Theological Incorrectness

Why do religious people sometimes act against the very beliefs they claim to hold? D. Jason Slone calls this pattern "theological incorrectness" and argues that it is not a matter of outsiders judging believers by their own standards, but of a gap between what people profess and what they actually think and do.

Slone's central claim is that human minds are built to hold conflicting ideas at the same time. They are skilled at inventing creative explanations that make the world intelligible, yet those explanations often drift from official doctrine. It follows that what people absorb from their surroundings, religious teachings included, does not reliably shape their behavior. Drawing on recent findings from the cognitive science of religion, he explains why this happens.

The book tests these ideas through three case studies. It begins with Theravada Buddhists, who maintain that the Buddha was merely a man yet in practice worship him as a god. It then turns to the early Puritan Calvinists, who believed in predestination but nonetheless behaved as though people could freely choose their actions, for instance by hunting witches and actively seeking converts. The last case examines why both Christians and Buddhists believe in luck, even though the doctrines of Divine Providence and karma seem to rule it out.

Written for readers interested in how the mind works and how it interacts with culture, the book offers a close look at why people think and act as they do.