‘Christianity is not dead’

IF I had a fiver for every conversation that began, “I don’t believe in God, but...” I’d be able to drive into Kirkwall every day in a brand-new Mercedes, instead of a battered old Ford.

These conversations most often begin after a wedding or a funeral, when libations have been taken and tongues have been loosened. Most clerics will recognise the scene I am talking about.

“I don’t believe in God, minister, but let me tell you about this strange experience I had. I’ve never been able to talk about it with anyone. They would think I had lost the plot.”

This tentative, sometimes slurred, opening gambit normally moves into an account of an experience that can only be described as religious – usually mysterious, sometimes troubling, often full of awe. The experiences may have been set to one side; sometimes they have proved to be life changing.

There is an implicit assumption nowadays that Scotland is a secular country in which religion plays no serious part.

This is an assumption that needs to be challenged, because it is essentially false.

Don’t get me wrong: I recognise that Scotland’s religious consciousness has been changing (for better and for worse).

The drop in numbers of those attending places of worship tells one particular story that is discomfiting for the churches.

Another common cultural assumption that is regularly trotted out as if it were gospel is that the Christian faith has been vanquished by science or philosophy; or that Christianity has been shown to be simply a form of wishful thinking – something invented to give comfort in hard times.

But if this were the sole motivation, why would people make up a religion with an element of judgment within it, rather than simply a happy story?

Besides, this Freudian two-edged sword cuts both ways: might people be denigrating religion in order to suppress their own anxieties about their future?

While we’re at it, here’s another common dodgy assumption: that the so-called New Atheists – led by the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris) – have put Christianity to fight. People who believe this haven’t noticed what is actually happening.

They haven’t read some of the formidable responses from the likes of Professors David Fergusson, Terry Eagleton, Tina Beattie, David Bentley Hart, Marilynne Robinson, Alister McGrath, Keith Ward, Rowan Williams, and Rupert Shortt, to name just a few.

What is also worthy of note is that some of the newest attacks on the New Atheists have come from within the ranks of atheist philosophers themselves, the two most brilliant being professors John Gray and Thomas Nagel.

“ There is an implicit assumption nowadays that Scotland is a secular country in which religion plays no serious part. This is an assumption that needs to be challenged, because it is essentially false.”

Modern literature is also interesting on the subject of religious faith. One of my favourite novelists, Julian Barnes, is an atheist with questions.

I love the opening line of his book Nothing to be Afraid Of. It reads: “I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him.”

I would agree with Rowan Williams: “Britain is not a secular country but is uncomfortably haunted by the memory of religion.”

Christianity is not dead, nor will it die as long as human beings seek meaning in life.

It will not die because at its heart lies an Easter story of the Son of God who was born in the flesh, lived in the flesh, died in the flesh and was raised in the flesh.

Christ is risen, He is risen indeed!

This article appears in the April 2017 Issue of Life and Work

Click here to view the article in the magazine.

To view other articles in this issue Click here.

If you would like to view other issues of Life and Work, you can see the full archive here.