Christian Responses to Global Atheism Convention

A team of atheists is touring Australia for the Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne this weekend (13-15 April). The conference has received plenty of publicity. As a result, a number of Christian organisations have been responding in varied ways to ensure that there is balance, rather than simply another series of uninformed attacks on Christians and people of faith. CASE supports the efforts of several of these groups. In this post I want to point to a number of free resources on the CASE website and this blog that are relevant for anyone who wants to engage with atheists.

If you visit the CASE website you will find many of our online resources are free and that there are many more for our CASE associates. The resources are grouped on the sidebar by broad discipline. The 'Science and Medicine' link has a number of great articles. As well, the following articles and posts may be of interest:

A review of Richard Dawkin's book 'God's Undertaker' HERE
A review of 'Religion for Atheists' HERE
'Kant and the Early Moderns' HERE
'The Stem Cell Debate' HERE
'Five things I never learned in Science' HERE
'Kinsey,Truth and the Rhetoric of research' HERE
Review of 'Reason, faith and revolution' HERE
'Can science see the end?' HERE
'Belief in God, a trick of the brain?' HERE
'Embryo Liberation' HERE
'The Language of God' Review by Megan Best HERE
'Science, Uncertainty and Ambiguity' HERE

Human Embryonic Stem Cells - Wiki Commons

The Simeon Network is another group that has been offering an alternative voice. It has created a new website 'Doubting Dawkins' that will offer alternative ideas and resources.

Another group that CASE supports is 'The Reason for Faith Coalition'. It's partners include:

City Bible Forum
The Centre for Public Christianity (CPX):
Bible Society Australia
Outreach Media
The Simeon Network

You might also just search on the CASE website or this blog for other resources.

Religion for Atheists?

In recent weeks, there have been a couple of newspaper articles commending the Christian faith for reasons other than faith. Two of these have had me thinking about the source of the media attention and whether the hostile full frontal attacks by atheists might have led some to adopt a different approach. Perhaps some atheists have concluded that their cause is furthered by simply acknowledging the odd merit of the church, while effectively still telling Christians that they are all deluded and wrong; in a more polite way of course. This is not far removed from the approach of some within the church who would want to airbrush out all the 'difficult' bits of Christianity.

This strategy of course is very convenient for those people who want the cultural practices of religion without the faith. The first article that got me thinking was in the Sydney Morning Herald several weeks ago, 'Churchgoers keen to take a pew despite their disbelief'. In it, a parishioner from a Uniting Church shared how he does not believe in God and doesn't see this as necessary for church attendance. He's right of course about belief not being required for church attendance, any Christian church would welcome him. However, the idea that you might attend church for cultural, social and justice reasons alone, is out of step with the teachings of Christianity. As well, I suspect it says something about the vague message of the specific church he attends as well.

The parishioner commented:

"[My spirituality] drives me to want to be in a spiritual community that has a sense of a mission to do good things and to help do justice in the world...but also I like the Christian and other religious liturgies and spiritual practices – I find that they're very good for me. But, for me, belief in a literal god is quite unnecessary."

Interestingly, the man said he rejects the label "atheist" because he sees it as having militant connotations.

The second article was a brief interview with Alain de Botton about his soon to be released book, 'Religion for Atheists'. When asked why an atheist would write this book de Botton says:

"...The supernatural claims of religion are entirely false - and yet religions still have some very important things to teach the world."

We'll have to wait for the book to see what he thinks the 'very important things are'. But in both these examples, one from a churchgoer and the other from an atheist, we see a common way to deal with Christianity, cut out the hard bits from the Bible with which you can't agree and simply stress the positive and get on with life. Both approaches are a rejection of God.

In one sense, as a Christian, I'm pleased when someone like de Botton takes a less hostile line than atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, however, I can't help feeling that de Botton whether with a silk glove or an iron fist, is still displaying the same arrogance and pride in his own knowledge as a churchgoer who says he needs only the cultural bits; the music, lifestyle and good friends. In each case, there seems an effort (whether deliberate or not), to domesticate the Christian voices that would want to stand firm to the claims of the Bible.

However, I don't want to end on a negative note. It seems to me that while we need to be wary of those who damn us with faint praise, at least people like de Botton, Geoffrey Blainey, Clive Hamilton, Terry Eagleton and others like them, provide an opportunity for conversation and apologetic exchange. While we mustn't allow the message of Christianity to be softened, or watered down to make it acceptable to others, we do need to enter into dialogue with atheists and agnostics with humility and respect for those with different views.

Related links

'Reason, faith and revolution' - A review of Terry Eagleton's book HERE

Interview with Alain de Botton on his new book HERE

'Apologetics is more than winning arguments' HERE

'Humble Apologetics' HERE

Reason, Faith, and Revolution

I’ve just finished reading Terry Eagleton’s book ‘Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate’ (2009). Terry Eagleton,  is Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster and Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland in Galway.  He has written more than 40 books including ‘Literary Theory: An Introduction’ (1983), ‘The Ideology of the Aesthetic’ (1990) and the ‘The Illusions of Postmodernism’. He is a literary critic first and foremost and political activist second. He is also a well-known Marxist and agnostic. He does not claim to be a philosopher or theologian, although he draws on both in this entertaining (but hardly ground breaking) book.

In this new book Eagleton offers a withering critique of New Atheism and its major proponents Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (who he refers to collectively as ‘Ditchkins’). The major thesis of his book is that faith and reason are not exclusive categories as 'Ditchkins' argues. He suggests that religion (particularly in those forms that he sees as ‘true’ and unadulterated) is not simply a matter of blind mindless faith, but rather requires a combination of faith and reason. He is particularly critical of the tendency of New Atheists to blame all the evils of the world on religion while blindly celebrating science without questioning its benefits. This same science he reminds us that gave us penicillin, artificial limbs and enhanced agricultural productivity has also been used to create weapons of mass destruction, chemical warfare and environmental disasters.

Christians shouldn't read Eagleton expecting to find a generous assessment. He has plenty of negative things to say about Christianity today.  Some of the things he says have an element of truth, others are perhaps exaggerated (but that is his style), some are inaccurate or unfair. New Atheists will probably say the same. His general view is that the church has lost touch with Christ's example and teaching.  Of course, in saying this he has a particular view of Christ in mind which I suspect is an incomplete one. He suggests that “..it is hard to think of a historical movement that has more squalidly betrayed its own revolutionary origins” (p. 55). As in some of his previous publications such strong views reflect a simplistic caricature in relation to Christianity. While he makes claims about some Christians throughout history being responsible for bigotry, injustice, cruelty, deception, hypocrisy and so on, it is just as easy to offer a list of the many examples of Christian contributions to society, including fighting injustice, the foundations of western government and the law, the establishment of most of the major aid agencies around the world, a record of care of the sick and homeless, being the catalyst for universal education, fighting for human rights etc.

Eagleton is just as critical of the rise of religious fanaticism and fundamentalism, which he calls ‘New Age religion’). He suggests that “It offers a refuge from the world, not a mission to transform it” (p.41). So, the Christian right gets a giant serve as do Islamic extremists who he sees as politically motivated rather than inspired by Islam. Liberalism also receives some strong treatment, the general thrust of which I find myself in agreement:

Liberalism he suggests has “..fostered an atomistic notion of the self, a bloodlessly contractual view of human relations, a meagerly utilitarian version of ethics, a crudely instrumental idea of reason, a doctrinal suspicion of doctrine, an impoverished sense of human communality, a self-satisfied faith in progress and civility, a purblindness to the more malign aspects of the human nature, and a witheringly negative view of power, the state, freedom, and tradition.” (p.94).

But Eagleton's major focus and motivation for writing this book has been to challenge the simplistic separation of faith and reason. Both New Atheists and liberal nationalists he claims have failed to understand this relationship. Dawkins he points out assumes that his own belief is reflective of reason, while he sees Christians being guilty of blind faith. Rather, he suggests New Atheists hold a faith position of their own. In fact, he argues that scientists are also motivated by faith, indeed “a great deal of what we believe we do not know firsthand; instead, we have faith in the knowledge of specialists.” Hence, in this area alone, we are dependent on faith in truths that we cannot personally assess and verify.

Eagleton concludes that faith and knowledge are not antithetical but in fact are interwoven. Reasoning of any kind he suggests "...is conducted within the ambit of some sort of faith, attraction, inclination, orientation, predisposition, or prior commitment.” Meaning, value and truth are not “reducible to the facts themselves, in the sense of being ineluctably motivated by a bare account of them.”

Atheists won't like Eagleton’s assessment of them any more than Christians will like some of the things he says about their faith, but his arguments from his perspective as a Marxist are of interest. His command of language and his wide ranging discussion of so many worldviews, makes this book an interesting read.  As well, his rebuke of those who support a simplistic separation of reason from faith is timely.

Dawkins Vs McGrath

As you probably know Alistair McGrath (Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University) has been debating Richard Dawkins (Professor of the Public Understanding of Science,
University of Oxford), particularly in response to Dawkins book "The God Delusion". Dawkins describes himself as "an evolutionist" but has been described (cheekily) by McGrath as a "Fundamentalist Atheist". McGrath's book, "The Dawkins Delusion" has been the catalyst for a series of public debates between the two authors in recent times. One interesting debate at Oxford University recently can be accessed in MP3 format if you're interested. We will also have a short critique of "The God Delusion" in CASE Magazine #12 due out in September, A Skeptic’s view of The God Delusion. This has been written by one of our CASE Associates Kevin Rogers.