Pope Francis Denounces Religious Fundamentalism — Is the Pope an Atheist Who Believes in God… Like Me?

Pope Francis must have been reading my new book that extols the virtues of embracing tolerance and paradox over what I call “certainty addiction.” The pope said, “Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext.”

The pope denounced the religious fundamentalism that inspired the Paris massacres and ongoing Mideast conflicts, saying the attackers were enslaved by “deviant forms of religion” that used God as a mere ideological pretext to perpetuate hate. Maybe he just read WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace.

Okay, I’m kidding about the pope reading my new book… but seriously… with the pope launching an anti-fundamentalism sermon on the world I’m tempted to call Pope Francis a new member of the growing club of fundamentalism-survivors. His embrace of paradox puts the pope at odds with his American conservative fundamentalist bishops, not to mention at odds with the American religious right.

In his annual foreign policy address to Vatican-based ambassadors, Francis called for a unanimous response from the international community to end “fundamentalist terrorism” in the Mideast. And he called for Muslim leaders in particular to condemn “extremist interpretations” of their faith that seek to justify such violence. But it is not a stretch to see that the pope is also taking on the conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals that also eliminate God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext.

Pope Francis has already taken on the leaders of the American Roman Catholic neoconservative movement like the far right leader Robert George of Princeton that the New York Times called “this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker.” As The National Catholic Reporter noted when talking about Robert George’s opposition to the pope that they described as a culture war diatribe from Professor Robert George, “Professor George wishes us all to run to the barricades in the culture war with him.”

And as Damon Linker writes in “What do conservative Catholics want from Pope Francis?” (The Week February 11, 2014):

On one side is the group I used to belong to and that I wrote about critically in The Theocons. Often called “Catholic neocons,” the writers, intellectuals, and prelates in this faction — Robert P. George, George Weigel, Hadley Arkes, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia — tend to emphasize continuity between the Catholic Church and… the Republican Party.

Pope Francis is openly hated by the Roman Catholic “theocons” and has been doing his best to show they do not represent him. But he might also ask their evangelical friends, like the folks at Wheaton College, Hobby Lobby (and other enemies of women who deny them contraceptive coverage), or the president of Gordon College who wanted to get President Obama to let him discriminate against gays– when they too will renounce their “extremist interpretations.”

Meanwhile if any of my readers happen to be headed to Rome… and an audience with His Holiness… you might want to hand him a copy of … never mind, just dreaming… but at least I hope Pope Francis reads this quote from my new book  that I think he might like:

We’re all of at least two minds. We play a role and define that role as “me” because labels and membership in a tribe make the world feel a little safer. When I was raising my children, I pretended to be grown-up Daddy. But alone with my thoughts, I was still just me. I’m older now, and some younger people may think I know something. I do! I know how much I can never know.

Muslim, Jew, Hindu or Christian, you are that because of where and when you were born. If you are an atheist, you are that because of a book or two you read, or who your parents were and the century in which you were born. Don’t delude yourself: there are no good reasons for anything, just circumstances.

Don’t delude yourself: you may describe yourself to others by claiming a label of atheist, Jew, evangelical, gay or straight but you know that you are really lots more complicated than that, a gene-driven primate and something more. Want to be sure you have THE TRUTH about yourself and want to be consistent to that truth? Then prepare to go mad. Or prepare to turn off your brain and cling to some form or other of fundamentalism, be that religious or secular.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace

Available now on Amazon