Forgive me for being amused, but it does seem quite funny that people who get so worked up about God in general, religion in particular and Christianity in particular particularity can’t stop talking about it all. They have done a remarkable job in reviving and keeping alive the discourse about God when their deepest desire is to eradicate God and all talk of him.
Last week’s New Statesman focused on religion (prior to Easter) and brought a number of people into the conversation. The most interesting by far was the interview with AN Wilson who, a couple of decades after having declared himself an atheist, is now back in the theistic and Christian fold. He is not stupid, illiterate, ill-educated or morally weak and in need of some intellectual or emotional crutch with which to limp through life. He is honest and open and has clearly irritated those who can’t comprehend that anyone with half a brain could possibly be a Christian. Instead of arguing, they sneer.
AN Wilson has followed this up with a fuller explanation of his journey back to faith in an intriguing and sharp article in the Mail written last Saturday. In it he points to the embarrassment of being a known to be a Christian – on the grounds that it isn’t ‘sexy’ or cool. I know exactly what he means: try sitting on a train in a clerical collar and watch the eyes…
But Christians can take heart and be confident. Unlike some of the evangelists for atheism, people like AN Wilson are simply telling their story and not imposing it on anyone who doesn’t want to hear it. He does not come over as being evangelistic about his re-found faith, but simply open about it in all its simplicity and complexity.
Perhaps the New Atheists should just relax a bit more. In the meantime, we should thank them that their aggressive evangelism keeps the language of God alive in the street, in offices, in pubs and just about everywhere else. I think they call it the ‘law of unintended consequences’.
Nick Baines's Blog 
April 14, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Hmm…interesting. The only comment I’d make is that it doesn’t matter if A N Wilson IS weak. I’m reminded of C S Lewis’ comment when asked if he believed because he needed an emotional crutch. “No”, he replied, “I need a life support system!”
April 14, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Good response.
April 14, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Interacting with atheists on the web has given my faith a new passion. Most of them have rejected lukewarm Christianity. Shouldn’t we all?
April 14, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Absolutely, yes. There are some really interesting people out there – and, like with Christians, some completely irrational nutters. My problem is that it is mostly the latter who interact with me on the web.
April 14, 2009 at 5:02 pm
#4 Hi, Nick, you called? 🙂
Wilson’s an interesting guy as a former seminarian with ups & downs in his personal life (i.e. fairly normal), and a novelist who actually knows a lot about Historical Jesus studies – more than a leftist journal like the New Statesman could likely understand and care about (“‘cos haven’t Feuerbach, Marx and Gramsci said it all?”). Wilson once tracked Geza Vermes’s scholarship fairly closely (as a former Catholic priest who converted to a kind of liberal Judaism and thus sees Jesus as prophet/reform figure) but his return to a more orthodox Christian faith has made him increasingly critical of Vermes:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/anwilson/3556252/Jesus-is-ill-served-by-this-literary-detective.html
He still has some quirky views (IMO) on the New Testament and history, but it’s good to see a thoughtful person swim against the tide.
April 14, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I find that many of my friends are very reasonable atheists. For the most part they are happy to let me have my spiritual beliefs and religious leanings as long as I don’t start condemning or judging others. For my part, I appreciate knowing that if I start treating people badly they will tell me so.
It’s a shame that there are so many people who are concerned with appearing to be right or clever rather than with the pursuit of truth or acting to improve the world. Most fanatic nutters I tend to put into this category. It may be that there is some help for them but it probably isn’t achieved by engaging in argument with them.
I’m absolutely fascinated by the others, by the ones who have wildly different beliefs to mine but do seem to be searching for truth rather than anything else. We could learn so much from one another.
April 14, 2009 at 5:18 pm
(and even in that comment I judge people by the way they argue, or don’t argue. I’m not wording things very clearly; what I mean is that I am not equipped to deal with some people in a constructive manner. )
April 14, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Why are you so hard on yourself? You explained yourself very clearly and well. I agree with what you say – and I am curious with my atheist frinds to know how they think and why they see the world the way they do. I have only blocked from this comment stream one guy who was putting other people off by his irrational and annoying contributions. Some people cannot be argued with – despite their claim to be rational. Thanks for commenting.
April 14, 2009 at 6:30 pm
In this instance I am hard on myself because I know I have previously been guilty of thinking, “I can’t argue with these people,” simply because I wasn’t able to understand them or cope with their disagreement, or because I did not have the background or eloquence to state my points well.
If everyone had done that with me, I’d be much poorer (in spirit) for it. I don’t like to make generalisations about whether it is possible to communicate with others; I don’t like to use language that encourages anyone to give up. But I’m not always sure what language to use instead.
Thank you for the reassurance that I did make myself clear. Your blog gives me plenty to think about, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond.
April 14, 2009 at 6:35 pm
(Sorry, I don’t know your real name.) The Archbishop of Canterbury talked about this in his Easter address. You can find it at http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2377.
April 14, 2009 at 8:14 pm
I’m happy to be called Song.
I hadn’t gotten round to watching the Easter address yet; I will make sure that I do. Thanks.
April 15, 2009 at 6:24 am
Another good byte from Wilson’s piece;
“I haven’t mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler’s neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.”
Not quite time to invoke Godwin’s Law, but interesting that Wilson finds Darwinism (which has the status of unassailable dogma in secularist circles) as unsatisfying ethically and intellectually inadequate (unless one is an out & out materialist-reductionist). Along with Wilson’s literary/biographical approach to questions of faith, it would be good to have some philosophical rigor in Christian discourse and witness and apologetics.
William Lane Craig has no fears on this front, recently debating Christopher Hitchens and calling him out on the intelelctual weaknesses of the ‘New Atheism’. Atheism is completely unable to answer these questions: Why does anything, rather than nothing, exist in the first place? How can life emerge from non-life? And if morality is ultimately nothing more than the pleasure principle, why should I care? Craig tackles such questions as prolegomena to showing that Christian faith is reasonable and worthy of belief.
April 15, 2009 at 7:26 am
Thanks, Nick. I will remember and quoe your last paragraph in particular. Certainly I know people who happen to be atheists, who’d describe themselves as “spiritual” or not, with whom it’s a delight to interact. I suppose every belief/non belief system has its zealot fringe, and I agree the edginess of some of the trolls I’ve encountered in the atheist zealot fringe speaks volumes about their own insecurity now the great 20th Century secular project has failed to deliver the conplete answer to everything.
April 15, 2009 at 9:21 am
Craig is certainly not alone. Many of us – particularly bishops in England – find ourselves doing exactly the same thing with Dawkins and Hitchens, but it doesn’t always get reported. I did TV with Dawkins back in February – you have to wonder what makes him so miserable. Anyway, thanks for this helpful comment.
April 16, 2009 at 9:03 am
Is there not also a Cosmologist who at the end of his life has become a ‘Deist””? I cannot for the life of me remember his name- if anyone knows who I am talking about please put me out of misery!
Isn’t one of the problems that too many older atheists arrived at their view in 1965 and have never had the intellectual curiosity to revisit the question, even though the questions arising out of new scientific discoveries (such as the complexity of the Genome) continue to mount.
Atheism existed for a long time on the premise that in an infinite universe with infinite time “anything can happen”, by chance. Now we know that there is a finite age and a finite mass, the statistical time frame squeezes the argument, but those who have stopped thinking are now being not only being lazy but “unscientific”.
April 20, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I think you may be refering to Richard Feynman.
April 24, 2009 at 8:23 am
It’s encouraging that it provokes debate, but I feel it’s also leading to horrible misconceptions! My current RS education is very good, but reading books like “The God Delusion” just shows the depravity of education on religion in this country: I’m quite fed up of explaining that I don’t believe the world was made 6,000 years ago (and that this isn’t a recent ‘evasive’ shift to metaphor), that faith is ‘belief in the absence of evidence’, that all those who don’t openly accept Christianity in this life go to hell, that hell is really full of fire and worms,, that the Bible has to be inerrant, that we receive salvation merely by intellectual assent to theism etc. Ahhh!
I enjoy Craig’s debates and his willingness to debate so often; can’t wait for his debate with Hitchens to find its way onto the internet. I also enjoyed Dawkins talking to Richard Harries in one particular video, you wonder why Dawkins can’t manage to engage with Christianity in the same way usually.