Home truths for Christians

I think it's important to hear and take seriously the critiques of well-motivated, intelligent and sincere critics. I don't think Christian faith has anything to fear from listening carefully and responding compassionately to what we hear. I think that sometimes we can hear the voice of God in these critiques and in taking them seriously and changing our minds and actions we engage in real repentance.

So let's listen in to an open letter from an atheist to their Christian friend. You should read the whole thing before reacting to the quotes I make so that you can guage the warmth and genuineness; this really isn't an emotionally hostile attack.

 I hope [God] doesn't exist. And that if he does, I hope he's nowhere near as petty as you make out.

'Petty' might be 'arbitrary'. And what I think we need to hear in this is just how implausible our accounts of God seem to others.  And if you don't get it, it's explained towards the end of the article:

we've always been good friends. You know I always try to do what I think is right, yet the God you believe in says I deserve to go to hell, and you still sing his praises.

Now, of course, I 'know' that there's an issue here about moralism and the concept of fallenness, but we should take note that the concept of 'desert' seems so out of whack with the 'crime'. We really do need to get out of that 'game' in terms of how we try to explain our faith; we have to find another way in not predicated on a sense of sin. You see, our 'gospel' was formed in ages when people did tend to have more a sense of guilt and so we tend to answer questions about forgiveness, atonement etc. Our problem now is that we find ourself in the guilt-arousal business because we have realised that our answers require that we conscientise people to the questions they 'should' be asking for our inherited version of the gospel to work and be good news indeed.

It's also not what the NT does. When gospel audiences had questions about sin and guilt, forgiveness and atonement was indeed proclaimed. Interestingly, non-Jewish audiences seemed not to be so concerned about those things and they don't get the same emphases in the gospel they hear. Go on -look in Acts. And those Jewish audiences that get the 'forgiveness' gospel, get it because they become convicted of complicity in the execution of the Messiah. Other audiences get a gospel about Christ's superiority or Christ's victory over death or evil or liberation from humanity-curtailing forces. It seems to me that the problem here is a telling of a cliche'd gospel which lacks resonance because the formula gets in way of understanding the issues and responding appropriately.

I'm interested to read this

I can never argue back because offending someone's religion is a huge taboo.

Because I think for a lot of people, it's true. Yes, there are some who enjoy provoking or 'telling it like it is'. But for most of us, we don't want to offend. And what that makes me think is that we Christians need to get out of the way of the Good News. If people are afraid of airing honest doubts or concerns about our faith, we're in the way of listening and sharing; we've ended up defending ourselves rather than giving an answer for the hope within us -or at least we've given that impression.

What I'm really thinking: the atheist friend | Life and style | The Guardian: