The Practicing Progressive

Issue 28
August 15, 2007


When I was a kid I used to hang out at the local library wiling away my after-school hours immersed in reading stories by Beverly Cleary or thumbing through old Life magazines preserved in massive bindings that required both concentration and coordination to slide from the shelf without dropping and disturbing the dozens of silently engaged readers back when silence and libraries were synonymous.

I used to wonder about the old guys who sat at the long oak tables reading newspapers strung through bamboo poles or paging through magazines in between naps. It seemed to me that no matter what time of day or night it was these old geezers were in residence. I complained to no one but myself as I watched them taking up valuable chair space while depositing mini-pools of drool during their mid-reading slumbers.

Now fifty plus years later, and to no one’s surprise but my own, I no longer have to wonder.

So there I was last week sitting amidst a plethora of periodicals trying to decide which one I would pretend to read when a leggy beauty emerging from a limousine caught my attention. She was on the cover of a magazine called “Vanity Fair” whose current issue is a little larger than the “T” volume of the World Book Encyclopedia. A quick perusal with occasional longer pauses revealed the first 200 or so pages filled with equally beautiful women modeling clothes and other paraphernalia vital for personal happiness. Curiously, nearly all of these lovely ladies draped in Dior or Donna Karan appeared to be anything but happy. Sullen might best describe the overriding posture in the poses presented which, I suppose, has been the countenance determined to best sell expensive wardrobes to folk with expendable income by clever advertising executives, sullen or not.

Carefully clearing away the drool off my chin and vaguely remembering a similar scenario, I continued my scrutiny of the periodical. It was not without a certain sadness that I realized I had come to the end of the pictorial preface and was now faced with the daunting task of actually having to read.

The first article I happened upon was by Christopher Hitchens, an intellectually gifted author and journalist who has recently acquired renewed notoriety and growing prosperity by publishing a book entitled, “God Is Not Great”, a polemic against the evils of religion. The particular article in hand was an account of Hitchins’ recent book tour touting this latest volume and solidifying his reputation as America’s most fervent evangelical atheist.

Hitchins, along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and a few less notable others, have tapped into a vein of popular cynicism that dismisses all religions as not just archaic and irrelevant but dangerous. It takes little research to understand where the fodder for such a rationale comes. The headlines are filled with bizarre and frightening examples of religion gone amok. Few can argue that heavenly rewards of perpetual virgins or divine punishment for people who don’t think like Pat Robertson is enough to drive most rational folk over the religious edge. But what Hitchins and the others fail to confront is the very positive elements of religious involvement that have nothing to do with suicide bombers or whacked-out TV preachers.

Religion, at its best, is a search for the sacred in life. The stories, myths, rituals and more are attempts to articulate this holy quest. When people come together to share their gratitude for life, their commitment to health and well-being, their longing for justice and peace…these are religious activities and sacred actions that serve as the very core of civilization. It is only when religionists confuse these proceedings with accurately describing history or objectively defining science that they run the risk of becoming dangerous and destructive.

What I would like to see are evangelical atheists like Hitchins spend less time attacking the bigoted and ignorant straw-men they erect as representatives of religious folk and confront instead the intricacies and subtleties of the spiritual life as it is experienced by millions of others who do not subscribe to bizarre beliefs or xenophobic philosophies.

And I would like him to do it in the next issue of Vanity Fair…but not until I’ve had a chance to peruse the first 200 pages.