For Penn Jillette, Who Rapes And Kills Everyone He Wants To

Magician Penn Jillette tells the story of taking a date to hear a lecture by a fellow atheist. When the speaker finished his talk and opened the floor to questions, the person next to Jillette’s date asked, “Well if there’s no God, what’s to stop me from raping and killing everyone around me?” Jillette’s friend raised her hand and quipped, “May I change my seat?”

Jillette says he gets the “What’s-to-keep-you-from-raping-and-killing” question all the time from religious people. It is a ham-fisted challenge to atheism, and Jillette has no trouble crushing it with rhetorical roundhouses. For example: “My answer is: I do rape all I want,” he told an interviewer. “And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine. I don’t want to do that. Right now, without any god, I don’t want to jump across this table and strangle you. I have no desire to strangle you. I have no desire to…rape you. You know what I mean?”

Yes, I do know what you mean, Mr. Jillette. You and I share a peaceful disposition. Neither of us wants, or has ever wanted, to rape or kill anybody. And we both find it disturbing that there are people who want to do those things. I suspect we also share a delight in stomping on ill-thought challenges to our philosophical positions with rhetoric that provokes laughter and applause from people who already agree with us. I heard that laughter from another interviewer to whom you made the same point, and I have seen the chorus of glad approvals in various forums from people who feel you have effectively dismantled a challenge that is silly, unconvincing, and self-indicting.

I would like to take your answer seriously though, because even if it was only intended as a shoot-from-the-hip “gotcha” it still merits thoughtful consideration. Your rape-and-murder rant (I don’t mean “rant” pejoratively – I love a good rant, and I do it all I want) gets to the heart of some things I hold dear about theism and moral reasoning.

I wish that rape and murder did not exist and that nobody wanted to do them. But they do exist, and the urges to commit them are more widespread than the acts themselves. This is a horrible fact, and no wishing or preaching can make it go away. Given that there are people out there who would rape and kill if they could, don’t you want them to believe there is a righteous God who would punish them (whether now or in the afterlife) for doing such things? I sure do. I want all potential murderer/rapists to become Christian theists - and heaven help us if they deconvert. You may not need a guardrail God to keep you on the narrow path of nonviolence and sexual benevolence. But some people do. They just do. The last thing they need to absorb into their twisted minds is a contempt for quivering faith in a holy God.

I agree with you that the implication that one might go on a killing raping rampage without a God to hold one in check is “the most self-damning thing I can imagine.” I would go further and say that self-damnation is an ancient and hallowed practice in Christian thought, and you are not the first to find it alienating and repulsive. We Christians are instructed to be cynical of human nature and deeply distrustful of ourselves. The natural self is “desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9) and in need of daily crucifixion (Luke 9:23). St. Paul said “I know that nothing good dwells in me" (Romans 7:18). St. Peter said to Jesus, “Depart from me, I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). Isaiah said, “Woe is me, for I am condemned” (Isaiah 6:5). King David said, “I have been a sinner since my conception” (Psalm 51:5). Job said, “I despise myself" (Job 42:6). And so on and so on. Jesus even told a parable where the hero is not the man who congratulated himself on how good he was but the self-damning humble penitent who stared at his shoes and said, “God be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).

In the Christian tradition we are even taught to recoil from seemingly innocent statements like, “I’m glad I am not as twisted as that violent pervert.” Instead, we fear the possibility - however remote - that under different circumstances we might find ourselves in the shoes and uniform of a Nazi prison guard, and so we tremble, and plead God’s mercy. “There but for the grace of God go I.” “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” We learn sober lessons from countless fallen comrades, and some of us pray earnestly, as instructed by Jesus, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

When you tell a devout Christian that he has let slip an uncomfortably revealing and self-damning implication, I’m pretty sure he has already beaten you to that point.

But somehow everybody, Christian or not, manages, at times, not to do bad things. Why do we refrain from them? In the extreme case of rape and murder, you say you don’t do them because you don’t want to. I am sure that is true. I am also sure that that cannot be your only reason. You must have a back-up motivation. If you didn’t, then your date at the atheist lecture would have wanted to change her seat not because of the perversely oriented Christian on her right but because of the “I-do-whatever-I-want” atheist on her left.

Our desires change. They do not remain consistent over the course of a lifetime. Again, neither you nor I have ever wanted to kill or rape anybody. But what if – horror of horrors! God forbid! Perish the thought! – that were to change tomorrow? What then is our back-up motivation for doing good and not evil? Do we have one? Must the safety and well-being of our neighbors remain forever dependent upon the current state of our desires – amiable and innocuous though they have been till now?

Life experience has taught me the scorpion sting of that question. Because I have known people who broke bad - people who behaved well in their 20s and 30s but horribly in their 40s and 50s. In probing the mystery of middle-aged moral disintegration, one suggestion that I have heard deserves attention. There exist people who simply do what they want, and desire is their true moral lodestone. That is not a problem as long as the things that they desire are good. But what if their desires turn bad? Well, then they do bad things – and they do them with a transition that is shocking to us but seamless to them because their internal motivation remained constant throughout. I think for example of a couple physicians who served in far-off lands in the developing world, and were heroes to the needy. And then both coldly dumped their faithful wives when a younger prettier version came along - and neither man could understand why people made such a big deal about it. One way of understanding their behavior is to say that when they wanted to do something heroic and benevolent, they did; and when they wanted to do something dastardly and cruel, well, they did that too. Their moral compass never budged an inch from “I do what I want.”

It is a feature of Christian morality - and, I would argue, of universal ethical behavior – that sometimes we must do what we don’t want to do, and sometimes we must not do what we want to do. Put starkly, our desires are a moral irrelevance. Sometimes they correspond to the good and sometimes they don’t. When they do, all is happy and sweet. When they don’t, it becomes a duty to adjust them, to make them fit, to exercise our will to see if we can desire differently. But whether we succeed in that effort of the will or not, the good remains just as it was before, and does not give a hoot about our desires.

This fixed, immutable nature of good – sometimes affirming us, sometimes condemning us, sometimes standing with our desires and sometimes against them, always in relation to physical nature but never reducible to it – is an unavoidable Fact that has led many a reluctant soul to conclude that a righteous Creator is the author of it. Some even give in and allow that truth to change their hearts and govern their thoughts - like former atheist C. S. Lewis, who came to theistic faith “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape.” That is, they come to believe in God not because they want to believe in him, but despite the fact that they would rather not.

Why Is My Atheist Son More Honest Than Ravi Zacharias?

My son ordered and ate a shawarma wrap, and when he went to pay for it with his debit card the card reader was down. The proprietor asked if he had cash, and he didn’t. So Peter said he would pay for it the next time he came in.

It wasn’t an establishment that he normally visited. But he came back later anyway, and when he did he told the proprietor to add 10 bucks onto his bill for the shawarma he had been unable to pay for previously. The man had forgotten about it, and did not seem to register what Peter was saying. So Peter explained it to him again, and my modestly-resourced, school-debt-laden son payed what he owed and walked away clean.

My son does not share my faith in God. But I rejoice in his honesty.

Peter’s shawarma incident came to mind as I contemplated the disquieting news of blatant lies perpetrated and maintained as policy on the part of evangelical organizations Focus on the Family (FOTF) Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, (RZIM), and the Billy Graham Evangelical Association (BGEA). It has recently come to light that FOTF represents itself to the IRS as a church, and RZIM and BGEA represent themselves as “associations of churches” (commonly known as denominations). These are lies. FOTF is not a church, and RZIM and BGEA are not denominations.

The motive for the lie is contested. A cynical possibility suggests itself: churches and denominations are not required, like other non-profits, to submit 990 forms that reveal the salaries of their pastors and executives. As a “church” or “denomination”, RZIM, BGEA and FOTF need not reveal how much they pay their respective presidents Ravi Zacharias, Franklin Graham, and Jim Daley. It is known to be a lot of money though. These men have gotten very rich off of Christian ministry.

Of course, none of these organizations has come out and said, “You got us. We decided to call ourselves churches so as to have the cover of IRS law that would keep donors from discovering how wealthy their gifts were making our executives.” Instead, they have presented less sinister-sounding motives. FOTF said it filed as a church to protect the anonymity of its donors, and to avoid having to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on coverage for contraception and other regulations. The BGEA said it wanted to avoid costs associated with filing 990s. RZIM said they were doing it because the BGEA and other organizations were doing it.

Let’s assume for the moment that these self-reported motivations are accurate (Gosh, it never occurred to us that now we wouldn’t have to report executive salaries! Why, that’s just an unintended consequence!). Fine. Let us say that we accept that. But the point stands. They are all still lying about their organizational status. Whatever their motive, it’s wrong to lie. Didn’t their parents teach them that? I haven’t (yet) gotten my atheist son to believe in God, but I am thankful to the God he refuses to acknowledge that a standard of integrity has filtered into him, and remains, and shows signs of its presence in a matter as simple as paying for fast food.

Christians must abide by the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and plain dealing. Those who do not do so must be held accountable by those who do. We Christians who value honesty must never broaden the platforms or amplify the voices of men and women who lie.

As I did a little digging in preparation for this essay I came across publically available evidence of the long history of lying on the part of noted Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias. His lies have been constant, deliberate, repeated, self-aggrandizing, well-documented, and utterly ministry-disqualifying. I maintain that any honest soul will agree with me wholeheartedly less than 20 minutes from now after simply watching the YouTube video “Lying For Lord Or Self? Hard Questions For Ravi Zacharias.” That video will lead you to others with even more damning evidence, but it is sufficient by itself to prove that Zacharias - like Bill Hybels and James MacDonald - is not a man of God. If you want to persuade an atheist of God’s reality, the worst thing you can do is give her a book by Ravi Zacharias. She will Google his name, discover his patterns of deceit, and have yet another excuse for being confirmed in her belief that God does not exist.

Zacharias is currently scheduled to speak in September at the Sing! 2020 conference in Nashville hosted by Keith and Kristyn Getty. I don’t know the Gettys, but I love them and their music and have no reason to doubt the authenticity of their Christian experience and testimony. My wife and I had the Getty/Townsend hymn “In Christ Alone” sung at our wedding. Are the Gettys uninformed about Zacharias’ disqualifying character issues? Can someone tell them? If the Gettys could spend just half an hour surveying the easily accessible information about Zacharias’ dishonesty and not in horror disinvite him to their conference, then with the deepest sadness of heart I will have to conclude, “I thought we were on the same page. I thought we were kindred spirits. I guess not.” Please, please, please, Gettys – not you too?

I have no definitive answer as to why my unbelieving son is more honest than celebrated apologist Ravi Zacharias. The question I pose in the title of this essay is rhetorical. But it is worth noting in passing that when a Christian is exposed as a habitual self-serving liar, there are people like me who speak up and say, “He’s not a real Christian.” But when an atheist lies, do his fellow atheists ever say, “There’s our proof – he’s not a real atheist”? I believe it would be wise to contemplate reasons for that disparity.

Meanwhile, fellow Christians, take a moment also to contemplate, in reverence and holy fear, this quote I read years ago in a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon:

If God has not made you honest, he has not saved your soul.

Followership

On a spring day during my junior year of high school my father dropped dead at work while fixing a radio. His last words reflected his cheerful stoicism: “Oh, it must have been something I ate.”

That was a Thursday. On Sunday the pastor of our church lauded Dad in the sermon, and revealed something that surprised me. “Whenever we took nominations for elder,” said Pastor Hutt, “Lowell Lundquist was at the top of everyone’s list.” But when he asked Dad to serve as elder, Dad would demur, saying, “I’m not a leader.”

Dad never told us that everybody wanted him to be an elder. That’s not the kind of thing he would have placarded. But I think he was wise to decline the honor of eldership. He wasn’t a natural leader. Control, influence, and power did not appeal to him, and he had little instinct for wielding authority. He could take orders but fumbled at giving them. He kept busy working and serving and lending support with diligence and goodwill and an easy smile. To lead effectively you may need to be a jerk sometimes, and Dad didn’t know how to be a jerk.

If you were a humble pastor trying to shepherd a church in good faith, you would kill to have Lowell Lundquist in your congregation.

Dad is my personal answer to the Leadership epidemic that has so enthralled the heart of evangelicalism in the last 30 years. I must step lightly here, because some of my best friends are leaders. And several colleagues whom I hold in high regard actually found value in those Willow Creek leadership extravaganzas that always made me want to barf. So, with a respectful nod to leadership-haunted friends, I just want to say, look, enough is enough. “Leadership” in the evangelical world has so exceeded its rightful bounds of emphasis and value relative to other Christian themes that it’s high time to rein it in. Boo leadership. Hooray followership.

We can’t all lead. Many of us are either morally or temperamentally unfit for it. It’s no shame to be temperamentally unfit for leadership. It is a shame to be morally unfit for anything.

Among the things that Willow Creek did wrong over the last few decades was to make an idol out of leadership. By 2000 the idolatry was so blatant that disgraced sexual predator Bill Clinton was invited to address leaders and wannabe leaders at the annual summit in Barrington. (Well, he’s a lying cad, but the important thing is, Oh, what a leader!) Founding Pastor (and similarly disgraced sexual predator) Bill Hybels caught flack for inviting Clinton then, and many godly people left. One who didn’t leave was co-founder (and, yes, again, disgraced sexual predator) Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian - the Steve Wozniak to Hybels’ Steve Jobs – whom Hybels elevated to sainthood status by unfurling a huge Bilezikian banner and leading a thunderous standing ovation for the scholar/pervert at the United Center in 2015 at the church’s 40th anniversary celebration.

Clinton, Hybels and Bilezikian are all despicable men who, for decades, thrust their middle fingers in the face of God and despised the call to holiness. But they were leaders, you see. You have to give them that, right? They sure could lead! And I respond with a paraphrase of St. Peter’s words to Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8:20, “To hell with you and your leadership.”

At the "No More Silence" Conference in September 2019, former Willow Creek staff member Scott Dyer outlined in painful detail the strategy by which Hybels sought to pry Scott’s wife Vonda away from him. “He called me a B player and told her that she was an A player,” Scott said. Hybels suggested “She was a leader and I wasn’t, which at Willow Creek was about the worst thing that you could say about someone.”

Exactly. Scott Dyer understood all too well the culture of that place. The great sin was that of being perceived as having failed to lead. The disordered love and thirst for leadership poisoned the spiritual air of Willow Creek like mustard gas. I imagine that in such a setting a humble man like Lowell Lundquist would have been regarded as potential cuckold fodder.

After telling us on that Sunday of mourning in March of 1980 that Dad didn’t regard himself as a leader, Pastor Hutt continued, “Actually, Lowell knew what real leadership was all about. Jesus said, 'Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.' Lowell was everyone’s servant. So he was greatest leader of all.”

There it is. Do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. Blessed are those who, like my father, quietly follow, and follow, and follow, and never have the faintest clue that they are leading all the way.