Religion and Vulnerable People

When I was a child, I attended a Presbyterian church in Strathmore, California. The pastor was A. Luke Fritz (for Alfonso), who was one of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. He was a thoughtful preacher. Somehow he managed to keep his congregation at peace during the Vietnam War. He was a Boy Scout leader and led a backpack trip to the top of Mt. Whitney every summer for many years. I went on this trip in 1978. Not only did he lead a Boy Scout troop, but he took time to talk individually with each of us. He would ask us questions and make us think. The question for which he was most famous was, “What is courage?” He knew all of us boys would answer, “Not being afraid.” To which he would respond, “Only a fool is never afraid. A courageous person acts despite fear.” See, I still remember this. He was a giant of empathy.

One day in church, a middle-aged mother and her two young daughters came to church after the service had started. And they were weeping very loudly the whole time—during the songs, during the sermon. I never found out what the problem was. It was easy to guess that it must have been something to do with the husband/father, and it was something bad enough to make all three of them weep uncontrollably.

My point is that the woman and two girls were extremely vulnerable right then. A single word could have lifted them or crushed them, especially from a respected clergyman. They were incredibly lucky to have come to Rev. Fritz’s church.

But suppose they had gone to one of those big fundamentalist churches. Oh, I’m sure one of the army of assistant pastors would have helped them. But the big, money-hungry churches would also have used the opportunity to slip in a word to let the three vulnerable females know that God wanted them to give their money and their devotion to that particular church. Big-time preachers prey upon people during their times of vulnerability in order to build up wealth and power. That’s how they get to be big-time preachers. They do things that would get any licensed counselor out of business. There ought to be some way to shut down preachers who offer sham counseling. Rev. Fritz did not do this to anyone. His help was the real thing. Predictably, his church was not rolling in dough.

I sent him a letter after he retired. I let him know of my success in life, and my appreciation for his help. He wrote back saying that he had had so much surgery and replacement parts that he was no longer Cool Hand Luke but Second Hand Luke. Same sense of humor! Soon thereafter his widow sent me a copy of the funeral brochure.

One additional point: don’t wait to tell someone you appreciate them, or it might be too late. I almost missed my chance to thank Rev. Fritz.

Church: Not a Place to be Convinced

Many religious people invite non-believing friends to church, hoping to convince them of the truth of religious doctrine. But that is not what church is about. It is not—or at least should not be—a place for people to become convinced of Christian theology.

This is because church services are deliberately designed to circumvent the reasoning process. For me, the strongest effect is the music. Songs that I have heard and sung for decades, for which I know the bass lines and sometimes the inner harmonies, songs that can bring tears to my eyes if they are associated with a particularly beautiful event or time. The recitation of creeds, group prayers, etc., has much less effect on me. But just the fact that everybody is doing it together sweeps me along. It is hard to not join in. For reasons described in a previous post, I do not try to resist completely. The use of music and ritual recitations can be considered psychological manipulation, going directly to the deep emotional centers of the brain, circumventing any careful thought.

“Evangelical” churches are those that want to get other people to join them by scaring them with Hell; so-called “mainstream” churches want to draw people in as members of a community. Both kinds of churches use psychological manipulation. In mainstream churches, this psychological manipulation is, in my opinion, often benign. People go to mainstream churches because they want an emotional reward and a community of altruists; this is what they get. They don’t come to hear a logical argument. The sermons they hear are not intended to answer theological questions, but to tell people how to live in such a way as to make the world better, as Jesus would want it. Mainstream churches use psychological manipulation, but use it to facilitate altruism.

People often go to evangelical churches, however, because they hear what is purported to be a logical argument about how everybody else is going to Hell. These sermons are psychological manipulation masquerading as reason. The sermons are battlements of assumptions and errors, delivered so fast and loud that the listener’s faculty to reason is beaten down. Evangelical churches use psychological manipulation to trick people into joining them, in order to get money from them and to get them to become Republican activists.

During church services, people’s minds are vulnerable. I believe it is unethical to try to convince people of theology during church services. Anyone who wishes to think carefully about theology should do so outside of church—many churches use classes or small group meetings to do this. But because many evangelical churches use their services as propaganda tools, I believe it is best to stay away from them. You walk in and get barraged by advertising techniques that are illegal in the business world.

There is a message here for skeptics also. It is not valid to walk into a church service and pass judgment upon it as illogical. Of course it is illogical. It should be censured only if a propagandistic sermon is masquerading as logic. The “militant atheist” crowd is sometimes too quick to attack.