Ronald and me

The most controversial segment of The God Who Wasn't There is not the presentation of the case that Jesus did not exist. Rather, it's my interview with the superintendent of my former school, Village Christian. Some viewers highlight the interview as their favorite part of the movie, while others deem it indulgent, embarrassing and unfair to the interview subject.

In setting up the interview, I told the superintendent, Ronald Sipus, that I wanted to talk to him about what he teaches children and why. I told Sipus that the first question I would ask would be, "Why should an ancient doctrine like Christianity be taught to young people today?" and that the interview would continue along those lines. In other words, I communicated to the superintendent that I planned to challenge him to defend the curriculum he maintained for Village Christian's 1800 students.

During the interview, I did as I said I would -- I made the policies of the school the exclusive focus of my questions. In fact, I had the school's handbook on my lap the entire time, and most of my questions involved quotes directly from this book.

Sipus had obviously done his research on me by reading this blog, and he was anxious to defend the idea that Jesus existed, even though I never brought up that subject with him. Sipus had even contacted the former principal of the high school, David Wilson, to ask about his memories of me. Sipus knew who I was, where I was coming from, and what I wanted to talk about.

I was perfectly ready for Sipus to successfully defend his curriculum. But he did not. When I brought up the supernatural elements of Christian doctrine that Village Christian teaches as unassailable fact, Sipus could not point me to any evidence to support those conclusions. Sipus then tried to have his cake and eat it, too: to claim that A) he was teaching a proven "reality" by B) promoting supernatural notions that were by his own admission based solely on "faith."

I aggressively explored this contradiction.

You may have seen this interview technique used before in, say, any nonfiction film or TV newsmagazine segment about any controversial topic ever. Well, except maybe for religion. The pressing-the-subject-to-resolve-obvious-contradictions technique is, for some reason, rarely used when interviewing religious figures, who are routinely allowed to make self-contradicting claims with impunity.

Sipus was clearly annoyed that I did not recognize the exemption to which he was accustomed. As I was there to get answers, not to make Sipus comfortable, I did not respond to his annoyance by changing the subject. Instead, I became more aggressive, which is to say that I stayed on the subject of the school's policies and his justifications for them.

Tellingly, Sipus reached his breaking point while I was reading aloud a passage directly from the Village Christian handbook about the school's highest educational priority: "to encourage and to lead students to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and to commit themselves to Christ as Lord of their lives." Sipus interrupted the question, accused me of dishonesty, took off his microphone and angrily escorted me out of his office. He also promised legal action if I used the interview, a threat I ignored. (He never sued.)

To review: I had focused the interview exclusively on the curriculum of the school. Or, put another way, I had held someone in a position of great responsibility accountable for what he does.

He couldn't account.

Many viewers, including many atheist activists, nonetheless find fault with me, and accuse me of "ambushing" this poor man. I have to confess, I do not understand their point of view, not even a little. Would these critics have as much sympathy for the interview subject if it were a police chief being grilled about an indefensible law-enforcement policy, or a restaurant owner about an indefensible food-handling policy, or even a street-sweeping supervisor about an indefensible street-sweeping policy?

Hypothetically, what if I were interviewing a school superintendent about his policy of requiring students to wear full-body protective suits and gas masks at all times, because this superintendent was certain that space aliens were about to invade the campus wielding poison gas? Would it be wrong to demand evidence of this alien plot? And to do so aggressively? Evangelical Christian theology is no more sensible than the alien invader claim, and no less paranoia-inducing for the children being indoctrinated. Yet, to press someone to defend that doctrine is, in the view of quite a surprising number of people, boorish and wrong.

Of course, my movie gets attacked for a lot more than that one interview. And I've taken much of the criticism of The God Who Wasn't There to heart. There's a profanity spoken in the end credits of the movie that I agree limits its audience without an offsetting benefit. I now wish I had cut it out. There are some moments in the movie where I presume too much familiarity with the Bible on the part of the audience, leading some to false conclusions about certain passages. While using shorthand for the sake of brevity, I have given some Christian apologists the opportunity to pretend the movie makes claims it never makes. At some point in the future (at least a year away -- probably more), I do plan to issue a revised edition that corrects these mistakes.

But criticism of the interview with Ron Sipus I simply don't get. I told a man I wanted to interview him about his job. I interviewed him about his job. He couldn't defend his performance.

Really, this isn't my fault.

I do wish I had managed to get interviews with current students at Village Christian in the documentary (I tried). Perhaps then more of the audience would have appreciated that Ron Sipus is not just some poor sap I chose at random. He is a man with power.

Interestingly, I have found that a negative reaction to the interview is rarely found among a certain demographic: high-school students.

(Via PZ)