the Polish resistance to Soviet oppression, the non-violent resistance rooted in and passed along through the teachings of the Christian faith.
A world-wide organization, Christian Peacemaking Team, has been at work in places like Iraq and Palestine to meet the threats of violence and oppression with non-violent resistance techniques rooted in the New Testament.
Last year an important public document was prepared by leading Muslim theologians throughout the world. “A Common Word Between Us and You,” recognizes the seriousness of the violence overtaking our world and speaks to the need for all the people connected to the three faiths rooted in Abraham to find common ground that will at least get us to stop killing each other in the name of righteousness.
Though Bill would disagree, it seems that religion is not so much to blame for the sorry state of our current condition. It’s our long-standing human condition that got us here. In that condition we use religion along with politics and anything else we might find useful as the levers to get what we want. For some among us this is peace of mind and a sense of security that serves as a cocoon to shield out anything that might suggest our existence is the least bit complicated. For others the desires might be power, control, domination of others, and great wealth. For others the desire may be to find meaning in the midst of a meaningless existence.
But religion offers something else to people that has nothing to do with what we want and more to do with what we need. Religion at it’s healthiest gets people to see and revere the spark of life in all living things, and also brings an awareness that this spark comes from somewhere outside our frames of perception, from a source one can describe best as “divine.” Religion draws forth the most beautiful expressions of music and art from people, and engages people in familiar places like the mind while revealing hidden places of consciousness many would call the soul. Religion offers a disciplined practice to deepen our awareness that we are more than the material sum of our parts and our acquisitions.
I’ve been in a church where I was suddenly overcome by a feeling that I was in a holy place and in the company of a holy Presence. I’ve also been in a church where I felt overcome in a different way, where the best course of action was to hold an exorcism. I’ve been in a church where the life had just about been sucked out of the place. And I’ve been in a church where the expressions of art and music took me to a place I wasn’t expecting, a rich and beautiful place. All of these experiences speak to the deep and complicated and often difficult aspects of the life we see and know as the religious life.
For Bill Maher to diss it in such predictable and superficial ways, well, it kind of pisses me off. But that’s probably what he’d want from me.
