Andrew Sullivan Not Coming Clean on Christianists and Porn

Previously, I complained about how Andrew Sullivan had uncritically cited a New Scientist report that had misrepresented a study on religion and porn. Now, he has a new post on a blogger who attacks the New Scientist article from a different angle. Oddly, Sullivan claims that “Henry Farrell [, the blogger in question,] fisks that religion and porn study.” No, he doesn’t. He “fisks” the New Scientist piece and by implication its uncritical acceptance by Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan isn’t dumb enough to make such a mistake, is he?

Christianists Love Porn? Sure, but…

The following is a good example of how information is simplified and consequently misinterpreted as it is passed along even by the most reputable of sources. It shows the importance of going to the source, and looking at the broader context.

Andrew Sullivan says that “[t]here's a significant correlation between consumption of online porn and Christianism.” To back up that claim, he gives us the following excerpt from the New Scientist article:

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama. Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don't explicitly restrict gay marriage...

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage," bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behaviour."

But the study by Professor Benjamin Edelman that the New Scientist goes a little deeper than that. Specifically, Edelman controls the data set for income, age, education, and marital status and comes up with a slightly altered ranking according to each state’s “difference in subscribers per thousand home broadband users relative to subscription rates predicted based on demographics”. In this new list, McCain’s lead over Obama among top online-porn prescribing states decreases to seven to three, while the two are tied at five each. In short, take out the effects of demographics, and the political significance of online-porn subscription becomes less evident.

But what about the positive correlation between online subscription and Christianist views? After all, “[s]tates where a majority of residents agreed with the statement "I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage," bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed”, didn’t they? Not quite. It is obvious that this figure from Edelman’s study is merely a statistical hypothesis (albeit a highly robust one), that is, the “difference, in subscriptions per thousand broadband households, between a hypothetical state where all residents disagree with the quote versus one where all residents agree with the statement.” There’s definitely a positive correlation, but its dimensions are exaggerated by the simplification in the New Scientist article.

More important, there is more to porn than online websites. A table in Edelman’s study shows that in 2006 “adult entertainment” on the Internet brought in 2,841 million in “adult entertainment” retail sales. That’s a lot of money, but it was still only one-fifth of the 12,815 million for all “adult entertainment” retail sales. If stores and clubs that provide adult entertainment as well as porn-friendly shelf space in otherwise respectable establishments are, as I suspect, harder to come by in conservative states, then it stands to reason that some of that business is going to flow to online providers. Without more information, there is no way on knowing whether Christianists are more lustful than their less literal-minded bretheren, heathens, and, to quote Barack Hussein Obama, “non-believers.”

Christianists like porn. Now it’s reassuring to know that they are human, just like the rest of us. But does that make them hypocrites? Not necessarily. It certainly makes them sinners (in their own eyes—I could give a hoot), but that’s what they have churches for, I suppose.

Is It a Good Thing That These Indian Moslems Will Not Bury Their Dead?

There are nine bodies — all of them young men — that have been lying in a Mumbai hospital morgue since Nov. 29. They may be stranded there for a while because no local Muslim charity is willing to bury them in its cemetery. This is good news.

The fact that Indian Muslims have stood up in this way is surely due, in part, to the fact that they live in, are the product of and feel empowered by a democratic and pluralistic society. They are not intimidated by extremist religious leaders and are not afraid to speak out against religious extremism in their midst.

That’s what Tom Friedman says. But there is another explanation that seems equally plausible:

There are nine bodies — all of them young men — that have been lying in a Mumbai hospital morgue since Nov. 29. They may be stranded there for a while because no local Muslim charity is willing to bury them in its cemetery. This is bad news.

The fact that Indian Moslems have stood back in this way is surely due, in part, to the fact that they live in, are the product of and feel cowered by a majority-rule society dominated by Hindus. They are intimidated by extremist religious Hindu leaders who have conducted multiple pogroms against Moslems in times of religious conflict and are afraid to bury their dead, let alone speak out against religious persecution from on the other side.

Never mind the unseemly glee and presumptuousness with which Friedman purports to pass judgment on the propriety (or lack thereof) of the religious rites of another faith, never mind that the denial of a Moslem burial mirrors the extreme intimacy between the religious and the secular that empowers Moslem radicals–would Friedman similarly rejoice if Baruch Goldman’s grave were reopened and his remains returned to the Hebron morgue?—never mind that Friedman has a tendency to craft his quotes and anecdotes. I make no claim for the truthfulness of my alternative version and I know nothing of the theologies surrounding Moslem or Jewish burials, but I do say with some confidence that it would be deemed most uncharitable for the Christian church to deny a decent burial to the most heinous of condemned criminals among its flock.

If my words are not enough, read Edward Luce’s highly regarded “In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India” and you will see that Friedman’s version of the truth, interpretation of the facts, cannot be accepted unquestioningly. But it was his most uncharitable thoughts that touched off my tirade.

The Downsized Pope

John Paul II was a force of nature, Bill Clinton without the sexual baggage, a supersized Barack Obama. You might not like his conservative views, you might not like his religion, but you could not help liking the man. Benedict XVI by contrast offends Muslims and Jews, then offers to make up for it on his official visits. You wonder what he’ll have to say about Hindus and non-believers, not to mention Buddhists and Baha’is. The current pope appears to have no authority, no outreach, beyond the conservative members of his flock and to be merely tolerated by the other Catholics.

Pop quiz: What other Roman Catholic leader does he remind you of?

My Personal Take on Sokagakkai

If I rot in hell, I’ll blame Michael Reimer and Mark Oppenheimer, who inspired this post.

I came into personal contact with Sokagakkai in the early 60s, when it was still an aggressively proselytizing sectlaic organization linked to a prominent Nichirenshu temple*. As such, it promised to heal diseases, repair marriages, revive failing businesses, etc., etc., and chronicled success stories in its official newspaper Seikyo Shinbun. In other words, Daisaku Ikeda was no worse than any American televangelist or mail-order-DVD motivational speaker or, to be honest, any religious entrepreneur of note that I am aware of except Gautama Siddhartha and to a lesser extent Jesus Christ. But Sokagakkai did compete directly with powerful and traditional, mostly heirloom, Buddhist sects** such as Jodoshinshu, which, together with the Shinto shrines, dispensed their own versions of worldly benefaction in exchange for professions of faith as evidenced by offerings of monies and other means of corporeal sustenance. Needless to say, persecution is the fate of all such challengers to the status quo; Jesus was crucified, Mohammed was kicked out of Mecca, Marx died a penurious death in London…

Sokagakkai however has followed the route taken by most if maybe not all successful religions and matured; it has lost its aggressiveness and now, if the absence of its missionaries in my neighborhood is any indication, relies mainly on the offspring of existing disciples to maintain and grow its membership. Thus, it joins the ever-expanding number of heterodoxies, heresies and paganisms that make their way out of the minor league, so to speak, to prosper and enable their leaders to hobnob with kings, presidents, prime ministers and other holders of temporal power.

Speaking of which, isn’t it amazing how Daisaku Ikeda manages to cop photo ops with every university rector, Nobel Prize winner and other prominent members of civil society in emerging-market and developing economies on this planet, yet never appears with any Japanese notables? Does he have Nippon cooties or what? Who is to blame? Sokagakkai, or Japan? Just sayin’.

* The cleric and the laic long harbored an uneasy relationship here that in 1991 ended up with the temple excommunicating Sokagakkai.

** Religious assignments appear to be as hereditary as Diet membership.

Look What the President of the United States Can Do If He Puts His Mind to It

Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity: before, after.

Let’s hope he can work the same magic on the Jews and the Moslems.