+ Christian Book Reviews +

Book Review: You Can Take the Boy Out of the Fundies, but You Can’t Always Take the Fundy Out of the Boy

November 15th, 2009 at 10:40pm Albert McIlhenny

Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist – Dan Barker Freedom From Religion Foundation (May 2006) Topic: Atheism Summary: Story of “deconversion” and apologia for atheism Rating:

Dan Barker apparently will always have the courage of his convictions. For many years he was an Evangelical minister and apparently a well known songwriter in those circles. Now he is firm in his atheism and often speaks on the subject of the loss of his Christian faith. In Losing Faith in Faith, he details his sojourn from a committed evangelist for Christ to a committed evangelist for atheism and makes an apologia for his newfound beliefs.

One thing Barker makes quite clear throughout his book is his belief that Christianity is backward and irrational and leaving the Christian faith has moved him the direction of rationality and freethought. In his mind, he has moved from ignorance to a enlightenment. He is now not just an atheist but also an antitheist.

In one respect, I would agree with Dan Barker. He was a very ignorant Christian. Much of this is not necessarily his fault – he came from a segment of the Church known more for emotional outbursts than sound theology. He was the product of everything that is dead wrong about large swaths of the Evangelical landscape. However, if one examines his arguments, he is very mistaken in claiming a new allegiance to rational thought. His case against God after becoming an atheist bears the same ignorance as his earlier arguments for God. He has merely switched sides – the vapidity of his approach has remained unchanged.

The account of his leaving Christianity – followed by others in his immediate family – was very interesting reading and it must be said in fairness that the Christianity Dan Barker was raised in was a version of Christianity anyone with intellectual curiosity would want to leave. If his description is accurate, and I have no reason to believe it is not, he was regularly fed feel good platitudes and hokey faith healings as garnish on a plateful of legalism. This is a fairly common experience in certain parts of Evangelicalism where, despite their claims to the Gospel, their Christianity is all about the Law.

This illustrates one of the great errors of modern Evangelicalism: it often teaches the Gospel prepares us to live the Law rather than frees us from its condemnation. Whether it uses the “fear and dread” approach of fire and brimstone preachers or the “you can do it” approach of self-esteem preachers, it is still about the Law. In the end, law is law no matter how much you try to sweeten the taste.

Despite the particular flaws of Barker’s Christian upbringing, these flaws are no more an argument against Christianity than being raised during the Cultural Revolution in China would be an argument against atheism. It is merely evidence that theists, like atheists, can each be incredibly stupid and hypocritical – a point that most would agree needs little verification. It is more important to see how he would handle stronger cases for the faith and, more importantly, how he would present the case for atheism.

Once we reach this end, it is quite obvious that Barker has really nothing of substance to offer at all. He merely engages is an extended diatribe that demonstrates his approach has little to do with rationality and much to do with poor resentment. It is also interesting to note the amateurishness of his scholarship. It is probably much like his arguments for Christianity were in an earlier time. I guess you can take the boy out of the fundies but you can’t always take the fundy out of the boy.

His presentation of Christianity is quite reliant upon sources and arguments from the rather lax thinking end of the Evangelical landscape…at least that is all one can assume when reading his version of arguments for God. For example, when presenting the cosmological argument, he fails to state it correctly and instead substutes what one could only term a “strawman”. If you cannot even bother to put forward such an often discussed argument in its proper form, why should anyone think you have any interest in rational discourse?

His “Bible contradictions” chapter merely shows a marked ignorance of the Scriptures that once were allegedly the source of his faith. This is not terribly surprising since many fundamentalists only discuss out-of-context “prooftexts” – a tradition Barker has maintained. His grasp of basic Christian theology also barely rises above the low rent district of American Evangelicalism and his understanding of Church history shows little in the way of direct study and much in the way of the hack presentations of both fundamentalists and the crackpot regions of popular atheism.

One of the few times he deals with anything of any substance is his discussion of C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity – a work based on presentations of over half a century ago. Here he rejects Lewis’ moral argument by merely saying Lewis was wrong. I suppose I could state Lewis was right but I am not sure what that would prove. Barker also complains of Lewis ignoring the theory of Situational Ethics. Of course, that theory was first detailed by Joseph Fletcher in 1966, Lewis’ book was based on radio talks given during the Second World War, and Lewis himself died in 1963. Does Barker believe C. S. Lewis to have been a clairvoyant as well as a Christian?

But the true bottom of the barrel is Barker’s case that Jesus never existed. Almost all scholars, atheists included, agree there was a Jewish man named Yeshua who led a movement and was crucified by the Romans – the argument is about everything else. For Barker to make his case, he appeals to a rogue’s gallery of various crackpots and other long discredited ideas. It is quite clear that, as in his Christian past, Barker has merely accepted what was spoonfed to him by “friendly secondary sources” without any discernment.

Perhaps the absolute nadir of Barker’s facsimile of scholarship is rached when he declares Simon the Cyrene to be based on some alleged Cyrenian sun god named Simon. He states that sun god carried pillars to his death just as the Simon of the New Testament carried Christ’s cross. He is apparently unaware that Cyrene was founded as a Greek colony and hence its solar deity was the Greek version named Apollo. Even the crackpots he relies upon were trying to connect Simon with Samson who carried pillars and supposedly were thus actually Heracles with his pillars.

Yet even in its original crackpot incarnation, the argument fails. The supposed connections between Simon and Samson (they must be the same – they both begin with an “S” sound!) is amateur etymology at its worse and the further connection between Samson and Heracles with pillars makes it even more ridiculous. Certainly moving pillars led to Samson’s death but one of the trials of Heracles had him breaking through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and in the process creating what is known as the “Pillars of Heracles”. It was the ancient Greeks’ explanation for these unique rock formations.

Yet here we have Dan Barker claiming such complete and utter gibberish is the result of his rational investigation. He obviously has only questioned one side of the argument and has merely regurgitated the most absurd claims from atheists without so much as ever checking with real scholarship for their veracity. His supposed interest in the truth is thus exposed as a sham – his real interest is in attacking Christianity.

Barker’s less than honest weighing of the evidence recently led to one of the most amusing scenes ever recorded in a debate. Barker was facing Reformed apologist James White on the question of Jesus being based on earlier mythology and when White began to address Barker’s past pronouncements on the subject, Barker wanted his books (for sale on location that evening) to be off limits. One might suppose that he was then aware how wrong he had been on this subject for close to two decades. When asked to do so, he would not repudiate any of his past material – but he did not want to discuss anthing in them. The moderator rightly scoffed at that request and Barker’s absurdity was exposed on video for the world to see.

Hence we arrive at the bottom line of why this book is so completely worthless. Barker claims to have based his arguments on rational explanations but he accepts without reservation any discredited oddball with a beef against Christianity and a stupid conspiracy theory. Not only does he never read Christian scholars (he seems to think Josh McDowell is the height of Christian scholarship), he is largely unfamiliar with the work of scholars on his own side.

I have no doubt of Dan Barker’s sincerity. He is as sincere now as an atheist as he was as a Christian. He is also as ignorant as he was as a Christian. In Losing Faith in Faith, he demonstrates little but his faith has changed.

Entry Filed under: Atheism