Sherri Shepherd as a Public Religious Figure

On September 18th’s episode of The View, a popular daytime talk show led by Barbara Walters, co-host Sherri Shepherd professed ignorance as to whether the earth is round or flat. (Thanks to Feministing for the link).

Many bloggers have already written incredulously about this clip, along the lines you might expect. I too thought, “How could any educated, non-cognitively-impaired adult in this country not know whether the earth is round or flat?”

But there is also a lot of religious content in this video worth discussing, which hasn’t received much attention. Shepherd and Whoopi Goldberg (another View co-host) are both religious and are talking publicly about their faith—but in very different ways.

At the beginning of the clip, co-host Whoopi Goldberg is challenging Shepherd, who does not think evolution is true. Goldberg argues that a belief in God and an acceptance of science are not incompatible. She’s doing a good job of explaining from her own point of view how she reconciles God and science. Frankly, I was surprised to hear her liberal religious views being expressed on such a popular television show.

Unfortunately, Goldberg’s comments have gotten lost in the general public dismay over what comes next. Goldberg asks Shepherd if the earth is round or flat. Presumably this is a rhetorical question, but Shepherd insists that she does not know the answer–and that it doesn’t matter!

Here’s the snippet of transcript:

Goldberg: Is this earth flat?

Shepherd: I don’t know.

Goldberg: What do you think?

Shepherd: I never thought about it, Whoopi. Is the world flat? I never thought about it. I…I…I-

Walters: You never thought about whether the earth was round or flat?

Shepherd: No, because, I, but I’ll tell you what I thought about, how I’m going to feed my child…

Walters: Well you can do both.

Shepherd: How I’m going to take care of my family…

The startling thing is that not only is Shepherd lacking basic scientific knowledge, but she is also insisting that she does not need knowledge to be a good parent, or presumably, a good Christian. Shepherd is a publicly religious woman. On Shepherd’s website, she writes to her “fans”:

To those of you who prayed… let me tell you … PRAYERS WORK! Because it is a miracle of God that I am now a co-host on The View.

To those of you who fasted for me to get this job… YOU CAN EAT NOW!

Shepherd is holding herself up as a person of faith, and asking her fans to engage in spiritual practice on her behalf. Therefore, she should be held accountable for the way in which she models religiosity.

I couldn’t disagree more with her assertion that an intelligent, capable person has no moral responsibility to learn about the world around them.

This logic can too easily be used by religious people to turn their eyes away from the problems of the world: “What, the HIV epidemic? Is HIV an epidemic? I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. What I have thought about is what to buy at the grocery store today.”

The more knowledge we have, the better equipped we are to understand the needs of the world, and to respond. To not seek for knowledge to the best of our abilities, because we are afraid of what we might learn, is a shallow approach to faith, and leaves us less effective in the world.

Liberal religious faiths like Unitarian Universalism offer an alternative message about religion and knowledge. Seeking and interpreting knowledge is an important part of the Unitarian Universalist religious education curriculum in many congregations, and I am grateful for that.

We educate children and adults about human sexuality, about scholarly approaches to scripture, about the practices and beliefs of world religions, about global warming, and evolution. Gaining knowledge, and interpreting it in light of our faith, helps us better understand our own lives and respond to the needs of the world.