Mark's Notebook


	If you believe everything you read, better not read. - Japanese Proverb

Religious scholar Huston Smith talks about Christianity and why religion matters today

San Francisco Chronicle

Monday 19 September 2005, 10:42 am
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

You grew up in China, where your parents were Methodist missionaries. How did that affect your spiritual life?

Well, you know, I grew up in a functional nuclear family. We were the only Americans in our area. So, I absorbed [my faith], as the Romans used to say, cum lacte, with the mother's milk.

William James makes an important distinction between "the once-born" and "the twice-born." And I'm the once-born, because I just grew up with this religion. I can't say it was in my genes. No. But it was in my nurturance from the very beginning, so it's hard to target a moment when I first became aware of it.

One of the many hot-button issues dividing scientists and religious people is the debate over evolution and so-called intelligent design. What's your take on this controversy?

Science has given us the fossil record, which shows that it took three and a half billion years for life to evolve to our level. The writer George Will -- I don't agree with his politics, but he said something that was right on. He said that six-day creationism is not only nonsense -- it's nonsense on stilts!

However, you are never going to explain in a laboratory what it is we call the divine spark, which every religion has described. You will never get a sense of our divinity, of the image of God. These things cannot be explained by natural selection or chance mutations. For that you need to turn to religion.

You've written that politicians, particularly those on the far right, have hijacked Christianity for their own means. Why do you think that's happening now?

Honestly, I think it has something to do with greed. You can cushion it any way you want, but the present administration is guilty of rewarding greed with all of its tax rebates and so on.

Genuine religion is about generosity. And greed, when it takes over -- and I speak metaphorically here -- is an indication that we have fallen into the temptation of the devil. The devil wants us to be greedy.

Many people today feel disconnected from organized religion. So they're going their own way, blazing their own spiritual paths. What do you think about that trend?

It's probably better than nothing, but not much. Another phrase for it is "cafeteria-style spirituality." You go to the cafeteria, and normally most people choose what they like.

Do they choose what is good for them? Do they put that above what they like? Well, most people do not. There is also a problem that often we don't know what is good for us.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/archive/2005/09/19/findrelig.DTL