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Six Anti-Secularist Themes: Deconstructing Religionist Rhetorical Weaponry

Six Anti-Secularist Themes: Deconstructing Religionist Rhetorical Weaponry

See Also:
The Sackgasse of A-Theistic Biblical Studies
Knowledge and Power in Biblical Scholarship
In Praise of Biblical Illiteracy

By Hector Avalos
Iowa State University
November 2010

Spirited debates in scholarly fields usually involve a mixture of substantive argumentation and rhetorical weaponry. Rhetorical weaponry is intended to detract from the real substance of arguments as well as to appeal to the emotional side of the audience. Rhetorical weaponry and substantive arguments are not always easily distinguished, and participants may sometimes be unaware of the difference.

Here, I concentrate on the rhetorical weapons that are being deployed by religionist biblical scholars against efforts to reform the field of biblical studies so that it might function like all other fields in modern academia---a completely secular enterprise with methodological naturalism at its core.

These rhetorical weapons may be seen as literary tropes or themes insofar as they depict fictional, rather than actual, villainy on the part of secularists. The purpose of these tropes and themes is to marginalize secularists rather than to address real arguments. They represent creative versions of the ad hominem fallacy.

Secularists as Fundamentalists

According to many anti-secularists, secularist biblical scholars are no different from religious fundamentalists insofar as they believe that they are correct and all other positions are wrong.

Historically there has been an expansion in the semantics of “fundamentalist,” which first was a self-designation for Christians who believe that certain doctrines (e.g., Virgin Birth) were “fundamental.” The word has since also been used to describe people regarded as extremists, regardless of religion (e.g., Islamic fundamentalists).i

However, “fundamentalist” is often applied to secularist scholars simply because they are certain that their position on a particular issue is true and all others are wrong. For example, Carol Newsom, a professor of biblical studies at Emory University, observed the following about The End of Biblical Studies in her recent panel review:

Fundamentalism is not simply a commitment to certain beliefs; it is also a way of thinking. Avalos appears to have left behind the content of fundamentalism but not its modes of thought. One can see this above all in the black or white, all or nothing framing of his approach.ii

But this use of “fundamentalist” applies to everyone who thinks they are certain about any particular issue.

Indeed, this type of thinking is normal for anyone who accepts the Aristotelian excluded middle. For it is logically necessary that if I think “X is true,” then I am going to think “Not-X is untrue.” That is why the charge that secularists are fundamentalists is eventually logically incoherent or inconsistent because everyone who is certain that any particular claim is true is subject to the same charge.

So, even those persons who are certain that secularists are fundamentalists must think the opposite claim is wrong (secularists are not fundamentalists). Thus, the anti-secularists could be characterized as “fundamentalists” themselves insofar as they are certain their conclusion is right and all others are wrong on that issue.

Omnifideism for Everyone

Omnifideism refers to the idea that all worldviews and approaches are ultimately based on faith and so deserve equal validity as scholarly methods. Science is as much faith as is theology, and so we should allow theological approaches at the Society of Biblical Literature and in biblical scholarship in general.

But no other field in public academia defines “faith” in that manner. Indeed, by this omnifideist logic, these two claims deserve equal treatment:

A. Undetectable Martians wrote Genesis

B. The Society of Biblical Literature is meeting in Atlanta in 2010.

The first is unverifiable to our five senses and/or logic. The second is verifiable once we have defined our terms (e.g., SBL, Atlanta, 2010).

The first is not amenable to scientific investigation; the second is.

Yet, both would be given equal weight under omnifideism.

What is true is that all faith-claims are equally unverifiable, and to say that Yahweh was involved in history is no more verifiable than to say Zeus was involved in history.

That is why methodological naturalism is essential to modern science. According to my definition of science in the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible,

[m]ethodological naturalism, which refers to the idea that only natural causes should be used to explain natural phenomena, also is an essential part of modern science.iii

In sum, faith involves beliefs not based on evidence verifiable to one or more of the five senses and/or logic. Science involves conclusions based on evidence verifiable to one or more of our five senses and/or logic. There is a difference.

The Exclusivist Theme

Aligned with omnifideism is the trope of the secularists who wish to exclude others from the academy. That exclusivism is seen as close-minded and fascist. Apparently forgotten is that Jesus seemingly advocated similar exclusivism in Matthew 12:30 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (RSV).

Usually, the diversity of approaches in other fields is adduced as contrastive examples. Thus, we hear about postcolonialism, Queer readings, and Marxist hermeneutics as examples of inclusivism while secularists are somehow exclusivist when it comes to the use of theological approaches in biblical studies or within the Society of Biblical Literature.

Thus, J. Edmund Anderson, in responding to Ronald Hendel’s recent objections to the religionism in the Society of Biblical Literature, comments:

Let’s also look at the various Feminist and LGBT/Queer papers and seminars that are a part of SBL and AAR as another example...I’m not about to renounce my membership simply because I happen to disagree with SBL for allowing them a say. I just choose not to attend the specific meetings at the SBL annual conference that focus on Feminist and LGBT/Queer readings of the Bible. I think they are unscholarly and uncritical—but that doesn’t mean that the entire SBL is unscholarly and uncritical.iv

But none of these examples of diversity renounce methodological naturalism, and so they are not at all analogous to theological approaches per se.

In addition, these religionists miss the fact that the humanities do exclude precisely what secularists wish to exclude in biblical studies. No other area of the humanities that I know includes supernaturalism as part of its explanatory panoply. Despite diversity in approaches, methodological naturalism remains the basic paradigm.

Thus, insisting on methodological naturalism in biblical studies and in the Society of Biblical Literature is perfectly consistent with what is the norm in all other areas of the humanities and social sciences. We should exclude supernatural and theological approaches with the same enthusiasm and for the same reasons we do so in the social sciences and in the humanities.

The Angry Atheist Trope

Anger is supposed to be a bad thing, and some anti-secularists often like to paint atheists as angry people. Mr. Jim West, the Zwinglian biblioblogger, declares:

For while Avalos and the angry atheists spend their lives attempting to destroy (and make no mistake, their entire program is destruction.  They construct nothing....v

Usually, no evidence is cited for this “anger” other than one is automatically angry if one disagrees with Christianity or theism. Usually, no specific quotations from atheists evidencing this supposed anger are cited.

In fact, the atheists I know are very happy and content people, and surveys taken of secularized countries, such as Denmark, consistently show them to be the happiest people on

But, even more puzzling is that anger is often valued by these same religionists when it is found in their favored figures. After all, the Bible is full of images of angry prophets. God is an angry deity who can send all sorts of dreadful punishments and inflict bodily harm on those who disobey or disagree with him (Deuteronomy 28:15ff). But these religionists don’t seem to have a problem when biblical figures are angry but only when secularists are angry.

Indeed, a whole book industry that celebrates the angry masculine God of the Bible has been spawned by some evangelical Christians. Its leaders include John Eldredge, the president of Ransomed Heart Ministries (Colorado Springs, CO) and the author of Wild at Heart: The Secret of a Man’s Soul, which reportedly has sold over a million copies since its publication in 2001. Eldredge’s angry God has been followed as a model by some drug lords when they commit their bloody massacres. vii

Finally, anger is not necessarily a bad thing. One has a moral obligation to be angry at the large number of people who hold sacred a collection of books that endorses everything from genocide to misogyny. One should be angry that religionist biblical scholars still use the Bible to draft social policies that made more sense in the Iron Age than in the Computer Age. We should be angry when the Bible is used as an authority to deny loving couples a right to marry regardless of gender or sex.

Of course, it is simply wrong to state that atheists are not intent on being constructive. Atheists have more reason to make this world better because they do not live for an afterlife. Making the world in which we live better on the basis of scientific evidence, rather than on the wishes of some unverifiable being called “God,” is a very constructive way to live.

The Psychoanalysis Maneuver

In Democratizing Biblical Studies, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza makes this observation about my argument for ending biblical studies as we know it:

Avalos argues that biblical scholars must confront the fact that the Bible is upheld as a sacred text that has authority. It is at this second point that the pathos of this argument comes to the fore. He tells us that he comes from a Pentecostal Protestant immigrant home, wanted to become an a biblical scholar to fight atheism, and in the process has come to understand that “atheism was the most honest choice” he could make.

This psychoanalysis really has not much to do with my argument, which centers on the arbitrary and ethnocentric rationales for endowing the Bible with moral authority when there are many other books that could be so endowed.

I usually don’t see religionist authors speaking of the “pathos” of scholars in faith traditions. For example, I don’t see Schüssler Fiorenza speaking of her own religious background as part of “a pathos” that brought her to particular conclusions.

Now, there may be a place for studying how biographies affect the development of a scholar’s thinking. My biography explains a lot of how I came to my conclusions, but my biography does not justify or invalidate my conclusions per se. Merely mentioning a biographical linkage without further precision or documentation suggests the use of a scholar’s biography as a rhetorical weapon rather than as a substantive observation.

Empirically, those who defend the authority of the Bible in the modern world mostly are believers or members of a religious group. So why is it not as justified to posit that self-interest in preserving their own religion is what motivates defenses of the authority of the Bible in the modern world?

The Proprietary Rights Theme

Biblical studies belongs only to the faithful according to this theme.viii Only people of faith can rightly understand the Bible, and atheists have no business studying it. Here is a sample of the rationale behind this theme:

There are historical reasons for this. First, and foremost, the Bible is the Church’s book (and the Synagogue’s) (pace Philip Davies!). People of faith wrote it, preserved it, collected it, and passed it along. Faith is the string which holds the pearls (of texts) together. Atheists and unbelievers didn’t write a word of it, transmit it, preserve it, or pass it along. No one can argue with the fact that the Bible is the book of the people of faith. It belongs to us. Not to the atheists. They are now and have been and always will be outsiders to it. Their point of view, then, is as mere observers. Atheists are to biblical studies what television commentators are to a sporting event: they are off the field, in a booth, secure behind glass, opining concerning what others should have or could have done without ever bothering to take the field themselves.ix

The first thing to note is the self-serving nature of the boundaries imposed by West. He circularly defines the boundaries so as to include himself and exclude atheists, but he provides no rationale for why the boundaries should be what he declared.

For example, what evidence is presented that only those who write and preserve any artifact are entitled to study that artifact? Indeed, who made up the rule that only those who have produced or transmitted artifacts have a right to study those artifacts?

And why not say that only the authors who actually wrote biblical texts have a right to study their own writings? Who would understand more than the author himself or herself? By that logic, West has written none of the biblical materials and has no business pontificating on anything therein.

Clearly, West’s prohibition is not a statement of historical fact but simply a value judgment. As is the case with most value judgments, it dissolves into a circularity: “Only people of faith are entitled to study the Bible because only people of faith are entitled to study the Bible.”

The boundaries are also arbitrary. For example, prior to the rise of Christianity, we could argue that only Jews wrote and preserved what Christians call the Old Testament, and so does that mean that Christians have no right to study the Old Testament? In fact, for many traditional Jews, Christians have corrupted the Hebrew Scriptures, and so why should Christians be entrusted with studying the Hebrew Scriptures all?

And why should “faith” be the feature of the human experience that entitles one to study any book? One could just as easily postulate that we all share the human feature called “imagination” or “creativity,” and so we are entitled to study those books produced by the human imagination or creative process.

Secularists believe that supernatural claims are no less the product of the natural human imagination than any other act of creativity, and so such supernatural claims are no less excluded from scholarly investigation than any other natural phenomena atheists might study.

Indeed, we could broaden the boundaries of proprietary rights so that human production is what makes an artifact subject to study by human beings. Since the Bible is a human artifact, then all human beings are able to study it. The Bible was produced by the same human actions that we can all experience.

That is why West’s sports analogy fails so completely. If I understand West’s analogy, the television commentators in the stands are analogous to atheist biblical scholars while the athletes participating on the field are analogous to faith-based biblical scholars.

But since atheist biblical scholars are not proper observers at all for West, then they would be excluded from observing sports events altogether, whereas in actual sports events non-athlete television commentators have every right to be observers. So, by West’s logic, the proper analogy should not have non-athlete observers at all in a sporting event but only the athletes on the field.

Yet, there is nothing that logically or physically prevents non-athlete observers (= atheist scholar) from studying the rules or actions of the athletes on the field any better than an actual athlete (= faith based scholar) who might also be an observer in the stands.

For example, an athlete (= faith based scholar) in the audience does not necessarily know more about what the quarterback in an American football game is going to do in the next play than a non-athlete observer (= atheist scholar) who might have studied that particular quarterback over years.

In addition, what do you do with atheists who, like myself, have been believers (= athletes) before? Do they lose that expertise when they become mere observers in the stands? Indeed, West seems to forget how many television commentators have been athletes.

Another failure of this analogy is that West equates access to a present phenomenon or event with access to a past phenomenon or event. An athletic event today might entail that the athlete on the field have information not available to the audience (e.g., in a football huddle). But that lack of information would afflict both the athletes (faith-based scholars) and non-athletes (secularist scholars) observing from the stands.

Since most of the participants who wrote the Bible lived in the past, then modern faith-based scholars have no more of an ability to observe those events or actions than atheists do. Conversely, atheist scholars have no less an ability to study the actions of the faithful in the past than do modern religionist scholars.

Beyond Rhetoric

Any progress in the debate between the secularists and the religionists in biblical and religious studies must cast aside rhetorical weaponry and focus on the substantive problems that are being raised to theological and faith-based approaches to biblical scholarship.

Historically, biblical studies provides one of the last resistance movements to a thorough methodological naturalism, especially when we survey what has happened in other areas of the Humanities and Social Sciences in public institutions of higher learning.



i See George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelcalism, 1870-1923 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). For representatives of the equation of “fundamentalism” with “extremism,” see Martin Marty and Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994) and other volumes of the Fundamentalism Project.

ii Carol Newsom, “Response to Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies; or, What’s A Nice Atheist Like you Doing in a Place Like This?” Unpublished paper delivered to the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion (Atlanta, Georgia, March 6, 2010).

iii Hector Avalos, “Science and the Bible, “ in Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, ed., The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), Volume 5: 126.

iv J. Edmund Anderson, Comment #29 (June 24, 2010) in “Discussing Faith and Reason in Biblical Studies,” at For Ron Hendel’s comments, see “Biblical Views: Farewell to the SBL,” at

v See Jim West, “The Blind Leading the Blind” at http://zwingliusredivivus.

vi See Phil Zuckerman, Society without God: What the Least Religions Nations can Tell us About Contentment (New York: NYU Press, 2010), especially pp. 25-29. Also: “An Unlikely Atheist Teaches Others,” Iowa State Daily (November 10, 2010) at

vii For how Eldredge’s book is influencing drug cartel massacres in Mexico, see Hector Avalos, “A Faith-Based Drug Cartel?” at 2010/11/14/ames_tribune/opinion/ columnists/doc4cdf740437555582844106.txt.

viii For another discussion of this issue, see Philip Davies, Whose Bible? (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995).

ix Jim West, “The Sackgasse of A-Theistic Biblical Studies,” Bible and Interpretation (June 2010) at

Comments (9)

i have a response that's a bit too long for a comment and too short for an essay, here-
#1 - Jim - 11/29/2010 - 17:09

I disagree that West's comment was too long to post here. I may be wrong, but it smacks of trying to move the conversation to a venue where he (admittedly) censors comments he doesn't care for.

For that reason, I choose to answer here, quoting West where appropriate.

West begins with a short introduction that amounts to a rhetorical yawn at what are points he utterly failed to address by Avalos. Moreover, his post title makes it clear that he seeks no additional dialog nor has he any desire to do so. West sees this as a "previously rehashed 'atheists can too do biblical studies' argument [...] addressed decades ago." Avalos' larger point is that is isn't a matter of atheists can also participate in biblical studies; what he's saying seems to be, and I agree, that a secular approach to biblical studies is the only effective or honest method.

One need not be an atheist to employ a secular approach or method of study. Indeed, any method that includes the supernatural is a failed method from the start and relies on superstition rather than rational, scientific approaches.

West then rants on about how "granting unbelief recognition means granting it seriousness," a seriousness he opines isn't deserved. Yet he refuses to quantify or qualify that statement. He says only that "[t]o take it seriously is to denigrate faith." Faith *should* be denigrated when it comes to academic discourse and intellectual pursuit. Faith, used in the manner West does, has no utility to academia. His continued use of "angry atheist" and "angry atheism," which he equates to "unbelief" is irrational and silly. This is clearly a rhetorical device, but just as clearly serves to demonstrate that the biased perspective of the believer in biblical studies is problematic for academic discourse.

Theological methods in biblical study are flawed in the most serious extent. They suffer from a point of view that requires first accepting certain fundamental beliefs without any sort of evidence. Theological methods, therefore, begin with preconceived conclusions to which data are then sought. This sheds light on the tendency for 'theologians' to refer to secularists as "fundamentalists," since there must be a certain amount of acknowledgement to this irrational way of going about inquiry. The tu quoque of the believer then becomes necessary as he/she shouts, angrily, "well you're a fundamentalist, too!"

If nothing else, West has, indeed, made his position clear. He has a conclusion to which there cannot be any data which are contradictory. Period. The secular approach, which does not require one be an atheist, follows the data first, wherever they go, and conclusions are never more than just provisional.
#2 - cfeagans - 11/29/2010 - 21:54

We asked Jim West to inform our readers of his reply on his site, which he graciously agreed to do. There was nothing nefarious about his comment. Editors.
#3 - Editors - 11/29/2010 - 22:09

Hi Hector, I have enjoyed reading your contrasting views and have learned much about how the secular world perceives the Bible. The Bible is a human artifact but God inspired the humans that wrote it (II Timothy 3:16). Methodological naturalism simply cannot work in Biblical studies partly because much of the Bible is composed of prophetic writings. The O.T. contains the inspired writings of sixteen of the Hebrew prophets. Christ, of whom all the prophets bore witness (Luke 24:27), is The Prophet of His Church in all ages (Deut. 18:15), revealing to them by His inspired servants, by Himself and by His Spirit all we know of God and immortality. Will the "happiest people on earth" from the secularized countries still be happy in eternity? Paul says in II Timothy 2:15 that we should rightly divide the word of truth and if we do that, "time past" / "but now" / "ages to come", we can better understand the times and circumstances under which different portions of the Bible were written. Biblical studies belong to everyone. I appreciate your attempt to save the study of God's word in public academia but in doing so, don't take God out of it!
#4 - Arthur Chrysler - 11/30/2010 - 04:20

Fair enough. And, in that case, I'm glad I questioned it if only to prompt that explanation from the editors. Thank you.
#5 - cfeagans - 11/30/2010 - 05:13

Tiens tiens! I believe that the late James Barr somewhere (must be The Bible in the Modern World, London, SCM 1973) remarked that the Bible has authority for those who believe that it has. For other people, it has no authority, or an importance not different from other classics.
The evangelical/fundamentalist idea of God directing history makes sense for those belonging to this direction within the church, and to nobody else. Provan's and Long's history book makes sense within this intellectual environment, and to nobody else. Even classical historical-critical scholarship made sense to those belonging to this school. On the other hand a fundamentalist history book is nonsense for the critical scholar, and viceversa.
Jim West's insistence that the Bible belongs to the believers is placed strangely between these poles, as Jim does not belong within the evangelical part of the Church. He is really representing a kind of "unholy" blend of both positions, where you find most critical scholars. Here Avalos' old point that most come from religious homes and have had their attachment to the Bible formed a long time before they joined the Academy is certainly true. However, we are talking about two positions which should not be mixed. The result could be evangelical studies which are only conservative, not evangelical as when Bill Dever attacked the members of the Copenhagen school claiming himself to be a conservative, and they wouldn't have him but lumped him among the critical scholars. Or it could be critical scholars who are really not critical, people who do not dare to ask the really critical questions, e.g., taking the Christian Jesus-myth to bits and pieces (it happens of course).
I suppose that such attitudes to the Bible and biblical studies - and all the other directions mentioned or forgotten by Avalos - do have a home. Critical studies in Avalos' (and my) sense belong in the Academy, the evangelical position in religious schools. It is the mixture that is dangerous - in biblical terms "unclean." You cannot serve two masters at the same time: an evangelical faith in the Bible on one side and a critical approach using the same methodology as other humanistic disciplines on the other. It is a compromise that satisfy nobody.
There is no such thing as being 75% critical. The only acceptable attitude is 100% critical.
Niels Peter Lemche
#6 - Niels Peter Lemche - 11/30/2010 - 15:32

Jim's is OK but he and Hector are ending in a totally unnecessary dispute, because it is now not a question of anything but "beliefs", religious or atheistic.

Stay with the method, as I already said. A believing person can do critical biblical studies, not because he is a believer (or in spite of being one), but simply because he understands and follows the rules of critical humanistic scholarship.

If this is impossible, biblical studies is a good case for a socioreligigious analysis trying to tell us the reasons for why the field is so problematic.

After all, it is interesting why persons like Albright, and Dever remained quasi-evangelicals, while other like Hector and (I believe) Phillip Daves turned into critical evaluators of their own background.
#7 - Niels Peter Lemche - 11/30/2010 - 16:41

RE: Niels P. Lemche (Zwinglius Redivivus thread): "This is not about faith; it is about methodology."

I would disagree here. It is about religionists who insert supernaturalist faith-claims into their methodology.
#8 - Dr. Hector Avalos - 12/02/2010 - 12:20

I enjoyed this post very much. Just one comment on where I think I differ with your approach...


I think it is anachronistic and logically fallacious to hold something accountable to the dictates of a completely different and alien moral culture than that in which it originated. And when I say that, I do not only mean it is absurd to judge biblical texts negatively because they advocate what Modern people would consider atrocious and ancient people would not, but also that it is absurd to call the biblical texts by such things as “infallible” because that is also not the way the ancient peoples viewed the texts they gave us. It’s the reason why I get so peeved when Disney won’t release something like Song of the South on DVD. Maybe it doesn’t align with our current (or currently desired) attitudes towards the equality and dignity of all ethnic peoples, but if that is the case, it is still no reason to hold it accountable for operating within a different context than our own. It represents a different time and it stands in the context of that time. So why should anyone be angry that people hold sacred a collection of books that don’t align with our modern moral context? In my mind, one should only be angry with them if things like this were the case:


Or this:


But just because a large number of people hold such texts sacred doesn’t necessitate they do any such things with them.

We cannot be negatively judged by the Torah because we are not 1st Century Jews any more than the Torah can be negatively judged by us because it is not a 21st Century moral tractate.

“I usually don’t see religionist authors speaking of the “pathos” of scholars in faith traditions.”

See New Historicism.
#9 - slaveofone - 12/16/2010 - 18:34


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