Some of us like to be angry, and if we’re Christians and angry, then PZ Myers is a very useful person. After all, how can one be properly angry without someone at whom one can direct one’s rage? Enter PZ Myers, who has now performed his act of desecration on the communion wafer.
At first I found it fairly rude. As it has gone one it has become more and more ludicrous. On reading his post I can’t even tell whether the wafers are even consecrated. He seems to be indicating that he had more than one:
You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university (the diminution of my vast powers is also a common theme).
It would be interesting from the viewpoint of Catholic theology if these had, in fact, not been consecrated. The rudeness seems to me about equal, but it would probably give a few theologians a laugh along the way.
I still stick with my earlier point. These actions are not courteous, in my view, but they do not deserve sanction of law, firing from one’s job, or the outpouring of sheer hatred that has resulted from this whole incident.
What would we, as Christians, do without PZ Myers to reveal our insecurity, our limited view of divine power, our anger, and our hatred? Someone else would have to come along and reveal the weakness that is within. Because the biggest argument against Christianity that is being made here is not made by PZ Myers, but rather by those of us who react as we do.
By this reaction, we demonstrate that Jesus has not, in fact, done very much transformation on us. We demonstrate that we do not, in fact, believe that God is love. Instead, we believe that God is a God of hypersensitive feelings, overreaction, anger, and hate, and in addition that at times he can’t spell, punctuate, or construct a coherent sentence.
If there is any good that will come of this I think it will have to be in some heart searching on the part of Christians to ask just why someone can do us this kind of harm without actually touching us.
Some may ask we I use “we” and “us” in the paragraphs above, since I have indicated that I lack this anger. While I think the actions were rude, I face rudeness quite regularly and I can live with it. But as someone who is involved in teaching, I think it is important not to distance myself from the community. It would be easy to label all the angry people “not real Christians” and claim that I don’t have to recognize any connection. But in fact there is a great deal of connection. When one part of the body suffers, all suffer (1 Corinthians 12:26).
One last note on a personal reaction. I surprised myself in reading about PZ’s actual desecration. While I regarded the proposed desecration of the wafer as rude, that really was all I felt. It was more the feeling of someone who cussed in a place where I think such language was inappropriate. When I read about the actual desecration, however, I felt the same about the wafer, but I had a stab of annoyance about the books! Why do such a thing to perfectly good books?
I think the symbolism of book burning or defacing has more power over me emotionally, and in this case it did not involve books that are sacred to me, though I have read them. I have a fine copy of the Qur’an, for example, a gift from an Imam with whom I studied for a period of time. I treasure it, and despite having no belief in its inspiration, I nonetheless would not want it defaced.
But emotions aside, doing stuff to stuff, provided no property issues are involved, should not evoke the type of response that this has.
(PS: Ken Brown has written an excellent response, which is more concise and to the point than mine.)
(PSS: I will have to hold a contest sometime to find a blogger who is not more concise than I am. The very idea boggles the mind.)