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When Your Neighbor Accepts Christianity as Good (but not True)
A growing number of public intellectuals have recently taken to making statements to the effect that Christianity, although in their mind untrue, is nevertheless good for society. Perhaps the most startling was world-famous atheist and one of the so-called Four Horsemen of the New Atheism, Richard Dawkins. In an interview for the U.K. radio station LBC, Dawkins described himself as “a cultural Christian” and expressed how grateful he is to live in a Christian country, with the values that come with that.
Similarly, Douglas Murray, a well-known journalist and author, has also acknowledged Christianity’s crucial role in shaping Western civilization, especially foundational values such as human rights and freedom of expression. Murray has even gone so far as to call himself a “Christian atheist”—in that he deeply appreciates Christianity’s values but doesn’t believe it’s true. When asked what it’d take for him to believe, Murray replied, “I’d need to hear a voice.”
Another surprising traveler on this road is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She grew up in Africa and became a deeply committed Muslim in her teens, but after the 9/11 attacks forced her to ask tough questions about Islam, she became an atheist. Her book Infidel gained her a huge public profile (as well as death threats), and she regularly hung out with people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. But then in November 2023, she stunned the world by announcing she’d become a Christian—a change made in part because she feared that all she loves about the West has its roots in Christianity. Hirsi Ali was influenced by the historian Tom Holland, who has also gained a name for himself in recent years by publicly advocating for Christianity while doubting it’s true.
I can appreciate why “Christian atheism” may be attractive to people. The New Atheism, which promised to lead the way to the sunny uplands of secularism where there’d be roses and kittens, has failed, its arguments exposed as hollow and many of its advocates mired in controversy. Meanwhile, the Western world has faced a barrage of challenges: from COVID-19 to financial crashes, from environmental chaos to political stagnation and tribalism. All this has led to a crisis of meaning, with many people struggling to answer the basic questions: What is life for? Where is hope to be found?
For Christians, these are both exciting and challenging times. Exciting because after years of Christianity being ridiculed as “the root of all evil” and believers described as deluded, the New Atheism has given way to a cultural moment where Christianity is being spoken of warmly again. Yet at the same time, there’s a challenge: Christianity isn’t merely good advice; it’s good news. How can we help our friends see that the social goods of Christianity flow from its truth claims?
Point Out the Paradox
One way forward is to point out the paradox. For example, suppose I have a good friend who’s a committed member of the Flat Earth Society. One day, my friend cheerfully announces she’s terrifically excited because she has just won a round-the-world cruise and departs next week on an ocean liner for two months.
The New Atheism has given way to a cultural moment where Christianity is being spoken of warmly again.
“But you’re a flat-earther; how is this possible?” I ask.
“Are you suggesting only globe advocates like you, Andy, have the right to cruise around the world? How arrogant!” she protests.
“You can believe whatever you like,” I reply. “But it’s only the reality of the world being a globe that will allow you to enjoy your forthcoming trip.”
There’s something not dissimilar going on with Dawkins, Murray, and others. They are, of course, free to believe in whatever values they like; the problem is those values don’t make sense when disconnected from the Christian faith that underpins them. For instance, the idea of human rights, value, and dignity, when you trace its roots, is thoroughly biblical, deriving from the foundational teaching in Genesis 1: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (vv. 26–27).
Incidentally, the desire of today’s “Christian atheists” to enjoy the fruit of this idea even while rejecting the root isn’t entirely new; the tension was pointed out over a century ago by no less an atheist than Friedrich Nietzsche when he wrote,
When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. . . . Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands.
No Truth, No Benefits
As Christians, we’d agree with Nietzsche at this point. The societal goods that Dawkins, Murray, Holland, and Hirsi Ali have seen in Christianity aren’t accidents; they flow from Christianity’s core teachings about who God is and who we are. If there’s a God who made us in his image—and if God did demonstrate his love for us through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross (Rom. 5:8)—then talk of human rights, dignity, value, and freedom makes sense. On the other hand, if we’re just molecules in motion, then Christianity is at best a fairy tale, at worst a delusion.
In her article announcing her conversion, Hirsi Ali recognized she needed to go beyond merely seeing Christianity as good for society:
Of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognized, in my own long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer.
In her recent dialogue with Richard Dawkins, she went even further, drawing a clear line between her appreciation of Christianity’s benefits and her belief in Jesus’s story and teachings.
Ask and Pray
How do we our help our friends who’ve similarly begun to appreciate Christianity’s legacy—be it in terms of human rights, or culture, or truth, or art and literature—to go further?
I’m a big believer in the power of “wondering” questions, the approach Paul takes in Acts 17. Come alongside your friends, discuss the values they appreciate, and commend them for what they’ve seen, but then be bold and ask whether they’ve wondered about the source of the things they care so much about. And then ask whether they’ve thought at all about why these values would make sense if the story they’re based on isn’t true. Would you want to live in a house in an earthquake zone if you knew the foundations were nonexistent?
If we’re just molecules in motion, then Christianity is at best a fairy tale, at worst a delusion.
Finally, don’t forget the power of prayer. It’s easy, on the one hand, to criticize the likes of Dawkins or Murray for trying to have their cake and eat it too, or even for having their cake while denying the existence of the baker. But we’re light-years on from the old New Atheism, which would have dismissed this very conversation as ludicrous. Let’s pray these thinkers—and our friends like them—take the next steps. Encourage them on that journey: perhaps give them a copy of a book like Mere Christianity or Have You Ever Wondered?
And let’s be encouraged that Christian history, both recent and ancient, is full of the stories of people like C. S. Lewis, who began with an appreciation for the benefits of Christianity before finally coming to encounter the Jesus at the heart of Christianity.
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