Some Atheist Points of View

 

2008

Concerned that I had maybe written off atheists, I joined a debating group on Facebook and asked: ‘Am I being prejudiced by not liking atheists?’

The consensus in response was that, yes, I was being prejudiced in not liking them. Never happy with personal prejudices I adjusted my perspective and considered that maybe, in person, atheists were just as likeable as you and I and were acting out of conviction.

But I struggled with this one. I was told, repeatedly, in between being laughed at, that atheism is a spectrum and that few atheists are totally convinced of their position. They were also very chagrined to be repeatedly told that they were going to hell or that they were ‘fools’ by believers. Atheist/Christian relationships remained strained with excesses on both sides.

Usually the atheists are scripturally literate, much to the annoyance of many Christians. But often debates are around a kind of caricatured Old Testament God which only the atheists recognise. ‘Your God destroyed millions in the flood did he? How is he good and loving then?’ And every single verse in the Bible picked up and analysed for further evidence that the Christian God is a complete tyrant and monster.

Sometimes they will have a point. For example, their emphasis on the question of suffering (which can never be answered satisfactorily this side of eternity), is the evidence which they keep bringing to the table that a good God does not exist. It is compelling evidence too. Because what it shows is that God either doesn’t exist, or that he is neglectful or that he has other reasons for not righting wrongs or alleviating suffering. If the good news is that God is love - then the atheists want more evidence than the cross.

But your friendly atheist is not always friendly online. Sometimes he, or she, is brutally nasty. The atheist response is that they are only responding in kind to some of the things they have to put up with (the being called ‘fools’ and the hell threats).

Over the years I have asked some of them what they thought about Christian revival... so their responses here are usually about the UK around 2008...

Stephen said: “71% of the country say they are Christians. The Prime Minister is a Christian. The previous Prime Minister is a Christian. Atheists are a very tiny minority.”

Carl said:

“I think we should get rid of all the religion and the theists from our country. Christianity has had 1700 years to get its act together and look at the state of the country.

We have a Christian Monarch, A Christian Prime Minister with two previous Christian Prime Ministers, We live in a Christian state with a Christian Legislature. We've had dozens of Christian rulers imposing Christian values on us and the country is now completely broken. Christianity has ruined our country.

Look at the USA. North American Indians inhabited America for thousands of years. They lived in harmony with nature. When the Christians arrived, America was completely unspoiled. Thousands of years of living in harmony with nature was wiped out in a mere 300 years. Because that's how long it took Christianity to turn it into a sh*thole of crime, bigotry, war-mongering, gun-loving, drug-infested, immorality.

Christianity has had its chance. It's time to move over and let Secular Humanism fix the damage caused by Christianity. We could once again be a green and pleasant land.”

In the end I became persuaded that yes, I was being prejudiced against a community and that the OT perspective of God as a monster was not entirely without some evidence. In fact the God presented in the OT seemed to be a completely different character to the God of the NT. I concluded that the 'good news' or gospel had to be that God is, in fact, love - or else there is very little good news to be found. The evidence for that, when there is so much suffering for so many of us is hard to find. Perhaps the only real evidence believers have are the accounts of Calvary. And ice cream of course.

But surely some kind of revival might help persuade us that God is not this angry, monstrous character so many of us still fear could exist?

A Not So Great Falling Away

 

2004

A Not-So-Great Falling Away

 

The idea that Christianity should be fun appealed to me, but I was sure I was just skimming the surface on the whole issue. The story lay fallow and I didn't research it much until 2004. Before Brexit. Before the pandemic. Before Queen Elizabeth died. Before any talk of 'quiet revivals'.

Because at the time there were no statistics from the Bible Society showing that more Gen Z young adults are going to church. The narrative of the decline of the Church in the West had taken hold. 

In Birmingham I interrupted a street preacher named Michael and asked him about revival. He was in his early 60s and his hair was in all directions but he was pleasant enough. He was out on an evangelical church outreach.

I asked him what he thought about Christian revival.

“My thoughts are a little pessimistic,” Michael said, “The Bible says that in the last days there will be a great falling away from the Lord. And if these are the last days, and I believe they are, then there will be a falling away of the saints and a lot of people turning their back on the Lord and being apostate – going back on the Lord. I believe, if you read the Bible, that is the condition of the Church just before Jesus comes – people actually are not in revival, but they are falling away – there’ll be a great falling away.”

Michael’s street preaching team were also open-mindedly sceptical. His colleague Richard said, “I don’t think it is going to happen while the churches are living in materialism. I don’t think it is going to happen while the churches are divided. I think the only way it is going to happen is wherever the Church finds its first love and unites and preaches the gospel as it is and stops watering it down.”

These were views which I would hear a lot more of within the UK Christian community, especially among Protestants. There are many Christians who take the view that we are living in the last of the last days and that the Bible says that there will be a huge number who abandon their faith in that time. That the whole Church will decrease in size. This perspective is based on a few scripture verses. Jesus himself said:

“And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another…. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:10–14 ESV)

And St Paul wrote: 'Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition...' 2 Thessalonians 2:3 KJV

So, it is no wonder that many Christians who believe we are in the last of the last days believe that there will be no further Christian revivals. Especially if they have been offended by the excesses of contemporary revivalism. But, there is no new temple and what has happened before can happen again - even for good.

For Michael's view to be correct, it has to mean that we are in the final days before the end of the world. And that is a moot point. But when believers look around and see all the suffering and evil in the world, it is quite common to take the view that we really are in the end times. A view which is shared by some non-Christians who see global warming, war, or the rise of artificial intelligence as signs that the human race is about to be destroyed imminently. 

Michael resumed his preaching but this was the first time I had encountered the view that there not only would be no further revivals, but that things would get significantly worse in the near future. After all, it sometimes feels like the end of the world doesn't it?

Christianity is not always optimistic at the best of times, but Jeremiahs may have their point when it comes to prophecy. The thing about the prophet Jeremiah was that he was right. Sometimes things can go badly wrong and hopes don't always come true.

Believers who hold to such a perspective are often very sceptical of announcements of revivals. After all, if a revival is genuine, revivalists should be able to handle questions.

But how can we make something so interesting, so boring? I will try to resist that as best I can.

When asked ‘Will only a few be saved?’ Jesus effectively answered ‘Many will not’.

Perhaps we should all just bunker down and attempt to survive as best we can whatever comes. ‘Let's go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over.’ That’s probably not a quote for Gen Z on the whole, so the question, according to the latest stats is – will this new phenomenon include other generations of both sexes? Just how inclusive will it be - if it happens?

Fun, fun, fun.

The Story Starts - a Muslim Perspective on Revival

2000

I began my investigation on revival, fresh out of journalism college by visiting my local library at the start of the millennium. Before the days of google search graphs it was much harder to figure out how interested the general population was in Christianity. I took a... roundabout way and had no real intention of starting the story you are reading now.

How did I do it? In an act of sheer inspiration and journalistic laziness, I tried to find out just how many times a book on Jesus had been taken out of my local library over the years and if it was being taken out more regularly. Cutting edge journalism, I know. After I found that the Christian book and a book about Mohammed had been taken out more or less the same amount of times I suddenly realized that I was actually going to have to talk to people about all this if I wanted to get any further. Or, as my journalism tutor had told me... 'You can do the stuff but you need to dig more.'

Life gets in the way of these things. I took up a couple of jobs in newsrooms before moving to Birmingham and finding my feet. Mostly I forgot about the subject of revival. I went to church, but the subject rarely cropped up. Street preachers still didn't draw a crowd. Most people were just getting on with their lives after the Blair and Bush years. People were war-weary and already tired of all the terrorism restrictions following 9/11 - an event which changed the world.

It was actually 2003 before I returned to the story idea. On a whim, on a windy day, I decided to vox-pop a couple of people in Birmingham city centre. Two young Muslims seemed the place to start. Why not?

I asked Imran (19, a law student) if he had heard of the term revival before and he admitted that he hadn’t heard of it in a Christian context, but he understood the concept immediately from Islam. I went on to ask what he thought Christians were doing wrong.

“I don’t know,” he said, “What are they doing right?”

His friend Salik (20) elaborated...

“The Church is a lot emptier now than it used to be, I suppose with society changing and that. It’s just the future isn’t it? Everybody’s modern lifestyle. Religion doesn’t actually take part in that type of thing any more. Religion is kind of old school.”

When I asked him if there was a counterpart to the term revival in Islam he said,

“It is the fastest growing religion in the world. Is there a revival in my faith? Possibly. With Christianity though everyone is just classed as a Christian, they’re just, sort of, classed it. If you ask them, they say ‘Yes I am’. So I don’t think there will be revival from that because I don’t think anyone is too interested at the moment…with Christianity I don’t think there will be a revival for it.”

I said that a lot of Christians hope there will be a revival of Christianity in Britain and asked if he thought that hope was realistic.

“No I don’t think that’s realistic. Unless the religion changes for the times I don’t think there will be. If you want to become a Christian you’ve got to actually follow what’s stated in the books. But what people do in general... I wouldn’t exactly call it being a Christian – it’s just what they’ve been classed as. Being a Christian is doing the actions.”

I asked him what he thought Christians should be doing to bring about a revival. The wind rattled my notebook, perhaps warning me not to pursue the topic. Salik said,

“Christians need to actually have a point where they’re bringing in people rather than shoving it in your face constantly. They need to have gatherings, not just Sundays, they need to do more for the community and for the community to become interested in the Christianity part of it. I don’t think many Christians do that. And not just have big signs up saying ‘Jesus is coming back’, they should have more information provided and make it fun as well. I don’t think Christianity should be about money either, it has got to be something that everyone can relate to.”

These were the complaints which I was to hear again and again from people of all faiths and none. What struck me was that Salik was right about at least one thing - there was certainly little fun in Christianity at the time. There was definitely no fun in fundamentalism and the rest of the UK Christian community, Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox, were at least perceived as being argumentative, joyless hypocrites who didn't practice what they preached. A view which would get worse over the years.

We were clearly doing something very wrong. Could there be no revival because of us? Was it our fault?

That was, and still is, one of the perspectives - that 'revival tarries' because we don't practice what we preach. We talk of love but don't show it. We don't give or pray as much as we should. And some so-called Christians have even abused the most vulnerable. How could God heal a country if this was the state of his followers? So that view took hold and a lot of Christians, unwilling to blame God, unwilling to blame the devil, unwilling to blame the government shrugged and said, 'It's our fault again isn't it?' It was certainly the view of the Muslims I spoke to that day.

Catch 22 - No revival, no change. No change, no revival.

Others had a different view...