Angry Atheists

Angry Atheists

How can we tell the good news of God's reality, goodness and mercy to this first category of people: the angry atheists. There certainly seem to be many of them, or perhaps they are just being more strident or getting more favourable mention in the press. Either way, they are out there and we want to reach them for good even though they are trying to drive us from the public scene and eradicate all Christian influence in our societies. Of course what they want to replace Christian influence with is usually some variation of Rousseau's utopian vision. He thought that people are really all good, they just need to be educated better! This idea is counter-factual and wherever tried it has been a dismal failure. However I don't think this is a profitable line of attack. To be more precise I don't think attack is the best approach at all.

I think the key is understanding why they are angry. Why does the very thought of Christianity cause them inner pain.

Now an atheist by definition does not believe in God, or more positively does believe that God does not exist. Well I believe that UFO's (from outer space) do not exist. But I'm not angry about it. It does not cause my blood pressure to rise or my voice to become shrill and my conversation strident if I meet someone who does believe in UFO's. I don't agitate to have such conspiracy theorists silenced. And if a real UFO landed on my front lawn I would change my beliefs pretty smartly!

So why does Christianity or talk of God get angry atheists so riled up?

I can think of three reasons which I'll explain below. If you think of more, please let me know!

1. The “god” they have a mental picture of is a nasty being who really does not exist. Well think about it, they may have been influenced by people whose idea of God is a travesty.

To take an extreme case, a Jihadi believes in a “god” whose character is so warped, depraved and different to the character of the real God, that it is fair to say they believe in a god who does not exist. And we are very glad that this god does not exist!

History, and even the present is replete with people who worship a god made in their own image. They can call this god “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” but it is so different in character that one must say “No, that is a different god, and one which simply does not exist!” (OK some descriptions may be so depraved that we could say, “Yes what you call “god” does indeed exist: its real name is Satan! But the real God is good, mighty and has triumphed over this Satan”

Read C.S. Lewis' last Narnia book “The Last Battle” for a beautiful exposition of this in the final pages. Here a righteous man who though he served the abominable idol “Tash” meets Aslan and is accepted into heaven. The gist of what Aslan says is: “my character is wholly good: Tash's character is wholly evil. So those who say they worship me but love evil worship Tash even if they call their “god” by my name and those who love good do in fact worship me even if they call me by the vile name of Tash” As so often Lewis has managed to expound in simple terms both profound theology and university level philosophy in a children's book!

To such a person, if accorded a face-to-face dialogue I would proceed something like this. “describe to me the god you don't believe exists”. If, as likely, they said “How can I describe something that doesn't exist!” I would say something like, “well we both agree unicorn's don't exist, but I can still describe one.” And try to get them to spell out exactly what their conception of God is. If this produces as expected a false image of God, I can say, “Well I don't believe that god exists either!”

And perhaps slide over into talking about the character of the One who does exist.

2. They have a strong moral sense and are stung by feelings of guilt when we talk about God. As one psychologist I read put it: “they think, possibly sub-consciously, 'There had better not be a God or I'm for it at the judgement!'”

In Luke 5 we have the account of Peter after he sees Jesus bring about the miraculous catch of fish cry out: “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man” Yet he was probably a fairly upright citizen.

In our own experience, who of us driving along at the legal limit does not instinctively slow down when we see a police car – or as we have in Australia a police speed camera pretending to be an ordinary car parked innocently by the roadside!

So guilt feelings are quite understandable even in the absence of some particularly wicked deed.

3. Many of us who are devout Christians know what it feels like to be under attack by the spiritual forces belonging to the devil. One form can be a very real though spiritual-cum-mental pain. The “anger” of some atheists may indeed be that they are under such attack which manifests itself as an inexplicable inward pain at the very thought or mention of Christianity.

Causes 2 and 3 may be amenable to countering without the dialogue method of Cause 1. It may be something we can present in a blog like this or a YouTube video. So next I will try to formulate something of that kind.

What Can We Do Next

What can we do next

Crying out to God is the essential first second and third steps!

However there are things we may also be required to do. If my initial thesis is correct namely that a revival of (real) Christianity is what is needed and if indeed this is part of God's answer to our prayers; then part of what we can do; or under God what we will be expected to do; is tell and persuade people of the truth about God.

Here I recall that Jesus both sent disciples to do this and also told them to “pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into his harvest field.” So the telling activity may not be for everyone, but it may be for you!

So next I want to look at and think about how we may effectively tell our generation about who God is, and what He has done for them in Jesus and what He invites them to become. I think the present decline in religion in the West is strong evidence that what we have been doing in recent years is not the answer. I expect that what was done in past generations may not be applicable directly to our generation. Of course the content is unchanging, but language, social mores and perhaps more importantly the mental world view of our people today is different from past generations.

So just how do we engage with people today for a start, and then how do we present these timeless truths in a form they can digest?

There is an old Anglican prayer “For all sorts and conditions of men”. OK in today’s language “mankind” or even “people” for a start! But people did come in many “sorts and conditions” even more so today, so I guess there will need to be a wide variety of basic forms and even these tweaked for different audiences.

For a start I will try an approach for what I think may be the easiest group to reach: the outspoken atheists.

You might think these are the most hardened but Wesley (I think it was) talked of “those who came to scoff but stayed to pray”. Those who were ardently against his message were at least engaging with it, and when they saw the truth in his message they changed sides! I think many of the very vocal atheists are engaging with the topic of God. Otherwise, if they simply had an absence of any belief or interest they would not bother to be vocal!

Also I sometimes feel their anger is of the right sort.

In one sense what a soldier would call “probing fire” - an attack to elicit a response if there is anyone there! Almost as though they are saying “there aught to be some truth in Christianity, but I can't see anyone who acts like there really is: come out and fight if you are there! Or perhaps “come out and tell me!”

In another sense I sometimes think their vitriol against Christian institutions may have an element of insight. True some of them do attack Christians for accurately reflecting some aspect of God's character that conflicts with the spirit of the age. That we cannot compromise on. But at other times their anger has been directed at genuine failures or evils in these institutions that even sincere Christians have failed to adequately address.

So for all these reasons I think atheists may be reachable and persuadable with the truth about God if it can be presented in a way they can come to grips with.

So next post I will try to formulate one way of engaging with angry atheists.