‘Thank God’ — the double standard of religious tribalism

Tribalism is partly driven by the desire to wield power within the tribe, controlling others by policing boundaries and meting out punishments for those who transgress. And it is partly driven by the desire to wield power beyond the tribe — to be affirmed by those despised/envied outsiders who have never noticed or cared what the tribal gatekeepers thought of them.

That results in two different standards — one for judging the statements of insiders and another one for those of outsiders. If some shimmering person outside the tribe says even the most vacuous or ambiguous thing that can be spun positively, it will be seized upon and claimed as an affirmation of the tribe and all its values. If some upstart within the tribe says the identical statement, it will be interpreted in the most hostile light so that the speaker can be condemned as someone who opposes the tribe and its values.

So when the star athlete points to the heavens at his moment of athletic triumph, that single gesture is praised by tribal gatekeepers as a point-by-point endorsement of their complete five-page Statement of Faith and their 25-page political agenda, and all of the athlete’s accomplishments are claimed as the rightful property of the tribe which now embraces him as an honorary member. The gesture and the athlete are praised because they can be spun as some kind of evidence of the legitimacy among outsiders that the tribe desperately desires.

But if some troublemaker from within the tribe — some renegade asking too many questions — should stand and recite the Nicene Creed, every syllable will be parsed for evidence of insincerity and the gatekeepers will declare themselves unimpressed and unconvinced by this vague, shallow gesture.

Imagine, for example, what would happen if someone like, say, Rob Bell were to stand at a microphone on national television and say something like, “When you got God, you got a friend, and that friend is you.”

The gatekeepers would be in an uproar — he’s claiming we’re all gods! they would shout, rending their specially made Velcro rending-garments. Heresy … blasphemy … farewell!

But when Matthew McConaughey says that same phrase at the Academy Awards, his dimples gleaming like the golden statue he holds in triumph, this is pounced upon as an affirmation of the tribe and its values and — especially — of the gatekeepers themselves.

Odd, that.

P.S. McConaughey attributed that statement to Charles Laughton, which seems unlikely. Can anybody track down a source for that?

Here’s my favorite line from Laughton — “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”