Putting together yesterdays post brought to mind my own experience with right wing atheism, which turned out to be a significant catalyst in my own spiritual pilgrimage. I tell about that pilgrimage, in part, in the new third edition of Spirituality of the Cross, but I didnt tell about this. So I thought Id tell you about it.
When I was in high school in Oklahoma in the 1960s, my best friend was a fellow adolescent intellectual. We had lots in common, but at the time I was a liberala Kennedy/LBJ Democrat all in for civil rights and the Great Society programsand my friend was a conservative, a Goldwater Republican. We loved to argue politics. (You might think by todays standards that it is impossible for people who disagree with each other politically to be friends, let alone best friends, but trust me, this happened back in those days.)
The Vietnam War was going on, as was the draft. My friend and I were still in school and too young to be drafted, but this was hanging over us. At the time, I supported the warafter all, this was LBJs war, as started by Kennedy, so I was loyal to that legacyand, if called, I would have served. Although the anti-war movement had started up, most of our small town, both Democrats and the few Republicans, supported the war, as we saw it, against Communist expansion. (Back then, both political parties were in substantial agreement on foreign policy, particularly when it came to the Cold War against Communism.)
So our town was surprised when my friends older brother, a brilliant guy and a star basketball player, fled to Canada to avoid the draft.
I thought your family was all arch-conservative like you, I said to my friend. How did your draft-dodger brother get to be even further to the left than I was?
It wasnt like that, he explained. My brother isnt a pacifist. He doesnt have any moral problem with this particular war. He doesnt care about any of that stuff. He doesnt believe he should risk dying for any cause or any person. He believes in the virtue of selfishness. He has been reading Ayn Rand.
I had never heard of this person, so my friendwho was also distraught about what his brother didexplained her beliefs and even lent me some of her books. Basically, she taught that human beings should always follow their individual self-interests. This is how free market capitalism works, and this is how evolution works.
But altruism, the notion that we should do things for other people, to the point of sacrificing ourselves and our interests for others, is the source of all of our personal and social problems. And the great teacher of altruism, the person who introduced the seemingly attractive but really toxic notions of selflessness, charity, and love, is Jesus Christ. Whereas most thinkers, even those hostile to religion, pay at least some tribute to Jesushonoring Him, trying to co-opt Him to their position, insisting that His followers have understood Him, etc.Rand pulls no punches in denouncing Jesus, His ethical teachings, and His influence.
She was a rigorous atheist and materialist, who insisted that we must be governed by reason alone. She called her philosophy objectivism. She put the highest value on individualism and freedom. Politically, she championed laissez faire freemarket capitalism, a small non-interfering government, and no welfare or social programs of any kind. That gave her impeccable conservative credentials, though her thought has been most influential with libertarians.
Reading Rand was unsettling. I was a mainline liberal Protestant, but I had a general orientation to Christianity and appreciation for Jesus. And since my church mainly taught good works and the social gospel, her critique of moralityparticularly the impulse to help other people rather than oneselfwas especially disorienting.
My friend and I talked about her ideas, but while we both recoiled from what she was saying, to our eager but immature minds, it was hard to see why she was wrong.
Then one night, my friend told me that he had been born again. God is real. Ive experienced Him. And Jesus is not just an ethical teacher that you can agree or disagree with. He is the Savior. From that point on, he knew that Ayn Rand was wrong.
My friends conversion also helped settled the matter for me. I realized that if God actually exists, an argument, however logical, does not take away His existence. God can manifest Himself in different ways. He is not a philosophical abstraction but a person who can make Himself known, as He did to my friend.
But I couldnt relate to all this Baptist stuff from my friend. As a matter of fact, he went on to become a Baptist minister. But, mainline liberal Protestant that I was, his new religiosity was alien to me, though we still remained friends.
Later, though, I had my own epiphany. My friend and I pooled our money to buy J. R. R. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was blown away by it. My reactions were well-expressed by one of the blurbs on the back of the paperback edition: here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Exactly!, I thought. And I remembered the name of the person who said that: C. S. Lewis.
When I was browsing in a bookstore during a trip to Tulsa, I recognized the name on a book. I opened it up and saw that it was dedicated to J. R. R. Tolkien. The book was Screwtape Letters. When I read the introduction I recognized an intellect of the highest order who seemed to be taking concepts like the Devil and Christianity with total seriousness. And the book itself was a comical and artistic masterpiece. I had to read more from this C. S. Lewis.
What I appreciated from Mere Christianity is that Lewis shows that Christianity, contrary to what Rand said, is reasonable, that there is a rational case for Christianity. And Lewis was far more learned, far more humane, far more open to the vast range of life than the the narrow, harsh, and angry Rand. And Lewiss Abolition of Man, his defense of objective morality, completely demolished Rands dismissal of traditional ethics.
In the meantime, I also learned what Christianity is, something neither Rand nor my liberal church seemed to grasp. I learned that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. And The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe taught me what it meant that Jesus died for my sins.
Thus started the long and winding road to Lutheran Christianity, which I tell about from that time forward in the third edition of Spirituality of the Cross.
But even Ayn Rand played a part in that.
As for how I became politically conservative, that is a story for another day.
Photo: Ayn Rand by Julius Jskelinen, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
See the article here:
My Experience with Conservative Atheism | Gene Veith - Patheos
- That Day I Interviewed Ayn Rand - Foundation for Economic Education - March 2nd, 2024 [March 2nd, 2024]
- Ayn Rand's Anthem Was Adapted Into a Graphic Novel, and Its Timing Couldn't Be Better | Maeve Ronan - Foundation for Economic Education - February 16th, 2024 [February 16th, 2024]
- Real World Economics: Ayn Rand and the Grand Canyon - St. Paul Pioneer Press - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Tech Entrepreneur Elle Morrill Offers Inspirational Life Advice in ARI Roundtable - New Ideal - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- America needs to clean up its act | News, Sports, Jobs - Alpena News - August 26th, 2023 [August 26th, 2023]
- How immigration creates a more prosperous world - Learn Liberty - August 26th, 2023 [August 26th, 2023]
- Yad Vashem tour by Israel Heritage Foundation visibly moves ... - JNS.org - August 26th, 2023 [August 26th, 2023]
- Anna May Wong and Chinatown Noir: 4 Essential Films - CrimeReads - August 26th, 2023 [August 26th, 2023]
- Ditch your business books and pick up these three novels for a fresh ... - ETHRWorld Middle East - August 26th, 2023 [August 26th, 2023]
- Your Guide to the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge - The Everygirl - August 26th, 2023 [August 26th, 2023]
- BioShock 4 May Have an Edge Compared to Other Modern FPS ... - GameRant - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- LETTER: When will Republicans wake up? - The Pantagraph - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' Celebrated Selfishness as a Virtue - Reason - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Blaming the Victim - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Coalition of AI leaders sees 'societal-scale risks' from the ... - SiliconANGLE News - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Fall 2023 Adult Announcements: Literary Fiction - Publishers Weekly - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- 20 Box Office Bombs That Got Sequels - MovieWeb - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Religious Skeptics Should Question Their Moral Theology - New Ideal - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- What Ayn Rand Understood about Romantic Love That so Many Fail ... - Foundation for Economic Education - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- 1923 Emmy Submissions Revealed for Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and More (EXCLUSIVE) - Variety - May 18th, 2023 [May 18th, 2023]
- Column: This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand seriously - April 10th, 2023 [April 10th, 2023]
- How Ayn Rand, Emerson and Thoreau perverted the American Dream - April 10th, 2023 [April 10th, 2023]
- Ayn Rand - Books, Quotes & Philosophy - Biography - February 18th, 2023 [February 18th, 2023]
- EDITORIAL: Remembering the great Ayn Rand, a champion of capitalism and ... - February 5th, 2023 [February 5th, 2023]
- The curious cult of the friend of fascism | Anthony Daniels - The Critic - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Ocean City 'Jeopardy!' champion wins almost $60,000 in 7th consecutive win, over $220,000 total - Press of Atlantic City - October 17th, 2022 [October 17th, 2022]
- Will Amanda Seyfried (The Dropout) ride her Emmy high all the way to a SAG Award win? - Gold Derby - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Books review: What to read in October - Reader's Digest - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Democrats dig the graves of freedom and prosperity - Washington Times - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Baseball and Yom Kippur: Is there a Koufax curse? - Forward - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- The limits of Justice Ketanji Brown Jacksons power - Fortune - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Race Across The World and Louis Theroux Interviews among new BBC Factual and Arts slate - Royal Television Society | - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Fool Britannia: sloppy Tory treatise a hint of horrible things to come - Crikey - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Day one at the Tory conference: Industry cries out for stability but U-turns and uncertainty continue - Building - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund Set To Publish A New Book About The Attack On January 6th With Explosive Never-Before-Revealed Information... - September 27th, 2022 [September 27th, 2022]
- Right place at the right time: freeports model gives fillip to St Helens regeneration scheme - The Guardian - September 27th, 2022 [September 27th, 2022]
- Reflections from London on the queen's life and death - Baptist News Global - September 27th, 2022 [September 27th, 2022]
- Editorial: NH voters, beware of radical threat on ballot - Valley News - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- 10 Wednesday AM Reads - The Big Picture - Barry Ritholtz - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Opinion: Renewables are great and all, but who'll pay when they fail? - Houston Chronicle - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- The Simpsons' Playdate With Destiny Short Was A Product Of Serendipity - /Film - August 27th, 2022 [August 27th, 2022]
- Filthy Animals Pries Open The Violent, Animalistic Notions In Human Relationships - Gaysi - August 27th, 2022 [August 27th, 2022]
- How Isabel Paterson Helped Ayn Rand Find Atlantis - The Objective Standard - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Where Is 'The Anarchists' Star Jason Henza Today? - Newsweek - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Objectivism Q&A with Ben Bayer and Dan Schwartz - New Ideal - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- Book Banning Is Wrong Unless It Gets Me Out of Helping My Kid With His Homework - The Hard Times - August 2nd, 2022 [August 2nd, 2022]
- THE TEACHER'S DESK: Breaking the Rules | Opinion | thetimestribune.com - Times Tribune of Corbin - July 21st, 2022 [July 21st, 2022]
- If Big Ten didnt just add lucrative programs like USC but trimmed stragglers, whod get the boot? | Jones - PennLive - July 21st, 2022 [July 21st, 2022]
- A high point of our time in southern Alberta, Canada - Patheos - July 21st, 2022 [July 21st, 2022]
- The Banality of Putin and Xi - New Ideal - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- 4 Pillars of The Illusion | C. Don Jones - Patheos - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- The Philosophic Case for the Absolute Right to Abortion - New Ideal - June 26th, 2022 [June 26th, 2022]
- R2AK: Will monohulls sweep the podium? - Scuttlebutt Sailing News - June 26th, 2022 [June 26th, 2022]
- Bill Maher Addressed an Eventful Political Week on Real Time - InsideHook - June 26th, 2022 [June 26th, 2022]
- Ayn Rand v Donald Trump? - Daily Kos - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- Letter: The rules of life are very simple - Detroit Lakes Tribune - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- The Banality of Putin and Xi | Yaron Brook and Elan Journo - IAI - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- American culture is destroying itself, and the planet, says leading activist Bill McKibben - Yahoo Philippines News - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- Is Discussing the Consequences of Anti-Vaccine Disinformation Fun? - Science Based Medicine - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- O'Donnell: Will the NBA's new red-light camera calls ruin The Finals for ABC/ESPN? - Daily Herald - June 1st, 2022 [June 1st, 2022]
- The Strange and Terrifying Ideas of Neoreactionaries Current Affairs - Current Affairs - June 1st, 2022 [June 1st, 2022]
- Martin Scorsese, Objectivism, Relativism, and How We Read Cinema - No Film School - June 1st, 2022 [June 1st, 2022]
- Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and COVID - Science Based Medicine - May 25th, 2022 [May 25th, 2022]
- Ayn Rand vs. Classical Economists - The Objective Standard - May 25th, 2022 [May 25th, 2022]
- Opinion | Demolishing the Demonic Plans of Our Enemy, and Can We Get An Amen - Common Dreams - May 20th, 2022 [May 20th, 2022]
- Ayn Rand's We the Living: Back on the Silver Screenand Better Than Ever - The Objective Standard - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- Congress revival: Time to break free of family - The Hans India - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- The Financial Dark Ages Are Ending Thanks To Bitcoin - Bitcoin Magazine - May 17th, 2022 [May 17th, 2022]
- Marital rape: How understanding context rather than just focusing on consent will help resolve the issue - Firstpost - May 13th, 2022 [May 13th, 2022]
- Deadly Class Season 2: Is a Release Date or Rumor in the Offing on Netflix? - Federal Regulations Advisor - May 13th, 2022 [May 13th, 2022]
- The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, May 9, 2022 - FlaglerLive.com - May 13th, 2022 [May 13th, 2022]
- Victory at San Jacinto liberated the individual | Opinion | jacksonvilleprogress.com - Jacksonville Daily Progress - April 20th, 2022 [April 20th, 2022]
- RUSH's GEDDY LEE Says NEIL PEART 'Didn't Want Anyone To Know' About His Illness: 'He Wanted To Keep It In The House' - BLABBERMOUTH.NET - April 20th, 2022 [April 20th, 2022]
- The Alternative Meat Industry Wants Solar Power Style Mandates And Subsidies - Science 2.0 - April 20th, 2022 [April 20th, 2022]
- diSConnected: Is Ayn Rand or Mother Teresa better for protecting South Carolinians with disabilities? - South Carolina Public Radio - April 15th, 2022 [April 15th, 2022]
- Did the John Birch Society Win in the End? - The Bulwark - April 15th, 2022 [April 15th, 2022]
- Boris Johnsons Covid bravado insults the NHS and the public - The Guardian - April 15th, 2022 [April 15th, 2022]
- Science Fiction in a Time of Crisis - Filmmaker Magazine - April 15th, 2022 [April 15th, 2022]
- The criticism facing Rishi Sunak has nothing to do with race, and all to do with greed - iNews - April 15th, 2022 [April 15th, 2022]
- Zack Snyder's Star Wars-Themed Movie Recruits The Princess Bride Star - Giant Freakin Robot - April 11th, 2022 [April 11th, 2022]