Review Of "Make Me A Christian"

I have just watched the first episode of channel 4’s “Make me a Christian. It features a rather smug looking evangie type called George Hargreaves and a group of people he wants to change/convert. He wants to return Britain to its Christian roots – although he didn’t mention racism or reintroducing slavery – strange that! He starts off with some good news; that church attendances in Yorkshire have halved. In fact, it’s not just in Yorkshire, and I pass or can see about 7 or 8 disused churches on the way to work every morning.

His aim (he claims) is to bring back Christian moral values to Britain. Well, he really means his interpretation of them. The problem is that any moral value that Christians claim to have is not original or unique to Christianity. Confucius came up with the so called golden rule (treat others like yourself) some 500 years before Jesus supposedly lived. The Sumerians came up with the idea that we should forgive and do good to our enemies in the third millennium BCE in the “counsels of wisdom”. Chapter 125 of the Egyptian “Book of the dead” demonstrates the morality of feeding the hungry and the ancient Greeks encouraged same sex unions when the Israelites were busy stoning gays. So, Christianity offers nothing new and you don’t need Christianity to be a moral person – even by some of their standards. I as an atheist, share many modern Christian moral values, but that does not mean that they are absolute or come from their god. However, despite denying the existence of Yahweh, I don’t behave in a way that will lead to the collapse of “moral standards”. I would argue that I am actually less prone to dangerous moral values that many adherents to judo-Christianity demand – like homophobia or hating other denominations just because they disagree on the meaning of one verse. In fact, they can’t even agree on the number of books (Protestants have 66, Roman Catholics have 73).

Hargreaves claims he wants to introduce the subjects to true Christianity – but what is that? He even has an Anglican moderate and an African homophobe to help him – they have doctrinal differences of their own.

The aim seem to be to get people to change their behaviour, but when one member challenged Hargreaves on why the bible should be true, he totally avoided the issue. This is not a surprise. I have never heard a justification of why homosexuality is wrong. In fact, a Lesbian member asked why it was wrong and was told she would be shown why it was wrong through the bible. This is not an argument, the bible says it is an abomination and that practitioners should be killed. That is a dogmatic position that contains an unargued for premise: homosexuality is wrong. This is quite astounding, and I personally know a lesbian who suffered depression beause the fundies told her she was evil. The group member who is a lesbian (well claims to be bisexual but would not have a relationship with a man) is also a practicing witch, and Hargreaves laughed at the fact she had a broomstick that she used to sweep away evil. I suppose the irony was lost on him, he believes the blood of a blasphemous Jew washes away sins.

There was another girl who had some body issue problems. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her. This is something that makes me sad. I have known a lot of really pretty girls who think the same (often with destructive consequences to body, mind and relationships). She was told to focus on beauty within, and I agree with that. She has to deal with her perception of herself, but since when did Christianity have the sole claim to that wisdom? She also spent £375 on a pair of shoes and was chided for that. Again, I don’t think they thought things through, they chose to take the group to York minster; an ostentatious reminder of the church’s wasted wealth and suffering caused by taxation.

One other participant has a problem keeping it in his pants and was told he would have AIDS by the time he was 30 – and why do you need a Christian to tell you of the dangers of STIs?

The issue of abortion was also brought up, and again it was a dogmatic one. It highlighted moral relativism - no arguments were given that it was wrong, but the leaders played on the groups’ emotions by using footage of abortions as a form of aversion “therapy”. This does not justify the Christian position, as the distress that some felt does not mean that there is an absolute moral law at work – in fact, you could turn that around and say that those who remained pro abortion are tapping in to some absolute moral law that says that abortion is good. Both positions though contain any argued for premises and provide no evidence that attitude to abortion is absolute as Hargreaves claims.

I felt that the behaviour patterns demanded (abstinence from sex and alcohol, fidelity, “cleanness”) were quite legalistic and not the kind of Christianity that I am familiar with – again undermining Hargreaves’s claims to “true Christianity”. He claims that Jesus will help people overcome sin – he was proved wrong in the first episode when someone got pissed and spent the night with a girl.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens, but if Hargreaves thinks that Christianity is original and the only answer to changing peoples’ behaviour, he really is on the train to East Ham (one stop short of Barking) although I expect to see him crash through the barrier.

Anyone want to take bets on whether Hargreaves will reciprocate and spend 3 weeks on the piss, having promiscuous sex, getting tatoos and worshiping "false idols"- like us atheists do week in week out?