Naturally, it is not impossible for people close to a subject (in this case Christianity) to make rational criticisms of it.
Well, I don't believe that's true. Please explain why "distance" would lead directly to an inability to understand something, any more than complete immersion would. Because my life experience teaches me that both can be either illuminating, or blinding, to equal degrees.
But being objective has a benefit. You admit that a persons “distance…does necessarily affect their understanding of it” so you must also admit that, if understanding is affected, the criticism will be invalid to the exact extent of the misunderstanding.
No, I don't believe this is so. When the scope of the criticism broadens, because of the "distance" of one's perspective, it does not by necessity make the criticism any less valid, or accurate.
One can evaluate the church's relationship to global culture quite clearly and accurately without being a member of the church, for example, because the scope of the criticism is in alignment with the breadth of the critic's perspective. While the view of the insider on this same global effect will likely be biased, and therefor skewed, by what he knows to be the church's specified intent in that regard. The point being that each perspective offers both clarity and impediments of a relative and different sort. Making neither perspective inherently better than the other.
I don’t totally disagree with your contention that you don’t have to be distant to offer real objections and ask real questions. I would point out that the author does not disagree either. Chesterton says that “being really outside” is only second best, implying strongly that being “really inside” is first best. He is pointing out that a certain type of skeptic and critic, he calls them “the popular citric”, are claiming objectivity but are in no way objective.
I agree with that last sentence. But by the same token, bias does not always mean inaccuracy. I may be biased when I denounce the republican party as the "party of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich", but that doesn't make my observation any less accurate.
The internal mechanisms of the Church are not the point. Of course they will be corrupt and inefficient and sometimes (as we saw in the cover-up of the priest molestation scandal) even complicit in great evil. This has been historically true and will remain true as-long-as people (who we Christians admit are faulty and sinful) run the church. The book was not intended to defend the Catholic Church (although the author was a recent convert to it) or any person. What Chesterton is shedding light on is people who will criticize a priest’s vestments but will marvel at a witch doctor’s feathers and write papers about the cultural importance of the native costumes in the Sandwich Islands while laughing a the Pope’s miter. The functioning of the Church is not what is being discussed. This is a book that is defending a Western and a Christian worldview and attempting to show the supreme importance and impact the onset of Christianity had on the history of the world.
That's a lot to write about. And in fact, so much, that I would be skeptical of ANY general overview of such a massive subject.
Even my own singular experience of the church and Christianity leaves me with a very complicated understanding of it, and of it's effect on just my own life. So that transposing such an understanding to global history… well … who could do that and do it accurately?
Which is why I pay little attention to pop anti-religious critics like Dick Dawkins and Bill Mahar.
I think you paint with too broad a brush. Obviously there are some pig headed Christians who will not listen to any arguments against the faith. I believe these are people who are not prepared to argue with a well informed critic and so they try to shut argument down. In-other-words, some people know they are going to get an objection that they can’t answer so they change the subject. I’m sure there are ignorant atheists who are likewise unwilling to engage a well prepared Christian.
I was painting with the broad brush, that's true. But I was doing it for effect.
The bias of the apologists I've encountered is very real and quite extreme. And although I have encountered only a few, the inability of the 'church' to accept criticism, as evidence by it's ability to change for the better, is also quite evident to anyone with eyes. So that in this case, I think my biased overstatement is not necessarily inaccurate.
Don’t mistake someone not agreeing with a criticism for someone who is unwilling to accept a criticism.
They often go hand in hand, and the evidence of it can be found in their inability to reasonably explain their intractability.
They may well accept it if they become convinced of its truth but you can not expect them to accept it just because their opponent has accepted it.
The problem with this argument is that when it comes to matters of faith, the paradigm in question verifies itself, for the person who believes in it. But stands as an invalidated proposition to everyone else. And an impasse is immediately reached. The believer THINKS he is open-minded, while his 'faith' ensures that he is not.
Chesterton was, at one time, very open to the idea of atheism and materialism there is good evidence that he flirted with those ideas as a young student. He listened to all sides and, in the end, became convinced on the side of God.
The thing is, that only really matters to Chesterton. The rest of us have to investigate and determine the truthfulness of such propositions, for ourselves. One of the ways we do that is by interrogating the "believers", like Chesterton. But when we try, we almost always hit that wall of bias, called "faith".
It's the same wall that makes the church very resistant to criticism, and positive change.
