Hollow Gods

A combination of Kahlil Gibran and Dr. Phil, theologian and lifelong liberal Davidson Loehr brings a much-needed clarity to the reasons that liberalism has done such deep harm to areas including education, the media, politics, race relations and religion.

The problem in all five areas is the fact that for two centuries, liberals have been sloughing off biblical religion with its supernatural God and mythical eternity in Heaven. But with what do you replace heavenly eternity and an omniscient God who loves you? For two hundred years, liberals have sought to replace heaven with a utopian socialism here and now, in which only they are in charge. Such a utopia would require the wisdom of an omniscient God. In place of that, liberals have put their own exalted, diploma’d, wisdom. Only degreed liberals are smart enough to replace God. But no, they don’t have wisdom—only arrogance and a desperate lust for power to replace the respect they can't earn from other citizens.

In Hollow Gods, we see and feel the terrible and deadly cost of failing to find adequate replacements for God, heaven, and healthy, responsible religion.

Davidson Loehr is a Renaissance Man—or just someone who never grew up. A professional musician from ages 16 – 21, playing clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone in rock ’n roll combos, Dixieland, jazz, and dance bands, before enlisting in the Army at 21. He wanted the best and most challenging experiences he could get, and all of his jobs during that 43 months came from arranging interviews with Colonels, convincing them that the Army could get more of its money’s worth out of him doing it his way. It worked every time.

While in Germany, he attended the 7th Army NCO Academy in Bad Tolz, which was the Army’s best, held in the building that had been General Patton’s WWII headquarters. Then after nine months in Germany, back to the States for six months in Artillery Officer Candidate School: another excellent and challenging experience. After OCS, nine months as Assistant Brigade Adjutant for a 4,500 man training brigade. Sent to Vietnam, another interview, which made him the Vietnam Entertainment Officer, with the small office that handled all USO shows that toured the country except the Bob Hope show (which was so big it had its own office), working with some childhood heroes, like Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Martha Raye, Jennifer Jones, Arthur Godfrey, and Jimmy Boyd. But after a few months, when an OCS classmate was awarded the Purple Heart and Silver Star, his cocky little world came crashing down. Now he saw war as an archetypal event, this as his only chance to experience it, and felt that if he returned home without having experienced war, he wouldn’t want to live with himself. So after the next arranged interview, he served his final seven months as combat photographer and press officer with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Xuan Loc. He also got to know Co Rentmeester, LIFE Magazine’s Vietnam War photographer, and convinced him to shoot a photographic feature on the Black Horse Regiment (11th Armored Cavalry—in the June 2, 1967 issue). Those seven months remain sacred for him; the first five months, merely a whole lot of fun.

In August 1967, after returning from Vietnam, like many vets, he was a little lost for about a dozen years. He completed his degree in music theory at the University of Michigan, then did Master’s work at North Texas University to learn jazz arranging. But for him, music wouldn’t be a fulfilling career. So he spent time studying with half a dozen of the best people-photographers in the country, then owned a high-priced portrait and wedding photography studio in Ann Arbor.* But that also got boring, so he sold the studio and learned carpentry and woodworking until he decided woodworking made a better hobby than profession.

What, then? Surely not religion! He was through with religion at age six, when he decided it was a dishonest and irrelevant subject. But thirty years later, he grew to realize that if it could be done honestly, it could be challenging enough to fill a lifetime. He still wanted the best—and so, an M.A. in “Methods of Studying Religion” and a Ph.D. in theology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and Wittgenstein’s “language philosophy” from the University of Chicago, then a year as a staff hospital chaplain and 23 years as a Unitarian minister, retiring in 2009. He has been a Fellow in the liberal Jesus Seminar since 1992. And in 2014, he joined a new group, the International Big History Association (IBHA), where he has presented papers and written a chapter for their 2022 book, Science, Religion, and Deep Time. Davidson’s chapter is on “The Nature of Humans, Science, and Religion.”