I found out this week that I would not be back at Redlands Community College after this semester. I almost quit there a year ago, but decided to hang in for the financial security, even though from a values perspective, I was not a good fit for a small school in a small Oklahoma town that cancels life on Good Friday every year. I don't like abrupt endings--at least the ones I don't control--so this was a bit unsettling, not just because of the finances (which have since been rectified), but because Redlands provided me the opportunity to work with some of the best seniors in Oklahoma. Their concurrent enrollment program is huge, and some semesters, fully 60% of my kids were seniors in high schools around the state, piped into our room via a service called IETV.
Unlike some of my contemporaries and peers I am not despairing over the current state of young America. I have taught incredibly bright, socially conscious, genuinely compassionate, and self-disciplined seniors for the past five years. I have damn few worries about the next generation. They are, quite frankly, fucking awesome. This I will miss. What I will not miss is the confusion that adheres to my refusal to take a postion vis-a-vis religion.
Working in a small Oklahoma town reveals what is best and worst about small towns, and it turns out they are the same thing: people know who you are. Refusing to take a stand on religion--except to say "meh"-- creates no small degree of consternation in a town like El Reno, Okla. The categories are supposed to be clear there: Christian, Catholic (not my taxonomy, by the way), Muslim (terrorist, sexist, evil, godless, idolator), atheist (note the lower case), other. I reluctantly found myself in the "other" category. What else to do with someone who is a non-theist but refuses to use the atheist designation. In fact, I find the whole dichotomy tiring and largely pointless. People behave as they do with almost zero input from their allegedly ethical centers, which is to say, theists and atheists can both be assholes or angels, and god has shitall to do with it.
Still, interacting with kids who were shortly leaving kiddom for the scary world of state or private universities (which are only allegedly a shield from the world) and who were raised in the bassinette of cultural Christianity and civil relgion provided opportunities for amazing conversations. How, after all, do you talk to young people who believe the Bible but have never read it? How do you explain coherence and rationality to young people who think the book that allegedly gives structure to their lives also requires things they have no intention of doing and ghettoizes people they love and count among their friends? The question as a professor was how is the Bible the center of the conversation without ever actually shaping any of the beliefs of the kids who allegedly structured their lives around it. It doesn't make me a cynic to recognize that beliefs were shaped by what parents and pastors said, not the Bible, and the parents and pastors haven't actually read the thing either.
Religion for the kids was a matter of allegiance, not a coherent set of beliefs (orthodoxy) and practices (orthopraxy). Christian is a tribal designation, and the Bible is a totem. Much like a skull on a stick, it marks the boundaries of territory, such that substantive issues are not thought through and subjected to criticism as much as they are assumed to be axioms of the tribe, and the Bible functions as a nebulous proof of the truth of the axioms, even as the text is clearly not reducible to a single, coherent narrative/justification. Rather than confront the complexity of the text as proof, the students have been taught to accept the axioms. This is, of course, a victory for the non-theist, because axioms outside the realm of logic are subject to cultural movements and contextual realities. Students are taught to accept axioms, but the inability to tie them to the Bible in a coherent framework means that all axioms are equally subject to the whims of context, such that what is true today (slavery) may be false tomorrow (slavery).
What I found was a deep willingness to discuss these things in a setting where no particular belief was expected, and the lack of coercion in regard to enforcing belief in the axioms allowed students to say what they actually believe. In a state as red as Oklahoma, and in a town as conservative as El Reno, and among students whose totem is the Bible, my students refused to believe that there is anything wrong with homosexuality in overwhelming numbers, like 26-2 numbers.
So, goodbye, El Reno, and goodbye, some of my favorite kids ever. Many of you have stuck with me after class, and I'm always happy to hear from you (until you have kids), but I learned a ton there, and not just about horse slaughter. I have mixed feelings about this end, but I'm pretty sure it's the best thing for me. I hope they get a real atheist professor who isn't a dick. How's that for a benediction?
Seems a shame to be "asked" to say goodbye, to a nexus as weird and wonderful as you describe. You've got me reminiscing about my own youth, spent largely in halls (Bible College(s), youth groups, para-church shenanigans, etc.) such as this. They were all policed by ideological gatekeepers, of course, but inevitably I'd encounter the exciting people who risked their jobs by giving me permission to think freely.
Come to think of it, that's what attracted me to your blog. Long may you run, dude.
Posted by: Whisky Prajer | May 10, 2014 at 07:30 AM
i imagine you will miss the onion burgers and luminescent red hot dogs, assuming you're a carnivore.
Posted by: kurt | May 11, 2014 at 11:39 AM
I agree with the point that most kids like these haven't read the bible and learned what they know from pastors, etc. This is why I think you can't refute religion these days. The bible means whatever the next pastor says and has no fixed content, which makes it difficult to refute.
Posted by: couchloc | May 12, 2014 at 07:26 AM
"What else to do with someone who is a non-theist but refuses to use the atheist designation. In fact, I find the whole dichotomy tiring and largely pointless. People behave as they do with almost zero input from their allegedly ethical centers, which is to say, theists and atheists can both be assholes or angels, and god has shitall to do with it."
Other than not wanting to call yourself an atheist (to each his own, of course) this is a pretty classic statement of the atheist position. A rose by any other name...
I really enjoyed this post, especially paragraphs 4 and 5.
Posted by: Tyle | May 12, 2014 at 09:58 AM
I'll let Greg speak for himself, but my own discomfort with self-identifying with the term 'atheist' has nothing to do with what I do or don't believe about the existence of god(s). I don't believe in god(s), but I only reluctantly adopt the label 'atheist' because I really have no interest in aligning myself with (to adopt Greg's terminology) the tribe of atheists. My perception of people who ostentatiously adopt that self-descriptor is that they tend to be evangelical and/or dismissive towards theists in a way that I don't admire or intend to replicate. Because of this, in the community where I live, while calling myself an atheist does say something true about my beliefs regarding god(s), it also tends to communicate a false sense of my attitude towards people of faith. That makes adopting the label a mixed bag for me. So while I have ultimately decided to self-identify as an atheist, I completely understand the reticence of people like Greg to do so.
Posted by: cheek | May 12, 2014 at 03:38 PM
I'll not improve on Cheek's words there. Amen.
Posted by: Greg Horton | May 13, 2014 at 09:57 AM
Which is why Catholicism was so great!! The pope is the only one one needs to listen to
Posted by: Chen | May 13, 2014 at 12:05 PM
I don't disagree in any way with Cheek or Greg's description of the atheist tribe. The reason (this year) I self-identify as an atheist is out of a pedantic sense of fitting the definition "not believing in any gods", combined with the pragmatic view that anyone who views a social category alone as a deal-breaker for dialogue or relationship conveniently rules out the kind of people I don't care to spend my time getting to know.
Posted by: Leighton | May 13, 2014 at 06:48 PM