What Rev. Brassfield regards as “Christ-like”
Apologies are fascinating, because they are so seldom honest, benign, sincere, and genuinely contrite. Rev. David Brassfield just submitted one that might serve as a classic in the category of backhanded, insincere, bilious apologies, and a useful template for high-placed jerks in search of inspiration.
Before revealing the good Reverend’s masterpiece, some background is in order. In the wake of the deadly tornado that devastated the area around Oklahoma City, Brassfield printed and distributed an attack on local atheist groups to parishioners attending his Newalla Church of Christ, alleging that they proved their deficits in morality, character and community support by failing to join with various church groups in relief efforts.
“….They claim believers in God are blind and only they see the truth. But, in fact, they only see themselves. Helping others is beneath them. Ironically, they greatly resemble a religious group of Jesus’ day: the Jewish leaders, who talked a good game but did nothing. We should dread the day if those who reject God and the church Jesus built become a majority in this land. …If the “proof is in the pudding,” then those anti-God groups have left a bad taste in the world’s mouth. Thanks be to God that because of the love and sacrifice of his son, believers in God have felt compelled to come from all places to give of themselves freely.”
As Emily Litella would say, “Never mind!” The pastor was dead, dead wrong. Local atheist groups had organized, pitched in, and done their part to assist in relief efforts. A humble apology was called for. This is what Reverend produced. As usual, bolded and bracketed asides are me:
“Last week I printed information and deductions that were incomplete, inaccurate, and unfair. That, I freely acknowledge and I apologize for the inadequate research (two websites) that led to all of the above. There were many atheist individuals and groups that helped in the tornado relief efforts and for their work I am thankful.” [ As my mother would say, quit while you’re ahead. This would be a barely acceptable apology, though far from satisfactory. On the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale, I’d give it about a 6: “A forced or compelled version of 1-4, when the individual (or organization) apologizing knows that an apology is appropriate but would have avoided making one if he or she could have gotten away with it.” He apologizes for the inadequate research, but not for his insulting comments about atheists. He blames the websites, rather than accept full responsibility. But it gets worse.]
“Behind every error there are usually other errors and when there are errors, there are opportunities to learn. One of those errors was to assume (as the article implied) that all Christians help and all non-Christians do not. That, obviously, is never the case. Another error was taking personal observations as a final say in a matter. In this area, I adopted a method of which I believe some atheists employ: Namely, the “if I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist” attitude. If it is wrong for one to use that approach to determine the existence of God, then it is wrong for me to use it to determine someone’s involvement in relief efforts.” [ It’s not nice to attack the people you are supposedly apologizing to, nor to turn one’s own misconduct—insulting a whole groups and impugning the character of its members without evidence—into an analogy for what you think is wrong with the group in the first place. I guess he thought this was clever; in fact, it is really stupid. “If I don’t see it, and nobody sees it, and I’m just expected to believe it anyway, count me out” is not remotely equivalent to, “I don’t see it because I didn’t look very hard, yet I assumed it wasn’t there anyway out of pure animus and confirmation bias.”]
“A third error was entering into a judgmental position in the matter. The application of a label “miserable counselors” to people whom I have never met was not taking the high road and not mine to make. Being human makes us liable to these mistakes.” [ Ah, the old standby, “Everybody’s human and makes mistakes” rationalization. Translation: “You have no right to think I acted like a jerk, for I am you.” This is just convenient self-forgiveness for gratuitous harm to others, when it is the others who should give him the benefit of it, if anyone does.]
“Even atheists can be judgmental and sometimes threatening toward us (in spite of the belief of one blogger who said that it seems that atheists are the ones being persecuted). Reading some of their blogs will easily evidence that. One atheist blogger said, “I am in the camp that wishes to tear down religion. IMHO (in my humble opinion) religion does more harm than good and must be stopped.” [ Now Brassfield gets snotty: you can just hear the sarcasm in “even.” What does the tone of individual bloggers have to do with what he’s apologizing for? Only this: He wants to make it clear that his victims deserved every word of his earlier attack: they are the enemy, after all. What kind of apology repeatedly impugns and denigrates the object of the conduct that the apology is supposedly for? Answer: an attack disguised as an apology.]
“Statements such as that one keeps me from backing down from one comment in my article; that I dread the day if these individuals become the majority in our land.” [ “I apologize for insulting you, you vile threats to civilization!”]
“In the end, I have learned. I learned that a more Christ-like approach toward the lost is needed by me. I also learned that just as we know that God is watching over us at all times, so is the world. That reality was brought home to me when I discovered that someone in our assembly sent the article to atheist friends, who then emailed us, posted the articles (and their opinions of it) on their blog sites and even invaded the youth face book page to criticize me. Such will be of no worry to me if I make sure in the future that I speak God’s word, not my opinions.” [ Yechhh: Another insult, arrogance, barely restrained anger that his attack was leaked to its targets, more negative innuendo, and airy superiority.]
The final score for this Beast of a fake apology: on the ten point scale, an 11. Here are 9 and 10:
9. Deceitful apologies, in which the wording of the apology is crafted to appear apologetic when it is not (“if my words offended, I am sorry”). Another variation: apologizing for a tangential matter other than the act or words that warranted an apology.
10. An insincere and dishonest apology designed to allow the wrongdoer to escape accountability cheaply, and to deceive his or her victims into forgiveness and trust, so they are vulnerable to future wrongdoing.
The Reverend’s faux apology adds insults to the deceit and insincerity. Thus he has created a new and useful, if revolting, addition to the scale:
11. An offensive apology that itself requires an apology, henceforth known as “A Brassfield”
__________________________
Pointer: tgt
Facts: Red Dirt Report 1, 2
Graphic: Sugar Shack Southie
Ethics Alarms 
Very amusing incident.. The “atheist community” is strong enough in Oklahoma City to warrant an attack from a Man of God.
They should send the Reverend a case of Grape Juice or whatever they’re serving at the Church of Christ… His wrongful accusation, ugly apology and the atheists’ polite restraint in light of both those incidents only bolsters their standing and reputation, on top of their post disaster relief.
You cannot buy this kind of positive public promotion from your self sworn rival, or anyone.
Very true—so ugly. Who would want to be on this guy’s side on any argument?
Atheists/the non-religious consistently give and volunteer far less to charities, even when all religious giving is taken out of the equation, and when controlled for every possible thing you can control for. It’s predictable enough that you can chart levels of sacrificial giving/volunteer work corresponding with measures of religiosity. It would be an outlier if that were not the case in this particular crisis.
That said, WHO CARES. What a jerk of a reverend. I have never, ever experienced a minister “rubbing it in” like this, much less distributing literature blasting one’s neighbors for unprovably “not doing their fair share.” For good reason:
“But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.”
How about keeping your good deed-doing to yourself instead of having a charity-measuring contest…
Where do you get those stats? I certainly don’t see that among my atheist and religious friends. Now, I have seen stats that the middle class give proportionately more of their income than the wealthy, I just haven’t seen it broken down by religion.
Which is exactly why sociology is valuable, even if it cannot be an exact science. We tend to notice the things that confirm our personal bias.
I welcome you to google the subject of the correlation between faith and charitable giving. It has nothing to do with proving dumb statements like “atheists/religious people are bad/good” but it does show agreed-upon relationships between ideologies and behaviors in populations.
Some sources are in my comment for tgt below, but there are probably dozens more studies.
How about keeping your good deed-doing to yourself instead of having a charity-measuring contest…
…says the guy that started the post with a charity measuring contest.
It’s predictable enough that you can chart levels of sacrificial giving/volunteer work corresponding with measures of religiosity.
I think this is actually a generally true statement…so long as you only include religious people. Atheists are spike on the far side of the graph. That’s about as close as your first paragraph comes to reality. It’s really too bad, as your next paragraph is really good.
Wrong.
“The average annual giving among the religious is $2,210; it is $642 among the secular. Religious people volunteer an average of 12 times per year, while the secular volunteer an average of 5.8 times…
The data show that if two people are identical in every other way, the secular person is 23 percentage points less likely to give [to a secular charity] than the religious person and 26 points less likely to volunteer.” (Dr. Arthur Brooks: Religious Faith and Charitable Giving: Believers Give More to Secular Charities Than Non-Believers Do, Stanford University, 2003)
“About half of the most secular Americans say that people need to ‘look after themselves and not worry about others.’ Only about 1 in 5 of the most religious Americans, by contrast, feels that way.” (Dr. Robert Putnam, Harvard political scientist: Bowling Alone)
You can also peruse the Roper Center Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey and any number of smaller studies. You will find, in summary:
-The “most religious” give the most.
-The “least religious” give the least.
-This holds true even if you subtract giving to churches and non-charitable religious organizations
-If you subtract ALL religious organizations (including charitable ones like the Salvation Army’s relief efforts, Habitat for Humanity, etc.) then the secular giving is slightly higher than the religious.
-Giving is generally inversely related to wealth, with the poorest Americans giving the most.
-Conservatives generally give more than liberals. But only because there is a higher concentration of religious people among conservatives. Secular liberals give more than secular conservatives.
-The “very religious” make up about a third of the population but supply I’ve half of the giving to secular and religious humanitarian charities.
The reason you liked only half of my post I because it is an objective post. And with all due respect, you are somewhat seething with hatred when it comes to certain topics.
To claim that sociological data about giving is a “charity contest” is an appeal for more ignorance. It is worthwhile to know what segments of society give/volunteer, and why.
It is not worthwhile for the Reverend to do what he did, which was vindictive and personal, an served no purpose.
It would also help if you did not judge my information with “reality” pulled directly from your posterior an based on nothing.
The data on this is no surprise, and to some extent I think it compares apples and oranges. Religion tends to represent earthly charity as part of the payment for a ticket to eternal life in paradise. Atheists who give and volunteer are just doing so because it’s the right thing to do: they aren’t expecting any wings in the bargain. To me, this shows not that atheists are less generous, but rather the usefulness of religious myth, and the fear it induces in the faithful, as a means of social control and encouraging virtuous social conduct. Yes, it’s a cheat, But it has proved to be a very productive cheat that may well pass utilitarian muster.
If we switch from charitable giving to generosity, any difference likely breaks down: http://secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=generous_atheists
A cheat that passes utilitarian muster? Is this not the end justifies the means? Am I misinterpreting what you are saying?
The religious report more giving than the secular. That is true. Studies have also shown that the more religious someone is, the more they want to APPEAR charitable. Brooks’ studies have a major flaw.
Some of your quotes are also interesting. In some there’s a comparison of religious in general to secular people. In others, you’re comparing the “most religious” to secular. Neither of these statements support your correlation comment or deny my comment that there’s a tail spike in the data.
More important than either of those, though, is the use of “secular” and “atheist”. When Brooks talks about those groups, he’s really not talking about secular people or atheist people. Brooks lumped religious people who rarely attend church in with his atheist/secular group. 10% of the population identifies as non religious. Brooks’ “atheists” are 26% of the population. all those comments that refer to secular and atheists? Bunk.
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The reason you liked only half of my post I because it is an objective post. And with all due respect, you are somewhat seething with hatred when it comes to certain topics.
By objective, you mean bullshit. I suspect you didn’t know about Brooks’ redefinitions of terms, but since you’re the one who supposedly knew the data, that’s not a valid excuse.
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To claim that sociological data about giving is a “charity contest” is an appeal for more ignorance. It is worthwhile to know what segments of society give/volunteer, and why.
In general, yes. In this context, no. That information was irrelevant. There was no reason to bring it up. Were you attempting to take a shot at atheists? To me, it looks very much like you were doing something that fits very much in what you attacked Brassfield for doing.
Yeah, the conflation of atheist/secular/slightly-religious is bothersome to me. It’s worth noting that religious participation has been shown to decline in poor economic situations. That doesn’t mean that people stop believing in God when they’re on the skids; it probably means that they don’t want to sacrifice money to the collection plate, or simply that they become less social. So comparisons of charitable giving based on the variable of church attendance can be very misleading. They may be comparing some people who have the exact same religious ideologies but are occupying different socio-economic stages of life.
I’d throw in less time for church. If you’re waiting tables weekends as a second job, you’re not going to church Sunday morning.
How were these studies even conducted? I don’t know many people who like to broadcast charitable efforts and donations. Jack has an interesting view on this though.
Very well constructed breakdown of a rather lousy apology Jack. It’s always a pleasure to see you read — and then write — between the lines like this. Although, this so-called apology is so bad that the effort in critiquing it must have been much like the effort of eating a favourite dessert: not at all difficult and rather enjoyable!
I’ll admit it. Shooting fish in a barrel.