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?

An Agnostic View

2008 

I asked agnostic Jason (June 2008) if he thought a Christian revival was possible. He also understood the idea immediately but was sceptical about revival phenomena such as miracles of healing. I asked him what the church needed to do. He said: “The things any religion needs to have a revival are patience - unity and patience.”

It echoed what my old pastor had once said, ‘If you want to save souls, you will need tonnes of gentleness and tonnes of patience’.

I have a sneaking respect for agnostics. Sure, they are on the fence over the whole existence of God thing, but they sometimes take a no-nonsense approach to life. Plus, rightly or wrongly, they are trying to keep their options open. They also tend to happily keep alive the tradition of blaming God when things go wrong without feeling that they have committed some cognitive dissonance in doing so. Usually less scripturally literate than the atheist, they are still a much-misunderstood community. As I’ve mentioned to more than one of them before, ‘Blaming God is actually an act of base faith’. Your friendly agnostic is not usually going to have much trouble over-thinking why the scraping of his car window free of frost one bitter winter morning is not a good reason to blame God. And let’s face it – it’s a good reason to blame God. That frost didn’t get there for no reason and let’s bet those neighbours can afford some gadget which prevents their car windows from freezing up. Or else, their car windows are clear and free of all frost completely! That would be just like God, to single us out for a very special frosting of the windows. And this on top of everything else! It’s not what I need right now!

I find this train of thought compelling and am sometimes party to it too. It makes absolute sense at the time before people start complicating things with issues like global warming and ‘putting things into perspective’ or ‘counting your blessings ™’.

The agnostic position is, of course a spectrum – some veer closer to the idea of there being no God at all. Others are half-persuaded, but unwilling or unable to make a greater commitment.

Concerning the agnostic relationship to a Christian revival, I have found that they understand the concept, but not the specifics. There is always an opinion on God, on Jesus, on revival, on churches, on prosperity preachers and on the meaning of life or the existence or otherwise of the soul. There are various perspectives. Most will see Jesus as a good man who they really don’t want to get on the wrong side of. They will happily criticise Christians, especially those with power. Some of them, of course, barely give any thought to faith issues at all. The idea of agnostics finding a book or blog about revival as particularly compelling is not likely. The response would be ‘It’s just religion, isn’t it?’ I could say, ‘Yes, but it is so much more than that, it is concerned with issues like the meaning of life and whether God exists and miracles and issues at the core of what it means to be human’. And they would answer, ‘That’s right, religion.’ It’s a nice box to put mysteries in if you are undecided on these issues.

So, our agnostics will, of course, believe in revival. It’s hard not to, being as they are historically verifiable events. But they will doubt whether they are really from God and may see them as a form of mass hysteria or hallucination. There are so many perspectives within this one group (which encompasses so many other races and communities) that it is hard to say that there is a consistent position. If there were it might be expressed in a similar way to this:

‘If your Christian revival would make things better then why hasn’t God sent one to us? Is it because he doesn’t exist? And why is that frost only on my car windscreen?’

Of course, when I choose the frost analogy, I’m not really only talking about frost…

An Orthodox View

In 2005, interested in all things Russian, I decided to attend a small Russian Orthodox Church in Birmingham. In the past I had visited numerous different church denominations – many different Protestant denominations and some Catholic churches. But I had never visited an Orthodox church. It was close to Bonfire Night and I drove to the church, not sure of what to expect.

When I arrived, it looked like any other house on the outskirts of Birmingham. There were no signs and no crosses to show that it was a church. I knocked on the door. A bearded man in black robes welcomed me and I was led to a room. The room was full of incense and icons of saints along with some seats for the small congregation. I think perhaps there were ten or fifteen people there, I can’t say for sure because I was almost overwhelmed by a feeling that God was in the room. As I prayed, I got the feeling that God was either puzzled or surprised. It didn’t make sense. That can happen in some church services, but I have never felt it to the extent that I did at that small Orthodox church on a housing estate.

I stood at the back and the service began. I didn’t understand a word of it because it was all in Russian. At the end of the service, I was kindly offered communion, I think out of politeness. I refused it as graciously as I could.

After the service, some of the churchgoers sat at a table in another room along with the priest. They all spoke to each other in Russian and it felt like a community gathering of the local Russian diaspora. I will still feeling awe-struck by the whole thing when the priest asked me:

“What did you think?”

“Thank you, it was a very good service.” I replied.

And I completely forgot all intentions to ask about revival or anything else.

My reply seemed to please those around the table. It was ironic that I most felt the presence of God in a service from which I could barely understand a single word.

It should be noted that the Orthodox church had gone through a revival in Russia at least. In the same way that places in Africa and Asia were going through an increase in the number of Christians, Russia too, was experiencing an increase following the collapse of the USSR. There were many reasons for this, but mostly it was because they were no longer being persecuted at such an intense level. It is hard for revivals to happen during persecution – maybe China could be said to be experiencing one, but this is at the same time as a persecution from their Government. Some believed that a revival could only happen if there was a persecution at the same time, but historical evidence didn’t make this a necessity.

As for the Orthodox – my experiences with them were almost completely positive. If I were to change denomination at all, it would be to Orthodoxy. They claim that when the Church split in the Great Schism of 1054, they were not the ones who strayed from the original faith. So, between the Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants, it is Protestantism which has the least claim to being the legitimate successor from the original church.

Orthodoxy has no pope. They believe that they are all brothers and sisters. But there are leaders and patriarchs. The icons which they use are no more idolatrous than the Catholic statues of Mary. They are an aid to worship, in the same way that a stained-glass window or any other Protestant paraphernalia is.

I have an Orthodox icon on my writing desk. I love it. It shows Jesus in a thoughtful, if slightly distracted, mood. He is holding a book and he is dressed in a green and red. He looks a bit like Robin Hood. Behind him is the usual gold colour of icons. On the other side of this small foldable (to close when I want nothing to do with him) is a representation of Mary. Mary looks calm and holds a child, who, in the way of many icons, is not so much a baby as a miniature human being. I got the icon cheap from an Orthodox Christian bookshop, before it closed down. The outside of it is carved in a pattern but the varnish is flaking away from sun damage, hence the discount. When I went on holiday to Greece, I saw a shop selling the same icon in a box. There were piles of this same icon for sale (at which point I didn’t feel very special at all).

But the Orthodox church in the UK is great. They are a powerhouse of prayer and action.  If there is a full-blown revival coming then we cannot write off the Orthodox church.

The Churchgoers' View

2004

I wasn’t getting very far. I had no home access to the internet so most of my research had to be done the old-fashioned way, at libraries and by actually speaking with people. After my encounter with Michael the whole subject was getting too depressing for me.

Back to the present, someone recently said, 'The quiet revival is so quiet that I don't think most people can even feel it'. It's an issue and it is ongoing. Perhaps there needs to be some kind of breakthrough?

Back in 2004 it was April and things felt cold on so many levels. Spring had barely allowed the leaves to return to the trees and certainly had not kickstarted any spiritual Spring. I was confused, so I decided to go to a church and ask around. I went to a city Elim Pentecostal church. Surely they would have been praying for a revival? During the sermon, the youth minister, as an aside said, “We are in a period of pre-revival.”

That seemed more hopeful. But it also seemed to be part of the problem. We always seemed to be on the verge of a revival or an awakening. There was a perpetual anticipation. After the service I asked some of the Christians in the congregation there what they thought.

Neil (19) said, “I don’t know. I mean, what kind of revival are you talking about? Because there is personal revival and there is a whole revival. I’m definitely for any kind of revival in which people come to Jesus in large amounts, yes, I’m for any kind of revival in that sense. I think it needs to happen in Britain, in Europe, these two places. I think it is on the verge of happening in Britain now. Whether it will ever get past being on the verge of happening, I don’t know, but I think it will. I can’t comment on Europe, but I would hope that it will happen there. It will spill over from Britain hopefully into Europe. I think the church is becoming more and more alive in Britain from my experience and things are happening. People are getting more and more hungry for what God wants and more willing to lay down their own personal agendas – which is always a good thing. If you can’t lay down your personal agendas then you just basically aren’t going to experience revival because God has to wait until you lay down your own…God’s plan is for all people.”

I asked churchgoer Scott what he thought.

“I’m definitely for it,” he said, “I don’t think it is happening yet but I think it’s going to happen soon, hopefully. A friend of mine always used to pray ‘Let revival start with me’ and I always thought that was quite bold. You can only revive that which was once alive and I do pray that God would use me for revival. Revive me and revive the Church. We definitely need it; our land is in a mess. We need help. I think people crying out for God…I think that’s what revival is.”

This was so long before the current situation, but the general feeling among churchgoers back in 2004 was that revival would not happen before there was either a 'battle', or a deep repentance. I will discuss the present circumstances a bit more in next week's blog, but for the moment I want to talk about how we got to where we are today in the UK.

I realized that I was focusing on one city in Britain and needed to get a look at the bigger picture...

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.