Often as I scroll through social media or have conversations with my “nonvangelical” and atheist friends, we discuss their general sense of frustration with any effort to reach out and speak to evangelical people. The common gripes are often that conversations with evangelicals quickly devolve into discussions of theology and dogma, and that in those dogmatic debates no evidence or reason (even if drawn from the Bible itself) seems to sway evangelicals from their concrete positions.
I wish there was an easy step-by-step method for breaking through the armor of evangelical bias. I wish I could outline a foolproof way to navigate the maze of circular reasoning and rote talking points. Instead, all I can provide is an explanation for the Biblical origin of this particular subset of evangelical psychology. I can illustrate how the book of Job, and the thousands of sermons derived from it that are preached from evangelical pulpits every Sunday, impacts our ability to have a meaningful philosophical debate with those in the evangelical community.
What is the “Book of Job?”
For those of you unfamiliar with the Bible (those perhaps who weren’t forced to memorize it in grade school) Job is a story found in the Old Testament. The Bible is commonly divided into two halves: the Old Testament are the books of the Bible whose historical setting and authorship take place before the birth of Jesus (and are shared as religious texts by those of the Jewish faith,) and the New Testament which is comprised of all the accepted texts written after the birth of Jesus and the advent of Christianity.
The Book of Job begins by describing a man who embodies all of the ancient virtues attributed to servants of the Hebrew God: he fears his deity, he shuns evil, he has many children, he has great wealth in livestock, and he is committed to the practices of consecration and sacrifice that keep his family blameless and free of sin in the eyes of the Old Testament God.
What happens next is both fascinating and terrifying: God and Satan have a relaxed conversation about Job. This event is fascinating because nothing in the text leads us to believe that it is at all extraordinary for Satan to appear in the presence of God for a conversation. There’s no battle, no shouting, no threats; there’s not even impolite language between the creator of the universe and the embodiment of evil as they converse.
Simultaneously, this conversation is terrifying because, rather than discussing their eternal war or the endless strife between good and evil, God and Satan are instead having a debate about a religious man named Job, and what it would take for Job to abandon his faith.
Satan seems to feel that Job’s wealth and prosperity are the key to his faith. “Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has,” Satan tells God, “and he will curse you to your face.”
For most of us who are anchored in reason, this is an obvious attempt to bait God by Satan. If God is indeed all knowing, He should be able to ascertain if what Satan says is true or not. There’s absolutely no need for God to act on this assertion. If God is loving and all powerful, acting against his own follower to prove something He already knows accomplishes nothing. God should have no need to prove Satan wrong for if Satan is truly evil, God knows Satan is wrong anyways.
But instead of God rejecting Satan’s premise, a series of horrifying disasters befall Job. Invaders attack and kill his livestock and servants. The “fire of God” falls from heaven and consumes all of Job’s livestock. A powerful wind knocks over the house where Job’s children are feasting, killing them all.
Job’s response to these terrible events is universally lauded as a Christian virtue: he shaves his head, tears his clothes, and worships the very God who caused all this misery saying, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”
Satan is unsatisfied with this result, and appears to chat with God a second time. Here he insists that the reason Job continues to worship God, despite such horrible fortune, is that for all his losses Job is still a healthy man. Satan baits God again saying, “Touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.”
It cannot be emphasized enough that for a second time God falls for the obvious bait. An all knowing and all powerful being, who has proven Satan wrong once by killing thousands of servants, burning helpless animals alive, and crushing a few innocent kids, is now tricked into smiting his most devout follower with sores “from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”
Job, despite the encouragement from his wife who suggests that Job just “curse God and die,” holds fast to his faith.
The next few chapters are part of a conversation between Job and three of his most devout friends. Job poetically laments the day of his birth, begs God for death, and claims that all of this tragedy is an unjust reward for someone so faithful and devout. Job’s friends suggest that maybe he or his family did something to deserve this treatment, maybe Job should quit being so critical of God, and that maybe Job doesn’t fear God quite so much as the Bible told us in chapter one. Job’s responses to these ideas are often quite logical, and he runs the gamut of self-loathing, criticism of God, and philosophical nihilism that one would expect from a person who lost their wealth and their children in at the hands of the deity they worship.
It’s important to note that many of the religious aphorisms common among evangelicals are derived from this part of the Bible. Arguments that God is just, despite having created and allowed evil to flourish; explanations that God is too mysterious and powerful to criticize; and even the idea that people in tragic circumstances must have done some secret sin to deserve their fate, all come from the dialogue between Job and his friends. That there are more than twenty chapters filled with this kind of talk shows how important it was for the author to assert these points time and time again.
Eventually even God seems tired of hearing Job begging for death and accusing God (rightly) of unjust treatment. Speaking from the center of a whirlwind (such a modest display of terrifying supernatural power, and a reference to the wind that God used to kill all of Job’s children) God says the line that was most often quoted to me whenever I would complain that life was unfair: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?”
God’s response continues to underscore his power and mystery. He spends several more chapters bragging at length about his supernatural abilities, claiming credit for the mysteries of nature, and asserting his mastery over the most powerful creatures in the animal kingdom. In the face of all of this power and rebuke, Job simply “repents in dust and ashes.”
God decrees that Job’s friends should all make apologetic sacrifices (He’s angry with them for twenty or so chapters of engaging in religious debate with a grieving man) after which the Bible tells us that God “restores Job’s fortunes.” No, God doesn’t use his limitless supernatural power to bring anyone back from the dead.
No, God doesn’t turn back time and undo the tragedy. Instead, God grants Job new children, more servants, and better livestock than he had before all this started. Job lives one hundred and forty years in his new wealth and comfort before dying a devout old man.
The Evangelical lessons from Job
It would be possible to view the Book of Job as an ancient allegory about accepting the vagaries of fate. A reasonable person could see the poetic diatribes by Job as he begs for death as a release from his grief as part of a very ancient way of viewing psychological trauma, depression, and suicidal ideation.
However, evangelicals are Biblical literalists. They believe that every word of the Bible is a literal description of fact and historical circumstance. They believe that God had a conversation with Job from inside an actual whirlwind, and that God happily made a bet with the Devil to see what it would take for a devout man to lose his faith.
If you view the Book of Job from a literal perspective, there are some key lessons you will carry into your daily life. These ideas will shape your philosophy and your ability to converse about the very concept of God.
One: God is constantly judging us to determine how devout we are
Even though evangelicals believe in a final judgement that will take place in Heaven after the end of the Earth, the Book of Job also shows that God is very interested in gauging the strength of our faith in day to day life. In this Biblical example, it is a personal point of pride for God in his conversations with Satan that Job is so devout and faithful, even in the face of extreme hardship. Furthermore, the conversation between God and Job at the end of the book shows that God cares about how well his worshipers resist philosophical ideas that might question His greatness or power. God shows his displeasure with Job and his friends for even engaging in the debate about the meaning behind Job’s suffering.
When you speak to an evangelical person who has read these verses, they will naturally oppose any idea that you introduce that seems to contradict scripture or accepted dogma. They will do this because they believe that God is actively watching and judging their response to what you have to say, and He will either reward or punish them based on their capability to give your thoughts full consideration.
Two: physical and philosophical opposition proves them “right”
The Bible makes a powerful case that Job was completely undeserving of his hardships because of his extreme righteousness. This Biblical story sets the precedent that a follower of Christ might fall on hard times not through any sin or failing on their part, but merely as a “test” of their faith allowed or perpetrated by God himself. And so, if God is testing your faith (their logic goes) the best possible behavior would be to “double down” on that faith. Ignore any doubting thoughts, push down concerns, drown any sense of unfairness in sheer logic-free adherence to all things Biblical and just maybe God will reward you with more wealth and success than before the “test.” And the very existence of trials and tribulations is proof itself of either a “test” from God or an attack from Satan in this scenario, which is very gratifying for evangelicals in this situation. If God is testing you or if Satan is attacking you, then indeed you have been following the right faith and being “righteous” all along. Just as Job only experienced hardship because of his righteousness and faith, evangelicals see the presence of hardship as proof of their own righteousness and faith.
Three: it is unwise to question or challenge the motives of God
The longest part of the Book of Job is actually the conversation between him and his friends. In that poetic dialogue, Job alternates between praising god and asking for merciful release from his guilt. His friends have a bunch of theories about why a God, supposedly loving and just and merciful, would slaughter all those servants, children, and livestock. When God arrives on the scene to make himself heard, his response is to belittle their right to question by bragging about his own limitless power. “Where were you when I made the universe?” is a question that isn’t seeking a legitimate answer, but rather is meant to underscore the inferiority of man in the face of the Divine. A God who can create whole worlds, tame powerful and deadly creatures, and alter nature itself with a whim surely cannot be questioned by such a fragile and impotent being as Man. For evangelicals this line of reasoning is often used to quell pesky doubts or philosophical contradictions raised by Christians and outsiders alike. If you ask a fundamental question like: “How loving could a God be who would kill innocent men, women, and children just to win a bet with Satan?” they will answer you with the very quotes from God in the Book of Job. “Who are you to question God?”
Four: any amount of unpleasantness is justified for God’s love
Job suffers the most terrible afflictions that a human being can endure and still live. His livelihood, his possessions, his food and shelter, and his friends and family are all destroyed in tragic ways within moments of each other. His body is stricken with painful unending illness. If you were to take the pyramid from Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” and flip it upside down, you can see the order in which Job’s sources of comfort and happiness are stripped away. And yet, the ending of the story is supposedly happy and justifies all of this suffering. Job gets different but better versions of everything that God took from him and lives an unnaturally long life to enjoy those “gifts.” The allegory to how evangelicals view life and mortality is unavoidable. They believe that their days on earth are like Job’s “first life,” fraught with suffering and discomfort. However, the reward for a faithful (yet miserable) service to God on the mortal plane is an eternity of wealth and comfort. This mindset extends to other parts of life as well. Who cares if some people in the country are suffering? There’s an “eternal” reward that justifies it if only they will faithfully serve God. Life itself is just a momentary bout of unpleasantness in the face of eternal reward, and so any of the trials of life (if tempered by faithful service to God) can be justified and ignored. If you imagine millions of Americans voting along this philosophical premise, you can suddenly understand why there’s no real evangelical uproar over the cries of immigrant children being held without trial in cages. You can see why the nastiness of Donald Trump and his cohort of low class and corrupt cabinet members is justified: in the end, God’s will is being served.
Our Lessons from Job
The biggest lesson for humanists, atheists, and other logic-based philosophical people who are engaged with trying to sway evangelicals is that there is no logical way to overcome these four ideas. Your points, no matter how well made or well supported are instantly seen as a spiritual attack or a test from God. The part of the mind that could grasp your logic is deactivated, and the part of the mind that is capable of suspending logic for mystical belief is engaged. From that moment on, every word you utter merely strengthens evangelical beliefs. They are willing to weather the storm of your logic for the promised rewards of the afterlife.
The quest to reach out to evangelical minds is not hopeless, however. There are many amazing stories of people who were lost in the labyrinth of evangelical confirmation bias and found their way out. Each person is different, and what reaches them and inspires doubt and humanity for each person is as diverse as their motivations.
For me, years of abuse in the church had filled me with doubts that were like cracks in my fundamentalist foundation. The final most powerful change came when I began to make friends outside my faith group. When you’re having a positive conversation with a person who identifies as an atheist, or a wiccan, or a Mormon, or a Buddhist and you identify that these are kind and wonderful humans, the polarizing “us or them” mindset of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity begins to seem petty. You start to see that people from all faiths and beliefs are looking for the same thing as you are: answers to questions like “why am I here?” and “what does it all mean?” If those questions are universal to the human experience, you realize that they are more fundamental than fundamentalism. Seeking meaning from life’s tragedy is such a powerful human constant that it is obviously what inspired the original writing of the Book of Job. After all, the story basically shows how a good man in the age before science and reason can experience suffering through no fault of his own. While modern man can explain this through the simple phrase “shit happens,” the humans who lived in the years before science had to attribute everything in their lives to supernatural sources. And so, the idea of God making a bet with Satan over the fate of an otherwise good person could explain the unfairness of life.
Truthfully humans are no longer those ancient people bound by endless mysticism. We live in an age of advanced technology, medical marvels, safe and expedient travel, instantaneous communication, and shared language with more fellow humans than ever before. In this world myths like the Book of Job should be taken for what they are: the last vestiges of an ancient mindset that is no longer needed in the world of satellites and internet. We have vast digital libraries full of similar ancient texts from hundreds of civilizations, and there is no impartial arbiter to say that Job’s experience was the definitive or “true” explanation for why good men sometimes suffer. That’s because those ancient texts are part of a shared human experience, and not a warning written to man by some capricious deity with a gambling problem. There are no “answers” in the Book of Job, just signs that the tribulations he endures and the questions he asks are part of what binds all of mankind in brotherhood. In a modern world that kinship should be more powerful than the divisions created by any fundamentalist religion. We have more in common with our brothers and sisters who are suffering than we do with the fickle “god” who caused us all to suffer.
And so my final point is this: focus on those things you have in common with evangelical fundamentalists. Remind them of your shared humanity, of the universal experience that we have here on Earth. This is much harder than logically disproving the existence of a Judeo-Christian god, or finding the textual anachronisms and contradictions in the Bible. Appealing to another person’s humanity is hard, but infinitely more powerful than logically attacking their beliefs. Yes, logic has its place in the conversation, but empathy and humanity should lead the way. That’s what worked for me.