Scott M. Coley on 'Ministers of Propaganda'

Scott M. Coley is a lecturer in philosophy and the author the forthcoming book 'Ministers of Propaganda: Truth, Power and the Ideology of the Religious Right.'

In this conversation Scott gives an excellent overview of how propaganda can function in reinforcing systems that benefit those who are currently in positions of power and privilege. He also explains the role of 'legitimising narratives' in perpetuating social hierarchies. For people seeking to disentangle the core of faith from the ideology that is often overlaid for political or other purposes, this conversation and Scott's book can be a helpful and accessible guide.

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Transcript

Will Small: [00:00:00] Hey friends, my name's Will. 

Hannah Gierhart: And my name's Hannah. 

Will Small: And you're listening to the Spiritual Misfits Podcast. 

Hannah Gierhart: If you've ever found yourself on the fringes of Christian faith, this is a safe space for you. 

Will Small: Your questions, doubts, and hopes are all welcome here. 

Hannah Gierhart: We're creating conversations, affirmations, meditations, and other resources to support you on your spiritual journey.

Will Small: And let you know that even if you feel like a misfit, you don't have to feel alone.

Scott M. Coley, a very warm welcome to the Spiritual Misfits Podcast. It is great to be able to have a conversation with you today. 

Scott M Coley: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. 

Will Small: My pleasure. So Scott, you are a lecturer in philosophy at [00:01:00] Mount St. Mary's University. And you're the author of a forthcoming book called Ministers of Propaganda, which I am really looking forward to chatting to you about.

I've been able to spend a bit of time with your book and have been really enjoying it. But to begin with, why don't you just share a little bit about who you are? How do you introduce yourself, Scott? And I love to ask people kind of early in the conversation if you've ever felt like a spiritual misfit and if that phrase resonates with either where you are or where you have been in your journey.

Scott M Coley: Sure. So as far as who I am now I've been married for 10 years and I've got two kids, a one year old and a four year old. And as you say, I teach philosophy mostly to college students, which I enjoy very much. And as far as my background is concerned and my sort of spiritual journey I grew up in the [00:02:00] church.

I'm still in the church. I come from a pastor's family, a long line of pastors, actually. My spouse is also from a pastor's family. And I suppose that that is a unique, a unique situation to be in. And in that sense, you know, I suppose I might be regarded as somewhat of a, of a misfit. When you're in that situation I think you get kind of a different perspective on, on what goes on.

Yeah, sure. in churches, get sort of a front row seat for some of the unpleasantness. Which isn't really exactly the subject of the book, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's not, it's not totally unrelated, I suppose. 

Will Small: Yeah. Well, I mean, in a sense, the book is obviously one of these [00:03:00] books that does engage in A pretty strong critique of much of you know, contemporary American evangelical culture.

But it also does that from within your own context as someone who is still you know, within the faith. And so you're kind of critiquing somewhat from the inside. So there's also, I suppose that can kind of create this sense of being on, on a, a bit of a margin or a bit of an edge point between two worlds.

Scott M Coley: I think so. I mean, if I, if I had no interest in how this, how these dynamics intersect with my personal identity and the, the, faith tradition with which I identify then frankly, I've probably just

found something else to write about. Sure. 

Will Small: You know. The title of the book immediately grabbed me. Ministers of Propaganda. And, I mean, essentially, in broad brush strokes, this book is about [00:04:00] the impact of yeah, particular forms of religious ideology. On multiple social issues, you kind of delve into gender, race politics, and the weaponization of Christian theology in service to authoritarian ends.

Why, why this book? Why now? Where did it come from in your mind? What, what were some of the seeds that led you to, to write this? 

Scott M Coley: Well, your, your summary of the book is very apt. I couldn't have said it better myself, so thank you for that. Why now? Well I've noticed over the last, I don't know, five, six years or so not that the dynamic started at that point, but it's become more acute in recent years.

I noticed that a lot of white evangelicals in the United States, I'm, I'm, by the way, In case it's not obvious. Although I point to some networks that extend outside the United States in one [00:05:00] chapter my research is focused entirely on evangelicals in the American context. I will not include that qualification throughout, but it's hereafter implied since your audience I suspect is not limited to the United States, but in any case.

I noticed that A high percentage of white evangelicals in the United States seem to inhabit an alternate reality. In a couple of respects. One, as you point out, is social and political. And I, there's a fair bit of, I think, dissatisfaction, particularly among younger evangelicals with some of the social and, and political objectives that the religious right has.

has served over the years and, and in recent decades, resistance to recognizing, for example issues around a systemic racism a reluctance to

recognize the, the spiritual gifts and callings of, in many [00:06:00] cases of women. These kinds of things. So there's, you know, there's, there's plenty, I think, of, maybe not plenty, but there's a a significant and growing, I think, dissent about some of these social issues. But there are also intellectual issues, you know to do with sort of intellectual gatekeeping in evangelicalism and sort of alternative sources of authority, and in many cases a rejection of so called secular or what is really just outside expertise.

Mark Noll writes about this in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. You know, he documents a lot of this, and the problem has only grown more acute since he published Scandal of the Evangelical Mind back in the early 90s. And one thing I noticed is that these two sort of sets of issues, one One set social, the other set intellectual are not unrelated, you know if I had undertaken this research project, say 10 years ago or something like that, I probably would have said something like this the [00:07:00] reason why a lot of white evangelicals tend to favor sort of regressive Social or political policies is that they're not thinking clearly about, for example, the moral salience of institutions.

They tend to focus too much on individual piety, this kind of thing. In other words evangelicals favor social arrangements that are, if you like, in a sense corrupt because their thinking is corrupt. And corrupt thinking leads to corrupt institutions. What I've since come to realize is that you know, everything I just said is, I think, true, and I think I'm prepared to argue for it.

But it's only part of the picture. So yes, corrupt thinking engenders corrupt practices, but it's also the case that corrupt practices engender corrupt thinking. There's a kind of feedback loop between belief and practice, and this is what I call ideology. It's a feedback [00:08:00] loop between practice.

Will Small: And the 

Scott M Coley: argument of the book, as you say, is that what has happened with evangelical ideology is that they've pressed Christian theology and scripture into the service of patterns of thinking that legitimize or, or, or attempt to justify corrupt social practices. 

Will Small: Yeah, that's really helpful.

And I appreciate your acknowledgement of your your US context. And as I sort of mentioned to you beforehand I'm in Australia and there's some, definitely some differences, but I think when we talk about. As we're gonna get into kind of some of the the weaponization of theology and some of the different kind of tactics of, of propaganda that get used to create that kind of self reinforcing loop that, you know, America doesn't have a, a monopoly on that.

And certainly, there are plenty of people [00:09:00] listening to this who will have experienced some of the kind of I guess strategies of communication or you know, manipulation of language that we're going to get into. So I think there's plenty here to learn from and, and to see potentially as a cautionary tale in terms of how some of it has really played out at a large scale in the U S.

You know, but I guess Peter, this conversation is, is understanding what propaganda is And particularly in a religious context. So how do you define, you know, religious propaganda? And, and where does something go beyond just you know persuasion or persuasion in good faith into you know, propaganda in the way that you're talking about?

Scott M Coley: Sure. So you're asking great questions. And I'm really glad that you mentioned the question of, of good faith. So one thing that I do in the book is that I, I or sort of don't do, but it's very intentional and, and, and front of mind throughout the writing process is that I [00:10:00] don't take a position one way or another on.

The extent to which these legitimizing narratives or propaganda are tendered in good faith or you know, sort of as an intentional efforts to, to manipulate. This isn't to say that we shouldn't be open to the possibility that some people are operating in bad faith. That's just not something I, I cover in this book.

Indeed, I, you know, my own view is that in some cases. The most charitable interpretation of what's going on is to, is to conclude that one's interlocutor is lying because to, to, to believe otherwise would be to believe that they're just sort of impossibly incompetent. Yeah, so that, that comment about, you know, good faith versus bad faith might actually make a little bit more sense if I say something about propaganda and conspiracy theories.

Sort of in the context of [00:11:00] ideology and legitimizing narratives. So why don't I take about a half step back and say something about legitimizing narratives and then I can sort of situate propaganda with that. So at the, at the core of ideology, any ideology is some kind of social hierarchy and you know, where some people have power, wealth, Privilege and so on, and other people are disenfranchised and impoverished.

A social hierarchy without some kind of story about why that hierarchy is as it should be which is what's called a legitimizing narrative, a social hierarchy without a story about why that hierarchy is good, is, is just a hierarchy, you know? It's just some people have stuff and other people don't.

So what we tend to do is to construct legitimizing narratives that explain why the hierarchy is good. And a legitimizing narrative is exactly what it sounds like. It's a story that we tell ourselves about why a certain kind of social [00:12:00]hierarchy is legitimate. And a lot of what I deal with in the book is legitimizing narratives that are taken from the pages of, of the Bible and then more broadly from the Christian theological tradition.

Propaganda specifically, now there are, so you have a social hierarchy and then a legitimizing narrative that explains why the social hierarchy is morally justified. Clear? 

Will Small: Yes. Yep. Very helpful. 

Scott M Coley: Then propaganda comes in, propaganda comes in to kind of reinforce legitimizing narrative. So there are different kinds of propaganda, right?

You find propaganda in film various kinds of arts, oration you know, and so forth. I, I deal with propaganda that of a very particular kind that appeals to some political or moral or intellectual or spiritual [00:13:00] ideal in service to an agenda that in fact undermines that very ideal. So a really paradigm example of this that I mentioned in the introduction to the book is in the antebellum South, that is before the American civil war in the American South, where the institution of race based chattel slavery was legally.

enforced. Those who defended that institution of race based chattel slavery argued that outlawing slavery would be an abrogation of their liberty or, or you know, a violation of their liberty. To the modern ear, that may sound a bit strange because, of course, one of the principal arguments against the institution of chattel slavery is that it constitutes a violation of.

enslaved person's right to liberty. But within the context of the ideology of white supremacy that you know, [00:14:00] I, I think I probably don't have to say sort of served as the foundation for this institution of race based child slavery. Within that ideology some people owned property and, and some people were property.

And the difference between the two was divided among other things along lines of race. And so to someone who was inculturated into that ideology it would make sense to think that ending the institution of chattel slavery was tantamount to depriving the People of the right to own a certain kind of property.

And that property just happened to be, you know, human beings. And so what you have there is an appeal to an ideal in service to an agenda that in reality undermines that very ideal. So an appeal to Liberty in defense of race based chattel slavery which is an institution that of course undermines in fact, undermines Liberty.

So there you have social hierarchy, legitimizing narrative, and and [00:15:00] propaganda. And I'd be happy if you like to give some examples of legitimizing narratives that are taken from from scripture, but to give a more contemporary, really quickly, a really more contemporary example of propaganda that shows up in evangelicalism, we have the the creation science industry, which I devote two chapters to in the book, because I think that's really, it occupies a really important position in the way that anti intellectualism has developed in the latter half of the 20th century in American evangelicalism.

But yeah, creation science, it appeals to the ideal of science, that is to say scientific method and science you know, rigorous research but it does so in service to an agenda, the entire purpose of which is to undermine actual science, right? And what's particularly difficult about this kind of propaganda is that it and, and why I, I thought it was, you know, an interesting thing to deal [00:16:00] with is that it appropriates the very the very ideals that animate dissenting viewpoints, right?

So, if the, if the political ideal of liberty is more fully realized, for example, in the right to own slaves than in the right to be free from enslavement, then that ideal of liberty is not available to those who object. To the institution of race based chattel slavery, at least not in the minds of those who have been inculturated into the ideology of white supremacy in the antebellum South.

Similarly if the ideal of scientific rigor has been appropriated by, you know, creation scientists in, in service to young earth creationism, then it's sort of like, well, I see creation scientists and sort of, you know, establishment scientists arguing about science y [00:17:00] stuff. And I'm going to go with I'm going to go with the folks who are telling me that what I've always been told is correct.

And it's just kind of a wash. You know, they're all scientists and I'm going to go with the ones who are confirming the stuff that that I already believe intellectually. And which incidentally happens to reinforce certain social objectives that I also favor conveniently enough. 

Will Small: Yes. Yes. So we have lots of these.

Self reinforcing kind of loops here and you give, you know, great examples as well around gender and sort of Yeah, a number of other and other other issues where there is that kind of loop happening You you write sort of early in the book this sentence, which I was really fascinated by and I'd love to Chat with you a bit more about you say I contend that much of what's described as evangelical Deconstruction is essentially an effort to decode [00:18:00] propaganda that's embedded in the ideology of the religious, right?

I find this really really interesting and obviously there's a few things to pass out in all of this But essentially I read that and go okay So people who are kind of deconstructing may think that what they're really working through is It's theology or is Or something like this, but, but arguably it's actually that layer that's been overlaid of that you know, kind of legitimizing narrative and propaganda.

Do you want to speak a little bit more about this idea? 

Scott M Coley: Sure. So I think, first of all, this term deconstruction, right? The kind of, I think it's apparent that what we're talking about is not, you know essentially anyway, it's not you know, reading literary theory and in particular the work of Jacques Derrida.

But it was fascinating to watch the reaction to to the, you know, to this term a couple of years ago and then, and then how [00:19:00] that reaction has changed over time. The first reaction from, you know, folks in, you know, the sort of evangelical establishment such as it is, was like, oh yeah, I mean, like, sure, these kids are sitting around reading Derrida, you know, isn't that hilarious?

In other words, obviously it's, you know, this term has been is being used in, in, a kind of non standard way, at least as far as literary theory is concerned. Well, more recently I've seen them saying, well, deconstruction, I mean, that's obviously bad because you know, Derrida is this kind of post modernist figure who calls into question the possibility of objective truth.

So deconstructing your faith, you know, obviously this leads to bad things. And it's like, well, which is it? Are they, is it, is it Derrida or is it not? I mean, I think it's apparent that it's not at least in the main. I think it's What's meant by it is you know, could be different for different people.

Generally speaking, what I see when I see people talking about, [00:20:00] you know, quote unquote, deconstructing their faith is trying to disentangle the teachings of Jesus and the, core of their faith tradition, such as it is, from Certain kind of political project or certain intellectual moves that they've come to find uncomfortable because there's clearly something off about them, you know and they say, you know, often, not always, but often they say, ,, I'm not walking away from my relationship with Jesus. , but I don't want any part of, you know the political commitments of my, of my parents generation or what have you. And and I think that a lot of those social and political commitments, this sort of culture war type stuff has only come to be or rather I should say Christian theology has only come to be.[00:21:00]

Implicated in these social and political and intellectual commitments because of a, you know, a process that I that I document in the book that I try to sort of provide a genealogy for. And then what I do throughout the book is give You know, a number of examples of the ways in which the religious right has effectively treated scripture as a bottomless well of narratives that legitimize social arrangements.

that they prefer. And again, I'm not saying that they're doing this intentionally. I don't take a position on that. At points, it's difficult to think that there isn't at least, you know, that some of these people are, you know, aren't knowingly misrepresenting things. But in many ways, the more interesting question is, okay, what about the people who who believe themselves to be who are sincere.

That's, that's in many ways, you know, to me, more interesting. How did their, [00:22:00] how does their cognition come to be? Corrupted in this way through no, through no effort and through, you know, a sincere, sincere regard for the truth. And so, yeah, I mean, that's, that's sort of what I, what I lay out in, in the book.

And I, and I, you may have noticed that I I take a lot of care, not just to say so this is what I don't do, right? I don't just say well, look, white evangelicals prefer social arrangement X. And so then they just go to the Bible and pull out. such and such a proof text and say, look, clearly X is legitimate because God says so.

And isn't it obvious that they're just using religion to sort of prop up their own and perpetuate their own interests. I don't, I don't do that. I take great care to address the sort of theological arguments [00:23:00] on their own terms and show that the arguments just don't work, you know, on their own terms.

Well, then a natural question to ask is, well, if the argument doesn't work, and I think it's fairly clear that it, you know, the arguments don't work, the ones I deal with, then why do they keep making the same arguments? They're not good arguments. And at that point, I think a natural A natural thing to ask is or to explore is how these arguments and the positions that they're meant to reinforce.

Actually perpetuate social arrangements that benefit themselves because all humans are susceptible to motivated reasoning, which is reasoning that's motivated by self interest. It's the reason that we expect referees to be neutral. It's the reason that we expect judges to recuse themselves from cases where their own interests might be affected by the outcome of the case.

Not because we're assuming that they're that they're [00:24:00] corrupt and that they're going to you know, tilt the scales in favor of their own interests. But because we understand that even a judge with the utmost integrity will be susceptible to motivated reasoning. It literally affects your perception of things, your interests, just go to a I, you know, I think the super bowl is sufficiently global phenomenon that your listeners will appreciate this, you know, insert whatever sporting event you like here.

Right. And this is not a sort of I'm not trying to promote us cultural hegemony here. I'm not, I don't typically watch the super bowl myself, Anyway, enough throat clearing there. Go to any sports bar in a neutral city where they're, they've got the, the Super Bowl on the On the television and you know, it's in a neutral city.

So by hypothesis, you, you might expect to have, you know a section where you've got fans of one team sort of congregating and then fans of the [00:25:00] other team congregating in a different section. And let's say that it's a close game and it's coming down to the wire and there's a close play. Half the bar.

We'll think that the, the, where there's a close call, was he out of bounds? Was it a reception or did he drop the pass? Half of the people in the bar will sincerely believe that it was a catch. Half the people in the bar will sincerely believe that it was an incomplete pass. They're not acting right. They, they know that they're cheering and jeering or whatever is going to have no impact whatsoever on the way that the call turns out.

They're perceiving the situation differently because of their you know, where their sympathies lie. And so I think it's, it's natural to explore that once we determine that the arguments just aren't very good. And then in fact, they appeal to ideals you know, in service to an agenda that undermines the very ideals to which they appeal.

Why do they do that? [00:26:00] How does this operate? You know, why is it? This is part of what motivated the project. Why is it that creation science takes off in the United States in the middle of the 20th century? Why in the middle of the 20th century? The arguments aren't new, as I document in the book. The arguments aren't new.

Why the, why the renaissance in, you know, sort of, evangelical enthusiasm for this project. And why is it more or less limited to United States? You know, it shows up elsewhere. There's a bit of it in Australia, as I'm sure you're aware. But generally outside the U S it's a cultural export of the United States.

Why the theological arguments aren't new and they're not good. The, you know, allegedly scientific arguments aren't new and they're not good. And why, why is it only in the U. S.? Well, at that point, it may be of interest to attend to what's going on culturally, and observe how the creation science industry functions culturally.

And, you [00:27:00] know, I'll just note for the record, that if you look at the Twitter feed of some prominent creation scientists An awful lot of what they talk about is culture war stuff, you know, 

Will Small: a hundred percent. 

Scott M Coley: Okay. I just talked for a long time. What, 

Will Small: Thoughts? Oh I was fascinated. It is fascinating stuff.

And I, I mean, there's, there's a lot there, but there's, you know, sort of separating, I think there can be this perception that yeah, people are they really understand their motivation. When often that's a layer beneath the surface. And so they're participating in these things that reinforce, Systems that are just working for them.

Because we all do that. I find that really helpful in terms of shifting how we might perceive people who we are, you know, we are ideologically baffled by. To go, oh yeah, like you're saying, it's not about the argument. It's about how it secures their place in the world. You talk a lot about sort of various patterns of language [00:28:00] that will be, I think, very familiar to people, and that, you know, some of what you're talking about there kind of does disrupt.

So, like, one of them is, , the idea of common sense and kind of common sense. Reasoning is often used as, as an appeal. It's just common sense that it's always been this way, rah, rah, you know. There's lots of different examples we could use. This idea of common sense when you look through history is really, is really a myth, isn't it?

Do you want to talk a little bit about how you know, this sort of idea of common sense that sounds good in the moment is actually problematized? When we do look back through time. 

Scott M Coley: Sure. Sure. Back through time or indeed across different cultural contexts, you know, within a particular cross section of time or in the present.

And even when we look to people who've had different experiences within our own cultural context as I, As I note in the book, the principal difficulty with this notion of common sense is that all available evidence seems to indicate that no such faculty exists. Whether, so [00:29:00] there are the real, real quick before I forget, this just occurred to me that I should perhaps just briefly add this this point.

The process of, of, you know excavating different arguments and analyzing different motivations and this kind of thing. Another thing I'm careful not to do in the book is to, is, is to I'm careful That is to say, not to take a position on whether or not a given commitment is, you know, the theologically correct one.

So the reader can probably infer, based on my analysis of, you know, arguments for complementarianism and for example, and You know, the, the kinds of considerations I, I bring up the argument that the reader can probably infer that I don't have a lot of sympathy for complementarianism and I'm probably not myself a complementarian.

I don't expect to persuade, you know, a committed complementarian that they're wrong. That's not my objective. I'm not asking anyone to agree [00:30:00] with me. But whether you're a complementarian or not, you should be able to look at quite a few of the prominent arguments for complementarianism and recognize that they're just not very good arguments.

Now what you do with that information is up to you. And furthermore, you should, we should all be able to look dispassionately at the situation and observe that not only are the arguments not very good but the arguments are being tendered by people in whose interest it is to do so. To preserve the kinds of social arrangements associated with the complementarian perspective.

Will Small: , if I'm hearing you correctly, you know, some of these things we're going to talk about, like using a term common sense. What this little piece of language actually does is it stops people from being able to take the step of looking at the argument.

It's, it's like it shuts down the ability to enter you know, a space where you could actually look at the arguments dispassionately. [00:31:00] Absolutely. 

Scott M Coley: That's a, that's a I love that observation. 

Common sense is invoked in lieu of an argument, right? So it tends to show up in places where there's, there's, there's not an argument forthcoming. Yes. But to take, you know, half a step back there's there's, there's rather a long Kind of love affair with this notion of common sense in the evangelical tradition, some of which I document in the book, and I rely there on you know, renowned, established historians of, of evangelicalism to to, to sort of trace that, that history back, you know, at least a couple of centuries I think I, I don't go on at length about it, but I, I I think I document enough to, to establish that this is not a, this is not a new thing for evangelicals and it's not, it's not a marginal a marginal thing to invoke common sense.

But as, as for this notion of [00:32:00] common sense itself, it's, it has two elements, you know, common and sense. The common bit has to do with, it doesn't mean sort of vulgar. Per se it means common in the sense that it's, it's universal. It's common to everyone. Now this, you know, how, what the, exactly the scope is there depends on you know, who, who you're talking to.

Maybe it's common to all human beings by virtue of possessing rationality or something like that. Or it could just be common to all believers. But the point is that it's, it's universal. within whatever the relevant scope is to, to all relevant observers. So that's the common bit. And then the sense bit is that it's meant to be a, an intellectual faculty.

And when you, it's, so it's this intellectual faculty that's universal by virtue of which anyone in possession of, of common sense, which is everyone or all relevant people can just look at a given thing [00:33:00] and and immediately perceive the truth. And this is particularly this is invoked particularly in sort of three domains one of which is morality.

So sort of common sense morality. Then there's common sense biblical interpretation. And then there's common sense with respect to our observations about the natural world or, you know, what we might regard generally as. subjects pertaining to scientific inquiry. Let's take common sense biblical interpretation and the way that it's sometimes invoked.

So, you know there's disagreement, for example, about how to understand scriptures. Instructions with respect to gender hierarchy. So there are obviously a range of viewpoints on this subject and, you know, all different shades along a spectrum, but that spectrum I think can be helpfully divided into two camps.

One camp [00:34:00] says that scripture prescribes gender hierarchy and these folks self identify as complementarian. Although as I note in the book, this term complementarian is 

Argue a form of propaganda in that It invokes an ideal of gender according to which male and female are equal, yet you know, importantly different in service to social arrangements that effectively regard women as lesser men, you know, men are capable of cooking and cleaning, changing diapers.

Often it's the case that they don't like doing those things. So it's, you know a more apt term for, you know, most of the, Most of the arrangements that come about as a result of this viewpoint would be redundancy. Women are [00:35:00] just like men but unlike actual men women have to do all of these menial tasks that men would rather not bother with.

Well, that's not, that's not, you know, people that are equal who have importantly different roles. That's just some people have to do the stuff that. This other category of people could do, but don't want to do. They don't want to bother with, you know? 

Will Small: Yeah. So again, the term term itself complementarianism, it, it, it again, sort of stops people from seeing the logic that lies behind it is flawed.

Because the word sounds, yeah, it sounds good. Sounds like we, we trying to value equality again, not going into the sort of motives that people have, but you can see how that's another one of those sort of slippery little language devices that can reinforce 

Scott M Coley: Precisely says women, you know, women show up and say, well, look, we have important contributions to make here that are different.

You know, at the very least from, you know, a different perspective than. [00:36:00] The folks in who are, you know, the men. Who are sort of exclusively involved in this decision making process, you know, in a church or whatever. And, you know, we have important contributions to make and the complementarian response is like, Oh, yes, of course, of course, you know we need you to make a casserole, right?

Or whatever. We need, we need, you know, the nursery duty is, is critically important to the mission of the church. You know, well, men can make casseroles and men can serve in the nursery. And if it's that important, it's, it's mysterious to me why they're not eager to do it. Yeah, but, but, Right. So, so, so common sense.

I'm sorry. I get got a bit sidetracked there. Yeah. So, so common sense, the folks who say that scripture prescribes gender hierarchy, they look at some of Paul's statements and they say, well, look, there you have it, you know, the Bible says that women should be quiet in church and submissive and that, you know they shouldn't exercise authority over, over men.

And then you [00:37:00] know the folks on the other side of the spectrum the egalitarians come along and say, well, I don't think that's what scripture says, you know, and there are a number of moves that the complementarians make at this point, but one of them is to say, well, just look at what Paul says.

It's common sense, you know, And I don't know what else to tell you though, you know, I do not allow a woman to preach what what else what else could you possibly take from that? You know, the first thing to notice here, right, is that in appealing to common sense in this way what the complimentarian is effectively saying is that they have common sense and anyone who doesn't read the text the same way that they do you know, by virtue of the fact that they disagree, lacks common sense.

Well, that means that You know, I and all of the people who agree with me have common sense and anyone who disagrees with me doesn't have common sense Well, then common sense isn't [00:38:00] common. It's not universal, right? It's limited to me and the people who agree with me, you know so you're you're invoking common sense, in the process of Tendering an argument from which it follows that common sense isn't common, you know And we could run the same, you know the same You Kind of kind of thing with moral disagreement.

You know, as I as I document in the book, I don't think I have to explain to your listeners that we find ample evidence of moral disagreement across time and culture. And so what do you, what are you to conclude? That you have common sense and anyone who doesn't share your, your moral intuitions doesn't have common sense?

Well then it's not common, it's not universal. It's, it's just a, it's just a, some words that you say when you don't want to have to give an argument. Yeah. For your position. 

Will Small: Hello, beautiful people. I love making this podcast, [00:39:00] but the truth is I don't want to just make a podcast. I want to build connections.

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A similar thing happens, as you point out, with the descriptor, biblical. This is, this is a really common one, speaking of common things, where, you know, we can just put the word biblical in front of anything. Biblical worldview, biblical justice, biblical femininity and masculinity. And then somehow that just again, there's no need to look at the arguments because I've got this.

This very powerful, you know in that word is implied that this is just the obvious truth. And this is central to someone who identifies within the Christian tradition. You have to value whatever is biblical. So we chuck the word biblical before something, and again, we kind of short circuit the logical process that might lead us to think differently about these things.

This is, this is something that really, it really frustrates me and I'm sure many people will have experienced that, you know, just popping that word biblical [00:41:00] before something. Yeah. What's, what's going on when, when people are doing that? 

Scott M Coley: Well, I think there are a couple of things to notice here.

One of which has to do with sort of fundamentalist tech techniques of knowledge and the other of which has to do with the construction of this kind of intellectual no man's land where viewpoints are proffered, allegedly biblical viewpoints are proffered without any engagement with actual biblical scholarship on the one hand, and then because it's you know, biblical.

There's also no need to engage with outside experts because of course they're going to disagree. You know, they're secular. And this is what you see with young earth those who insist on the young earth interpretation of, of Genesis. So again, I don't take a, position on whether young earth [00:42:00] creationism is the correct way to read the first couple chapters of genesis the reader can absolutely infer that i don't have a lot of sympathy for that for that reading but what i i hope even a young earth creationist can acknowledge is that The arguments I document in the book are not good arguments for young earth creationists, right?

But, but yeah, I mean, this is, this is what happens there. They say this is the biblical this is the biblical viewpoint. It always has been. This isn't true, by the way. It hasn't always been. Even fundamentalists in the first half of the 20th century even certainly evangelicals broadly, really, really outside of Seventh day Adventists and, you know, some Lutheran circles Old Earth creationism was the, which is to say the view that the Earth could be as old as you like.

You know, it's it's not that the text in Genesis is indeterminate or, you know, at [00:43:00] the very least, it doesn't, it's not meant to be read as a you know, scientific or historical account account of, you know, The origins of the earth. This, this, this I, you know, old earth creationism was the prevailing view among evangelicals.

And even as I say, fundamentalists in the first half of the 20th century. But you know, if you can, if you can manage to you know, cajole your audience into accepting that this is the, this is the biblical viewpoint, you find yourself in, as I say, a kind of intellectual no man's land where you don't actually have to engage with biblical scholarship or really the details of the text.

And of course you don't have to engage with, you know, paleontology or geology or stratigraphy or glaciology or any of the couple dozen scientific subdisciplines you know, that overwhelmingly you know, [00:44:00] agree that on the antiquity of the earth because they're secular, you know at which point you can just sort of make stuff up.

This was, this was one of the more depressing realizations in researching and writing the book is that if you can manage to successfully you know, couple the modifier biblical with a viewpoint that you're promoting it really doesn't have to have anything to do with the Bible. You're invulnerable to, to expert critique.

And this is, this is to the point about fundamentalism. I think there's this perception that the problem with fundamentalism is that it's too rigid. In fact, the opposite is true. The, the problem with fundamentalism is that it's entirely too flexible. Because you can get the Bible to say if not anything, you can get the Bible to say quite a lot of things, quite a lot of very different things.

And what happens when you take a kind of fundamentalist cast of mind and you [00:45:00] decide that the Bible says this or that thing, you know, for whatever reason then what you have is often a kind of arbitrary position that claims to be tethered to the text but that position is invulnerable to any kind of countervailing evidence or expert critique, right?

So you can get, you can get the, the, you can arrive, arrive at, you know a rather wide array of, of, of viewpoints, many of which may be self serving. And then you have the perfect pretext. Utterly refusing to consider any kind of objection. Well, it's what God says, you know, you're arguing with God 

Will Small: Yeah, 

Scott M Coley: it's it's you know, it's like I mean, it's as if it's as if they're you know They're ventriloquists or something, or puppeteers, you know?

They've, and they've, [00:46:00] they've inserted their hand into the god puppet, and they make god say whatever they want. And it's, it's, it's all rather convenient. 

Will Small: Yeah, oh, it's I mean this is, this is a completely random example, but the thing that came to mind while you were describing that is almost like if you're playing a, a video game like Mario, and you get you get powered up, And you're suddenly invincible, and you can just run off the track where you normally, you know, your car would stop or whatever.

It's like a lot of these words, they just provide that, like, you know, this sort of power up where a, a really flimsy argument is sort of shielded by a term that holds extra weight. In these contexts, and it's the same thing that happens with proof texts, it's kind of like, well, how can you argue, how can you argue with me just pulling out this single verse, or how can you argue with me when this is, yeah, this is biblical, or this is This is common sense.

They're kind of all doing the same thing. It's like it's like a form of deflecting from what is beneath this kind of, this, [00:47:00] this shield of language. 

Scott M Coley: . And in case the listener is wondering, right, like, could it, could this really be what's going on? Like, how, how is this allowed to continue?

I would, I would just note that that's a good question. And it has to do with the way that key evangelical institutions function. And what I have in mind here is in particular seminary. So in addition to being, you know, from a pastor's family, I also spent a lot A lot of my well, basically my adolescence in the shadow of a large Southern Baptist seminary and became well acquainted with several of the faculty there.

And, you know, have myself had quite a bit of personal experience with the way that evangelical institutions function and the way that this is perpetuated is something like the following and, you know, the seminaries are not unimportant because this is [00:48:00] this is where pastors receive their training.

This is this is where the sort of, Tenets of you know, orthodoxy are established and transmitted to people who are then pastors. You know, the way that this function functions is, you know, you get a Ph. D. Let's say from wherever you like, though. Often it's you know, some other seminary in the in the network.

You get a job teaching at this or that seminary. Same thing might happen with pastors and parishioners who are paying the bills, but you know, I'll speak to my experience, which is seminaries. You get a job and you're teaching and let's say that you're actually not all that convinced that the sort of standard line on gender roles is correct or has any real basis in you know, in, in scripture.

Sure. You can pull out some, some, isolated passages from Paul's letters and say you know, women [00:49:00] shouldn't exercise authority. But the real question is the sweep of scripture as a whole. You know which is subtly acknowledged when they, when complementarians say biblical, this is what the Bible says, you know, well, that's what Paul says, right?

Is that, is that identical to what the Bible says? That's another question. In any case, you get your job at a seminary and maybe you're not really convinced of all this gender hierarchy business or maybe you think that young earth creationism is ridiculous. Maybe you're an Old Testament scholar, you know, let's say, and you, you, you recognize that like the arguments for young earth creationism are, are rather flimsy.

Look, I mean, you've been hired at the seminary, you've got kids. You've got a mortgage. You don't want to lose your job. You don't want to be on the academic job market. No one wants to be on the academic job market. So what do you do? You just keep your mouth shut about certain things. I'm, you know, not, I'm not saying that these folks, you know are hypocrites or lack integrity [00:50:00] and they're going into their classes and saying things, you know, affirming propositions they believe to be false.

But they just decide not to make issues out of certain things. And if they do, they lose their job and, and you, that only has to happen to a couple people for the, the rest of the folks there to, to get the idea and, and sort of fall in line. And that's how it's, that's how it's perpetuated. 

Will Small: I mean, you can, you can definitely, you can see that in a lot of places and in a lot of ways.

I mean, I certainly can. So, so if that's the case you know, so much of what you've like highlighted is I think very helpful in terms of recognizing these patterns. But I am someone who doesn't have the, you know, I don't need to for, for income purposes or job purposes or whatever. I don't need to you know, to continue to engage with them.

So it's probably in some ways easier for me. To step outside and, and, and sort of look at these, you know, arguments and go, Oh yeah, this just [00:51:00] is obviously. Obviously flawed thinking, but how, how do we engage with people who are kind of deeply embedded or entrenched or have, you know, strong motivations to continue to prop up these different social structures and systems, you know, how do we engage, , with people who always pull out the proof text, , do you think there are constructive ways of, , you know, sort of going there, , or, or, you know, Is it almost you know, once those, those sort of terms of engagement have been set it kind of feels like the, the conversation is going to go in a loop.

Do you know what I mean? Like, how do we actually try and disrupt the propaganda machine? 

Scott M Coley: Right. Well I'm, I'm afraid I'm not. hugely optimistic. But let me I wouldn't, I want to make, I guess, sort of a transitional point here, building on, on the previous point about evangelical institutions that I think connect, connects up [00:52:00] to some of the difficulties in, in under the undertaking you just described.

The way that I just described sort of how, say, seminary faculty might fall in line. Might lead the listener to think that I'm really that I have a, rather a low opinion of, You know, say seminary administration or something like that, you know, the folks who are enforcing this kind of thing.

In some cases, perhaps, but not necessarily. I mean, the, the seminary administration also answers to trustees, right? And sometimes they get, They get, they'll sit down with a trustee or perhaps a donor or something like that. And they say, you know, I don't like the stuff that this or that faculty member is saying on social media, or I heard that this faculty member was, you know, spent a lot of time talking about race in this [00:53:00] particular class.

And it kind of seems like they're, they're toying with, you know critical race theory or, or, or, you know, whatever the. whatever the case may be. And that's, you know, that's genuine pressure. Now whether they're warranted and caving in certain cases is not, is not for me to say, but these pressures function at a lot of different levels and In, you know, I guess the the kind of, it's, well, in the SBC it's called commonly the sort of conservative resurgence, I'm not sure how familiar your Australian listeners will be with this, but it's sort of a, it's a conservative takeover of the denomination.

Will Small: Well it's happening, it's definitely happening here too. So, yeah, 

Scott M Coley: so there was a there was a wave back in the early eighties, late seventies, early eighties, and there are in the United States in the Southern Baptist Convention in particular. And what the, what I was gonna say is that [00:54:00]now, now the trustees are folks who studied at seminaries.

You know, post conservative takeover. And so they, they may genuinely believe, you know, that young earth creationism is the only legitimate reading of the first couple of chapters. It's self perpetuating at this point, you know, it's taken hold, it's institutionalized. And it's a really tricky problem, you know?

So given all of these different forces, institutional, economic social, whatever you know, how do you approach folks that are enculturated into a certain kind of ideology and are quite comfortable with it. Maybe it's a family member, maybe holidays and your family are really uncomfortable, you 

Will Small: know, 

Scott M Coley: Because of these kinds of dynamics.

Or, or maybe it's, you know, maybe there's some turmoil in your church because people are coming at things from really different and apparently irreconcilable perspectives. What to say about that? I guess I'll retreat to [00:55:00] to saying something about what I envision as the audience for and the purpose of the book.

And what I don't envision the audience to be. As kind of a proxy for how the content might be of some use and to whom I, I did not write the book thinking that, you know Franklin Graham, were you, will your listeners be familiar with Franklin Graham or, or, or Ken Ham? Or Ken Ham, right?

He's a, he's an Australian 

Will Small: export. 

Scott M Coley: Sadly, proud son of Australia. Yeah, I'm not, I'm, I didn't write the book thinking that Franklin Graham or Ken Ham is going to pick up the book, read it and say, well, gee, I've, I, I've, I got it all wrong. I've, I've, I've. You know, succumbed to and in fact participated in the transmission of these legitimizing narratives and ideology and so on.

I need to [00:56:00] reform. , I didn't write the book for folks on the far right or the alt right. More generally I wrote the book for , folks who have, , let's say already begun the difficult process of disentangling their faith from the politics of their parents generation, , or maybe for someone who is, has just sort of started to ask some questions.

Maybe they're curious about, what all of this, , you know, so called deconstructed, deconstruction business is about. Why a lot of younger people are running for the exits, you know even if they themselves don't, don't exactly understand what it's about basically anyone who's open, you know, to at least exploring the possibility that something has gone wrong, you know, with the sort of culture war agenda that really accelerated in the United States in the [00:57:00] 1980s and similar movements.

And my hope is that in reading the book There the, the reader will find some concepts that are, that are portable that are transferable to other contexts and other conversations. The book is very intentionally light on technical terminology, but in a couple of places, I, I, and, and with, with caution and, and a bit of, Reluctance introduce some some technical terms, and I do that because I think it's important to isolate a particular concept that is pervasive so that the reader can say, you know, read the book, understand the hermeneutics of legitimization, for example, and then be able to identify it in the wild and say, Oh, this is what's going on here.

I can pick this apart and I can I can you know demonstrate this reasoning doesn't work and, and how it is in fact self serving, right. I [00:58:00] can't, I can't, you know, go to Thanksgiving dinner at, you know, with, and talk to everybody's uncle about, you know, why they've been how they've been taken in by various conspiracy theories and why it's problematic or, point out that it's sort of strange that they they trust science in a lot of contexts.

You know, they take their cholesterol medication, they fly on airplanes, they use GPS navigation technology, but then all of a sudden they get really skeptical about expertise anytime it poses a threat to social arrangements that benefit themselves. How strange that is. But what I hope to do is, is to sort of expose.

How these things operate in a straightforward way so that the reader is then equipped to to dismantle some of it and, and at the very least understand it, [00:59:00] you know, I mean, a lot of my job is, you know, my training is an analytic philosophy and a lot of what that's about is, is bringing order to chaos and, and, and sort of, you know trying to trying to dissolve problems and dispel confusion.

And that's really what I'm up to in the book with also a fair bit of history focused mainly on the latter half of the 20th century. And thereafter you know, a bit of science though this isn't scaring anyone off. It's sort of more philosophy of science. And and, and some sociology, you know, mixed in there as well.

Will Small: No, I can, I can definitely tell people that it is, it is very readable. It's fascinating, and it does a great job of integrating those, those different things in a really accessible way. And it was really helpful to hear you know, I guess that, that purpose that it has in mind, who it's for, and, and I think you definitely described many of the [01:00:00] listeners of this podcast particularly those who, you know, as it's come up, it's this disentanglement between, well, I, I do want to move away from some of these particular arguments or some of the particular social outcomes that they lead to, but I don't want to necessarily abandon what I think is beneath the surface.

You know, I don't want to abandon the core, heart of what I think my faith ought to be about. And, and I think you, you do sort of touch on in the book that actually if propaganda often reinforces things that are in our own self interest, Then part of what you know, the core message of Christ is, is actually that we should always be looking out for what is best for our neighbor.

Rather than just, you know, propping up our own place of, of power and privilege in the world. And so I think there's kind of a really beautiful undercurrent there around actually when we recover of a bit of a sense of the moral vision of Christ, it actually has within it the seeds to undo.[01:01:00]

Some of these yes, self self reinforcing patterns. So Scott, I'm grateful for your work. I'm grateful for your time conscious. This has been you know, a fair bit of time chatting for you. But I'd love, you know, if you could summarize. I guess just in a couple sentences the thing you would most want to leave people with.

Obviously there's read the book. So go and grab Ministers of Propaganda. It's a really helpful book. But what would be the other things? You know, if you could just kind of leave one or two sentences. With people listening that may be encouraging for them to continue to, to think about what would you most want to leave with people?

Scott M Coley: Sure, sure. I, well, I thought your summary of the sort of the argument of the final chapter of the book there was, was beautiful. And it, and it's, it's been my pleasure by the way to, to have this conversation. And I, I would just add that the really the, the most basic purpose for my sitting down to write the book [01:02:00] was to work through a lot of these questions myself and to try to understand myself for myself you know, what's going on here.

And, and I, I, I hope I've done that in a way that's helpful to others who are asking similar questions. But in terms of summary yeah, as I said, you, you summarized the argument of the last chapter there and are calling us Christians. I think Quite, quite beautifully. But I would yeah, I would just say that as, as Christians weren't, we're just not called to pursue our own interests.

That's not, that's not what the Christian life is about. And I think that that is, look, we're all susceptible to ideology and legitimizing narratives, motivated reasoning, et cetera. But. If we are willing to set aside our own interests in the sense of pursuing, you know, public policies, for example, that work to our benefit without regard [01:03:00] for what other people deserve and what we owe to each other, if we're willing to set that aside then it's much easier to look dispassionately at some of these legitimizing narratives and say, you You know what?

I don't have any stake in promoting creation science or young earth creationism. I don't have any stake in denying the prevalence or persistence of, you know, systemic racism and racialized oppression or, or what have you. And I think really just

Taking seriously that calling to set aside our own interests. In service to others is just a basic key to seeing through a lot of this stuff. And that's, that's a kind of starting point, you know. 

Will Small: Well, that's a good starting point to be our closing point. Thank you so much, Scott. Really appreciate your time and all the best with you know, [01:04:00] the, the launch of the book and I hope many people read it and yeah, benefit from the arguments that you lay out.

Thank you so much. 

Scott M Coley: Great. It's, it's, it's been an absolute pleasure. I, I, I loved your questions and yeah, this was such an enjoyable conversation. Thank you so much for your, for your interest in the work and, and for reading and, and taking the time to, to talk about it. It's it's been, it's been a lot of fun.

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