Faith and Other Grand Narratives

Kramer, Reinhold

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30569-7_7

Reinhold Kramer²

258 Accesses

Abstract

Declining religiosity marks a postmodern departure from the past, and recent grand narratives of science or of environmentalism haven’t filled the gap, thereby putting at risk some of the goods that faith communities nurture. This doesn’t mean, Kramer argues, that we have done away with grand narratives. Among the two-thirds of Americans and Canadians who are neither atheists nor strong believers, Kramer analyses two very limited responses to the decline of faith narratives—ego-based narratives and small narratives limited to a circumscribed group—as well as three broader responses—selective adherence, pluralist adaptation, and humanism. Humanism, the attempt to renew moral values on a non-religious basis, has become a central de facto grand narrative. The chapter includes a case study of humanist chaplain Bart Campolo.

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Notes

1.
Ferdy Baglo.
2.
C. Smith, 125, 139, 141, 213.
3.
An additional 17% say that religion is somewhat important (Bibby, 168, 178–9, 185). In Canada, rates of teens with no religion were highest in the North (51%) and British Columbia (44%), lowest in Ontario (23%). According to 2001 Canadian Census data, 16% of adults said that they had no religion, up from a pre-1961 level of 11% (Bibby, 177). Brenner, cited in Bass, 53.
4.
Bibby, 66.
5.
Greenberg, 6. Other surveys give similar numbers. See Twenge, iGen, 120; Bass, 46.
6.
Greenberg, 16–17.
7.
Twenge, iGen, 124–8.
8.
Pinker, Better, 392.
9.
Bass, 81.
10.
Putnam, 67, 71. Bibby, 164.
11.
Jack Jedwab.
12.
Cole, Practical, 51.
13.
Binks, 136, 162.
14.
Daniel, 5.
15.
Putnam, 254, 123, 126. Twenge, iGen, 174–5.
16.
Putnam, 74.
17.
Pinker, Enlightenment, 438.
18.
Putnam, 66, 119, 126.
19.
Maich and George, 230–1.
20.
Maich and George, 216.
21.
Pew, “World Publics,” 37. Worldwide, there is a lot of variation on this issue, often linked to local conditions. European results are generally closer to Canada, though some countries scored closer to the American results (Spain 51%, Russia 55%, Bulgaria 57%, and Italy 59%).
22.
The patients who were prayed for and who had been told that they were being prayed for had the most complications. Chance likely explains the result: one of the three groups must have the most complications, not very long odds. Although the authors controlled for many variables (including medical conditions and even faith groupings), they acknowledged that in addition to the anonymous intercessors, patients were being prayed for by family and friends, an effect difficult to control for. Yet given the large sample size (600 for each group), differences in “extra-curricular” prayer should average out. Herbert Benson et al. “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients.” American Heart Journal 151: 4 (April 2006): 934–42, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002870305006496.
23.
Bass, 42, 51. Nevertheless, Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes in Hell (2006), too, was received as a confirmation of the traditional Christian story and was popular enough to carve out a speaking career for Wiese.
24.
“Heaven is For Real” Revisited December 7, 2012 ~ Colton Burpo at 13,” Christian Broadcasting Network, 700 Club, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m%2D%2DM5itPoqA. John Blake, “Proof of heaven popular, except with the church,” Belief Blog, CNN, 19 May 2013, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/19/proofs-of-heaven-popular-but-not-with-the-church/.
25.
Ariel Levy, “Lives of the Saints,” 15 October 2012, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/15/lives-of-the-saints-3.
26.
Eben Alexander, “Dr. Eben Alexander Shares What God Looks Like,” Interview. Oprah Winfrey Network, December 2012, http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Dr-Eben-Alexander-Shares-What-God-Looks-Like-Video. John Blake, “Proof of Heaven…”
27.
Winnipeg Free Press, 17–24 February 1981.
28.
See Olaf Blanke et al., “Linking Out-of-Body Experience and Self Processing to Mental Own-Body Imagery at the Temporoparietal Junction,” The Journal of Neuroscience, 19 January 2005, 25(3): 550–57.
29.
Kandeith McArthur, “Divided in Faith.” Winnipeg Free Press, 1 February 1998, B1, B4.
30.
Twenge, iGen, 138.
31.
Taylor, Secular, 449.
32.
Charles, 16–17.
33.
ABC-TV’s 1991 Primetime Live broadcast with Diane Sawyer can be seen on YouTube at “Robert Tilton: Televangelist Scandal,” 29 May 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fXjZpPMmaQ.
34.
“2000 Time Bomb,” [TV Programme from 1999]. Uploaded 29 Dec 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEUCjaOQs9U.
35.
Forman, Bill. “The resurrection of Pastor Ted.” 1 October 2009, Colorado Springs Independent, 28 May 2013, http://www.csindy.com/colorado/the-resurrection-of-pastor-ted/Content?oid=1450688.
36.
Henderson, 70, 51.
37.
Xeni Jardin, “Boing Boing’s $250,000 Intelligent Design challenge (UPDATED: $1 million),” 19 Aug 2005. http://boingboing.net/2005/08/19/boing-boings-250000.html.
38.
“Austrian driver allowed ‘pastafarian’ headgear photo.” BBC News, 14 July 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
39.
Antonio Martinez Ron. “Bob Henderson: ‘I get about 20 sightings of the flying spaghetti monster every week.” La Informacion, 8 September 2009, accessed 6 June 2013, http://noticias.lainformacion.com/arte-cultura-y-espectaculos/Internet/bob-henderson-i-get-about-20-sightings-of-the-flying-spaghetti-monster-every-week_m9oE9hq4aGMhVmlG70lkN/.
40.
Henderson, xiv.
41.
Tarantino, Pulp, 171, 139.
42.
Gavin Smith, “When You Know You’re in Good Hands,” 1994, Tarantino, Interviews, 99.
43.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Movies as Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 173, 178.
44.
Tarantino, Pulp, 158.
45.
Lethem, Chronic, 141, 151, 255, 332.
46.
Susan Pinker, Village, 73, 75.
47.
C. Smith, 261–75.
48.
Jesse Owen et al., 658.
49.
Balbuena et al.
50.
Both monthly and occasional attenders felt that they had social supports, non-attenders less so. Balbuena et al. The study controlled for “income adequacy, age, family and personal depression history, marital status, sex, education, and perceived social support.” See also Haidt, 267.
51.
See, for example, Colby Cosh, “Church: the Happiest Place on Earth.” Maclean’s, 29 April 2013, 13.
52.
Putnam, 67.
53.
Seventy-one percent of young people raised in religious homes feel this way, compared to 56% in homes “where religion was less important” (Greenberg, 14).
54.
Redhill, Fidelity, 7, 9.
55.
Bauman, Discontents, 184.
56.
Castells, quoted in Lyon, 47–8, 114.
57.
See, for example, Pinker, Better, 350–2.
58.
See Reginald Bibby and Merlin B. Brinkerhoff, “Circulation of the Saints Revisited: A Longitudinal Look at Conservative Church Growth,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 22: 3 (Sept. 1983): 253–262. Bibby, Fragmented Gods, Toronto: Stoddart, 1987, 28–9. Bibby, Restless Gods, Toronto: Stoddart, 2002, 72–3.
59.
Lyon, 117.
60.
Promise Keepers website, “FAQs: Controversial Issues,” http://www.promisekeepers.org/about/faqs/faqs-controversy. The female-led household is Lydia’s in Acts 16:14–15. Promise Keepers website, “7 Promises,” http://www.promisekeepers.org/about/7-promises.
61.
Margaret Visser, The Geometry of Love, Toronto: HarperCollins, 2000, 170.
62.
Bill McCartney, promotional video for Promise Keepers 2013 Awakening the Warrior conference, Promise Keepers website, main page, http://www.promisekeepers.org/, accessed 3 July 2013.
63.
Promise Keepers website, “PK History,” http://www.promisekeepers.org/about/pk-history.
64.
Lyon, 23.
65.
Jenkins, 187, 240, 247–8.
66.
Jenkins, 77, 96.
67.
The subtitle of Jenkins’s book—The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity—hints at this return. Andrew Wall claims that via the African Church, Westerners can witness first-century Christianity (Jenkins, 166).
68.
Jamie Merrill, “Steve Jones at the Hay Festival: Falling birth rates in Europe and rising ones in Africa could spell decline in atheism,” The Independent, 10 June 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/steve-jones-at-the-hay-festival-falling-birth-rates-in-europe-and-rising-ones-in-africa-could-spell-decline-in-atheism-9436397.html.
69.
Jenkins, 74, 93, 97, 168.
70.
Pew, “World Publics,” 41, 34.
71.
Putnam, 67.
72.
Balbuena et al. The Balbuena study, ending in 2008, showed that monthly church attenders also joined other organizations at a rate (50%) much higher than occasional attenders (about 25%) and non-attenders (about 20%) did.
73.
Mike Wood Daly, The Halo Project, Phase 1: Valuing Toronto’s Faith Congregations, Cardus, June 2016, http://haloproject.ca/phase-1-toronto.
74.
E.O. Wilson, Consilience, 283–4, 281.
75.
Dawkins, 404.
76.
Hood, 5. Frans De Waal describes a workshop in which an astronomer was moved to tears as he discussed the place of humanity in the cosmos (De Waal, Bonobo, 106).
77.
McEwan, Saturday, 56, 254.
78.
McEwan, Nutshell, 33, 196.
79.
Levine xii, 25, 53.
80.
Adaptation. Dir. Spike Jonze. Columbia Pictures, 2001, 3:08.
81.
Adaptation, 6:45–7:20.
82.
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, New York: New American Library, 1958, 450.
83.
Adaptation, 39:46.
84.
Pinker, Enlightenment, 424–5, 352.
85.
Coupland, Generation A, 256–7, 283, 295. A reconditioned grand narrative also appears briefly in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010), where Walter, nearly fanatical in his atheism, puts faith in the pantheistic music of Conor Oberst: “Oberst works the word ‘lift’ into every song,” Walter enthuses, “It’s like religion without the bullshit of religious dogma” (Franzen, Freedom, 370). Franzen intends readers to take Walter seriously here, even though his expectations of rock music seem rather inflated.
86.
Atwood, Flood, 195–6.
87.
Atwood, Maddaddam, 112, 117, 238.
88.
Jeff Douglas Druery, “Someday,” the Other Side of Night, https://jeffd.bandcamp.com/track/someday, 2013. See also http://www.music.studentopencircles.com/.
89.
Atwood, “Planet,” 38:30.
90.
Hungerford, xiv, xvi.
91.
McClure, 4.
92.
Lyon makes the claim about Princess Di (32), though he is otherwise an astute commentator. Role-playing games (maybe video games too) and imagination can give an experientially immersive meaning to one’s life, but only temporarily. In Jennifer Egan’s The Keep , Howard, seemingly on the model of Dungeons and Dragons, plans to counter postmodern aimlessness by refurbishing a rundown castle and turning it into a place where Christ, witches, and goblins can reappear.
93.
Andrew Boyd #325.
94.
Hungerford, 20.
95.
Quoted in Christopher Deacy, 4–5.
96.
Greenberg, 15.
97.
Bibby, 179.
98.
Rhonda Byrne, “The Power,” The Secret Official Website, 19 July 2013, http://thesecret.tv/thepower/.
99.
B. Lulu, “Never Lose Faith Especially in the Darkness,” Stories about Finances, The Secret Official Website, 16 July 2013, accessed 19 July 2013, http://thesecret.tv/stories/stories-read.html?id=22655.
100.
Daniel, 7, 83.
101.
Maich and George, 21–2.
102.
Bibby, 171.
103.
Bergen, Morris, 192.
104.
Levinas, 59.
105.
Bauman, Discontents, 180.
106.
Lyotard, 60.
107.
See Sacks, Not in God’s Name, especially 49, 152, 169, 195–6.
108.
Bergen, Lesser, 162–3.
109.
See Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 67–89. Donald Akenson calls the debate “post-modern scholarly theatre.” Saint Saul, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000, 84–9.
110.
Bergen, Lesser, 199.
111.
Bergen, “And You Arrive on the Other Side with Nothing,” Writing Life, Constance Rooke ed., Toronto: McClelland, 2006, 49, 45.
112.
C. McCarthy, 5.
113.
Kenneth Lincoln, Cormac McCarthy : American Canticles. New York: Macmillan, 2009, 14.
114.
John Cant, Cormac McCarthy and the Myth of American Exceptionalism, New York: Routledge, 2008, 272.
115.
David Kushner, “Cormac McCarthy’s Apocalypse,” Rolling Stone, 27 December 2007, 43–53, http://74.220.215.94/~davidkus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61:cormac-mccarthys-apocalypse-&catid=35:articles&Itemid=54.
116.
Tony Davies mistakenly treats The Road as if it were an anti-humanist work (T. Davies, 134), as if works that imagine an apocalypse must by definition be highly critical of humanism.
117.
Andrew Boyd #227, #326.
118.
Niedzviecki, Special, 36, 38–9, 57.
119.
See C. Smith, 156–7, 167, and Bass, 112.
120.
Bass, 108–11, 129.
121.
Bass, 105.
122.
Taylor, Secular, 717–18, 637, 6.
123.
R. Williams, 88–91, 115.
124.
Peter Epp, “Why don’t young adults go to church?” Mennonite Brethren Herald, August 2013, 16.
125.
Pinker, Better, 17.
126.
Twenge, iGen, 134–5. C. Smith, 249.
127.
Greenberg, 15. Twenge, iGen, 134. Belief is lower among scientists. Only one-half of American scientists believe in God, while 83% of the public does. Forty-one percent of scientists don’t believe in either God or a higher power, while only 4% of public doesn’t believe. Belief is higher among younger scientists than among older. In the 18–34 age group, 66% of scientists believe in God or a higher power, while the number drops in each subsequent age group down to a low of 46% in those over age 65. Other aspects of the survey suggest that the believing scientists are selective adherents. Almost all American scientists (97%) believe that humans and other living things evolved over time, while only 61% of Americans believe this. A huge majority of scientists (87%) also think that evolution is due to natural processes, but only 32% of the Americans think so (Pew, “Scientific,” 36–7). Evidently, the scientists who believe in God reconcile that belief with a non-providential view of human evolution .
128.
Bass, 222–3, 262–3.
129.
Robinson, Monkey, 259.
130.
Robinson, Son, 307, 312.
131.
See Traci Vogel, “Bordering on the Dream World,” (Interview with Eden Robinson), The Stranger, April 12–18, 2001, http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/bordering-on-the-dream-world/Content?oid=7062.
132.
Ariel Gordon, “In Conversation with Eden Robinson,” Winnipeg Free Press, 4 February 2017.
133.
Canadian Press, “Unlikely teen hero key to coming of age tale,” Brandon Sun, 15 March 2017.
134.
Chabon, Yiddish, 13, 125, 117.
135.
Max, 114, 139, 166.
136.
Max, 220; Beck.
137.
Lipsky, 302.
138.
Max 141.
139.
Wallace, Infinite 833.
140.
Dostoevsky, 579. See also Timothy Jacobs, “The Brothers Incandenza: Translating Ideology in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 49:3 (Fall 2007): 265–92.
141.
Lipovetsky, 63–4.
142.
Pew, “Many,” 2.
143.
E.O. Wilson, Consilience, 269, 6.
144.
Bass, 51.
145.
Winfrey, quoted in Lofton, 68, 4, 70, 43.
146.
Lofton, 53.
147.
Winfrey, quoted in Lofton, 34.
148.
Lofton, 73, 178–80.
149.
Lofton, 49.
150.
Packer, 61.
151.
Lofton, 118–9.
152.
Gawande, 260–3.
153.
Verghese, 208.
154.
Martel, 231.
155.
Sam Pricket, “Consciousness Is Not Correct: A Conversation with George Saunders,” Weld, 14 February 2017, https://weldbham.com/blog/2017/02/14/consciousness-not-correct-conversation-george-saunders/.
156.
Saunders, Lincoln, 171–5.
157.
Bauman, Discontents, 193, 195.
158.
C. Smith, 166–8, 154, 292, 46, 82, 47, 163, 45. For the triumph of individualism, Smith, a Catholic, partly blames American evangelicalism with its emphasis on personal experience (C. Smith, 290–1). Individualism has indeed had a profound leaching impact on faith in grand narratives, but as Smith’s own data show, conservative Protestants and Mormons have been affected less by the movement away from doctrinal claims than have Catholics and other mainline Christian groups .
159.
C. Smith, 11–25.
160.
C. Smith, quoted in Gregory, 171.
161.
Gregory, 170, 65, 101–2, 98–9, 176.
162.
C. Smith, 290–1.
163.
Pinker, Enlightenment, 412, 410, 415, 434–5, 453.
164.
Taylor, Secular, 8.
165.
Pinker, Enlightenment, 412.
166.
C. Smith, 288, 81.
167.
Wight, 202–3.
168.
Jessica Botelho-Urbanski, “Combatting suicide risk by teaching meditation,” Winnipeg Free Press, 1 March 2018, A04.
169.
T. Davies, 140, 151.
170.
T. Davies, 142.
171.
The most notable exceptions were China (with two generations of communism under its belt) and westernized Japan, where, respectively, only 17%, and 33% believed this (Pew, “World Publics,” 33–4).
172.
In Germany, the numbers were up 6% from 2002, while, less surprisingly, Ukraine was down 19% from 2002. The US numbers were comparable only to South Korea, Mexico, and Chile (Pew, “World Publics,” 33–4).
173.
Pew, “American-Western,” 8–9, 2011. The Canadian numbers are more recent, from 2015 (Angus Reid, 21).
174.
T. Davies, 25. See also David Williams, Milton’s Leveller God, and Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down.
175.
Pew, “World Publics,” 35.
176.
Between 2007 and 2011, the acceptance rates for homosexuality rose from 82% to 91% in Spain, from 81% to 87% in Germany, from 83% to 86% in France; and from 71% to 81% in Britain (Pew, “World Publics,” 35; Pew, “American-Western,” 11).
177.
Pew, “World Publics,” 36. By 2011, two-thirds of Americans under age 30 said that homosexuality should be accepted (Pew, “American-Western,” 11).
178.
Freeman, 40.
179.
Supplement to the Winnipeg Free Press, 20 September 2014, 1, 2, 6.
180.
McGill, 351, 299.
181.
Taylor, Secular, 478–9.
182.
In Antonio Damasio’s patients who had severe damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, their emotionality dropped down to nothing. They could still reason and even scored well on moral reasoning tests. However, they couldn’t make appropriate decisions in everyday life and tended to alienate everyone around themselves (Haidt 25, 33–4).
183.
Taylor, Secular, 677.
184.
American Humanist Association, “Manifesto I.”
185.
As long as Comte insisted that the world was progressing from fetishism to monotheism to positive science, he drew the interest of John Stuart Mill and George Eliot. But as soon as Comte tried to imagine a new church, his followers balked at the new and elaborate rituals. T. Davies, 28–9, Manuel and Manuel, 725–30. Taylor, Secular, 390.
186.
Kurtz, 20, 15, 227, 248, 228, 249, 192, 232. Kurtz’s emphasis.
187.
Kurtz, 208, 247, 216–7, 209–10, 245, 240, 209.
188.
Campolo and Campolo, 18, 14–5, 17, 93–5, 24, 94, 19–22.
189.
Campolo and Campolo, 106, 132, 112, 93, 24, 65–6.
190.
Bart Campolo, Humanize Me Podcast, Humanize Me 320, “Where do You Get Your Morality? https://bartcampolo.org/humanizeme.
191.
Campolo and Campolo, 109.
192.
Campolo and Campolo, 62–3, 70.
193.
McEwan, Children, 144.
194.
McEwan, Children, 26, 31, 184, 220.
195.
Kurtz, 229.
196.
American Humanist Association, “Humanist Manifesto III,” 2003, http://americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_III.
197.
Morton Klein, “ZOA: Don’t See Spielberg’s ‘Munich’ Unless You Like Humanizing Terrorists and Dehumanizing Israelis,” Zionist Organization of America, 27 December 2005, http://zoa.org/2005/12/102082-zoa-dont-see-spielbergs-munich-unless-you-like-humanizing-terrorists-dehumanizing-israelis/.
198.
Yan, 281, 303, 321.

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Reinhold Kramer

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Kramer, R. (2019). Faith and Other Grand Narratives. In: Are We Postmodern Yet?. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30569-7_7

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