New Atheist Campaign

In a move not entirely unrelated to my last post, a new poster campaign from the British Humanist Association has been unveiled.



The posters follow their previous 'bus' campaign which stated 'There's probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life.' They seem to be part of a campaign to get rid of faith schools.

Richard Dawkins said on Radio 2 today that it was a consciousness raising exercise, to encourage the media and others not to label children as 'Christian', 'Muslim' etc. People should not assume that children automatically follow the faith of their parents. They should just say 'children of Christian parents', 'children of Muslim parents' and so on. Dawkins said he was not wanting to interfere with the way parents bring up their children, what values and beliefs they pass on etc, but this is a little hard to swallow.

Bishop Nick Baines and Kevin Brewster have already done a better job than I can at showing some of the flaws in the views of the poster campaign, of which there are many.

Children are not a blank slate religiously, until they grow up. To think this completely buys into the myth of religious neutrality. They are like sponges absorbing and learning all the time. They are bombarded from all sides with messages and images, ideas and worldviews, many of which are antithetical to the Christian faith. As Bishop Nick rightly says 'to not tell a child that there is a God is not to leave that child philosophically neutral, but to positively indoctrinate the child into the assumption that there is no God. Why is that more rational or less bad?'

It also strikes me as rampantly individualistic. It denies the reality of the Christian family, or the Muslim family. It is my Christian belief that William and Emily can be full members of the Christian family, the covenant community, the church. (This touches on debates about infant baptism, but I'm not going there now!). I'm sure Muslims and Jews feel the same way about their children in their respective faith communities. The idea that children are just autonomous, free-thinking, individuals whose minds we should 'leave alone' is naive beyond belief.

What is interesting is that there have been a variety of Christian responses. Jonathan Bartley at Ekklesia seems to firmly support the campaign, largely in connection with the faith schools issue. I'm not sure if Jonathan is completely against faith schools or just against the idea of them (or at least CofE ones) having selective admissions policies. (I would agree with this second complaint). In their article Ekklesia says that the Bible Society thinktank Theos gave money to the campaign. If this is true, then I think it can only be because they think it will start discussion. They completely disavow the ideas involved in their own article on the subject. Ekklesia also say that Bishop Nick Baines welcomed the campaign, which is true in so far as he thinks it will generate discussion, but is selective quoting considering he also slams the views involved.

The Evangelical Alliance also say they welcome the campaign, being glad that the humanists agree with evangelicals that children have to make their own decisions about faith. What, I wonder, do they consider children of Christian parents to be until they have made this decision. Neutral? Outside of the church? Pagans?

Finally, there is the response of Jan Ainsworth, who is the Church of England's Chief Education Officer, who obviously thinks the whole campaign is misguided, and I tend to agree with her.

Atheist Fundamentalism?

I got into a bit of a debate recently on twitter with someone who objected to my use of the term 'atheist fundamentalists'. My use of the phrase was in something of an offhand remark (as is the nature of twitter) to an article in the Guardian in which atheist philosopher Michael Ruse argued that the 'New Atheists', the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens etc, bring atheism into disrepute. I thought it was quite a reasonable and refreshing article but some of the comments showed that Ruse had touched on a raw nerve. These comments, to my mind, exhibited the classic behaviour of fundamentalism. By fundamentalism I meant an unthinking, narrow-minded, dogmatism, unwilling to see the other's point of view, and absolutely convinced of its own correctness. There is no such thing, my objector insisted, it is a misnomer. For one thing atheists, it is claimed, have no fundamental beliefs. For another thing, the term 'fundamentalist' has a particular provenance within a certain section of American Protestant Christianity. It is insulting, it was claimed, to genuine fundamentalists, to apply this term, willy-nilly, to people of other worldviews, of other faiths, or no faith.

On the one hand, I have to acknowledge that it was a bit of a cheap shot. Fundamentalist has become such a pejorative term that it is basically only used as an insult. I certainly wouldn't like to be called a fundamentalist, and by the rules that I claim to live by I thereby shouldn't apply this label to other people. I admit that part of my reason for calling some atheists 'fundamentalists' is that I know that it will wind them up. However, I would like to push back a little on my claim that atheists can be 'fundamentalists' as much as 'religious' folk.

Firstly, I have to disagree with the view that atheists have no fundamental beliefs. Whether you say atheists hold the view that there is no god or, as many atheists prefer to phrase it, they hold the view that there is not enough evidence to convince them of the the existence of god, this is a belief. Science is unable to adjudicate on the existence of God.

Secondly, like it or not, the word 'fundamentalist' has entered the popular discourse. 'Fundamentalist' is regularly applied to narrow-minded and dogmatic people of many different religions and worldviews. This may be unfair to the North American Christians who self-identify as fundamentalist but that is too bad. We talk of 'Islamic fundamentalists' or 'freemarket fundamentalists' and it is usually clearly understood what is being said. We don't have to be wooden literalists about the use of the word 'fundamentalist'

Thirdly, I'm in good company (in my opinion) as Alistair McGrath (who is nothing but gracious in his interactions with Dawkins et al) has labelled the viewpoint of 'the new atheists' as 'atheist fundamentalism'. See the subtitle of his response to Dawkins


'Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine'

It is perhaps not a coincidence that Michael Ruse supplies the blurb on the front cover of this book - 'The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, and the McGraths show why'. It is no wonder that Ruse has become anathema in some atheist circles. He has denied the faith.

Lastly, the 'New Atheists' themselves acknowledge that atheists can act religiously. When Hitchens is reminded in debates of the atrocities committed by prominent atheists in the 20th century he says 'ah, but they were acting religiously. They learnt all of their worst tricks from religion etc, etc.' I tend to agree, because I believe that all human beings are religious at heart. If people do not worship God they will devote themselves to something else and this can include worldviews. Atheists are just as capable of being narrow-minded and dogmatic as 'religious' people. That's what I saw in some of the responses to Ruse and, it seems to me, is something akin to fundamentalism.

So what do people think? Is there such a thing as an 'atheist fundamentalist'? Is it acceptable to apply the label fundamentalist to other people, or is it too much of a pejorative insult?

A Theology "Quiz"

I don't usually respond to quizzes on facebook, or anything where you get 'tagged', but I'll make an exception for this one as Steve Bishop and Jon Swales have already done it. (I suspect there will be a lot of overlap in our answers!)

1) What's your favourite theology book?
N.T. Wright - Jesus and the Victory of God
made me realise that Jesus was far more radical and exciting than I'd ever thought, got me into NT studies, and made me want to go and study theology.

2) What Christian(s) book has been most influential in your thinking? Why?
anything by Tom Wright, who is also mainly to blame for me becoming an Anglican.
The Divine Conspiracy - Dallas Willard
anything by Fee
too many others to mention

3) Where do you attend church?
St Mike’s, Stoke Gifford Bristol

4) What is your denominational affiliation?
Anglican

5) Who is your favourite theologian/Christian philosopher?
Lesslie Newbigin, N.T. Wright, Jurgen Moltmann

6) Who is your favourite preacher?
(of all time?) Martin Luther King

7) What is your calling as a Christian (if you've figured that out!)?
to love God, to follow Jesus, to be a son, and husband and father, to minister the love of God and the word of God to people, helping them to grow as disciples of Jesus

8) What spiritual virtue do you desire most?
humility

9) What is the greatest challenge to the church today?
to be turned inside out, to realise that they exist for the benefit of those who do not yet belong to her

10) What bothers you most about the local church?
it bothers me if the local church becomes inward looking, obsessed with petty squabbles about irrelevant minutiae

11) What encourages you most about the local church?
that it can be a community of hope and love. a place where very different people can come together in the name of Christ and be accepted, healed, transformed and sent out to be agents of transformation in the world.

12) Pre, post, or Amil?
Amillenial

13) Antichrist...past or future?
Both.

14) If you could only keep 5 Christian books with you on a desert island, what would they be?
(I'll assume, like on Desert Island discs, that I already get the bible. I'll also assume a Greek NT, and a BDAG lexicon!)

A Theology of Hope - Jurgen Moltmann
Surprised by Hope - Tom Wright
Calvin's Institutes -only chance I'll ever get to read them
Church Dogmatics - Karl Barth - ditto
Does Lord of the Rings count?


15) What got you thinking theologically?
Trying to figure out where the Vineyard movement was theologically, and then defending them against accusations of heresy.
Which, like with Steve, is a lot to do with George Eldon Ladd, the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God.

Collision

Can't wait to see this 'Debate Movie'. Collision shows the course of several debates between atheist Christopher Hitchens and Christian apologist Douglas Wilson. It seems to be well produced, and both participants seem to think the film represents them fairly. The two actually seem to get along pretty well and they seem fairly evenly matched. Quite amusing how they are selling it like it's some high-octane action movie. It's out on DVD and Video on Demand in the US but I'm not sure when (or if) it will get a UK release.



See some more video clips here

I hope Wilson holds up better than Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan who got an absolute kicking in the 'Intelligence Squared' debate from Hitchens and Stephen Fry shown on BBC world on the subject of 'Is the Catholic Church a Force for good in the World?'. Widdecombe and Onaiyekan were embarrassingly poor as Andrew Sullivan pointed out.

Spruced Up Blog

I've given the blog a bit of a spring autumn clean in the hope that it might inspire me to do a bit more blogging. I've mainly just tidied up the side-bar a bit and added some shiny new buttons. I realise I'm probably talking to myself here but hey, it keeps me happy.

Firstly, I've removed the flickr widget. Being too tight to fork out for the flickr pro account it was only showing the most recent 200 photos that I'd uploaded, which were pretty old. I mainly upload photos to either facebook or picasa these days. When I put a new album up I'll put a link to it on the blog. There is a button to access the old flickr photos.

I've also removed the My Delicious widget. Although I will probably still bookmark links with delicious I'll try and keep it for the really interesting pages and just use twitter for the more ephemeral stuff. You can access My Delicious links with this button

There are various other buttons for twitter, facebook, youtube etc.

I've put my rss feed for the blog through feedburner and the new feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/jons_journal. You can subscribe to it with your rss reader of choice with this button

You can still subscribe to the comments feed here

Lastly, I've added a little 'share' gizmo to the bottom of each post (courtesy of blogplay) so you can more easily share my wisdom/drivel with the world.



Many thanks to Bruno Maia of IconTexto for the buttons.

How To Worship

Too funny.



H/T Peter Ould

More on Labels

Since I posted about labels a few weeks ago, there have been a number of other posts on the subject (not that I'm claiming there's any connection with my post). Both Church Mouse and Bishop Alan pick up on the same Nicky Gumbel quote that I did. They both advocate consigning labels to the fiery pit, believing they are more a hindrance than a help, particularly in relation to those outside the church. Jonny Baker also expresses his dislike of labels such as evangelical, liberal etc (he is very complimentary about Fulcrum though). However, as so often, it is Richard Sudworth who offers one of the most nuanced and thoughtful pieces on the subject. Whilst acknowledging the shortcomings of labels, and the way they can be abused he stresses the importance of owning our heritage. Speaking from his own experience of moving in ecumenical circles, he suggests that people are actually looking for us to bring our heritage to the table. Having recently returned from an 'ecumenical' trip to the Bossey Ecumenical Institute and the World Council of Churches I concur. I found both that my 'evangelical' heritage was coming to the fore, and that it was looked for and listened to. This also emphasises the importance of our 'story' and heritage though. Labels need unpacking if they are not to miscommunicate. To some within 'the ecumenical movement', evangelical means something like unthinking, fundamentalist who is not interested in ecumenism. The fact that I might be able to engage with such people, whilst owning my evangelical heritage, would confound expectations and hopefully bring something important to the conversation. So I guess, like Richard (and also, it seems from the comments, Jason Clarke) I am both 'yes' and 'no' on labels, and the evangelical label in particular.