Christ or Chaos (eBook)

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Much Ado about Nothing

For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.

C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew

The twentieth-century journalist and Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton once said, “There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.”1 Chesterton’s point was that truth might be closer than you realize, perhaps right under your nose. And sometimes, like with the prodigal son, truth is found at the end of a long road back to the Father’s house.

Chesterton was specifically speaking of Christianity. And in his book The Everlasting Man he contrasted two helpful forms of analyzing the Christian faith. The first is from the inside. The second is from a million miles away. As he said, “The best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it.”2

In other words, sometimes stepping just outside the front door of a particular worldview leaves you too close to have a clear perspective. You can be standing beneath the awning while complaining of the shade. Your proximity itself creates emotional and intellectual blind spots.

As Chesterton put it, “The popular critics of Chris­tian­ity are not really outside of it. . . . Their criticism has taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate heckling.”3 The modern-day terrain of heckling, as Chesterton describes it, is fraught with emotional landmines and intellectual blockades. Safe passage to meaningful conversations can be hard to find.

A Bridge over Troubled Waters

The well-known literary critic C. S. Lewis navigated this terrain as a young man. Lewis describes this journey in his first published work after his conversion to Christianity, The Pilgrim’s Regress. A fictional account of his conversion, the book was written over a holiday visit with his childhood best friend. Lewis patterned the work after John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Like Bunyan, Lewis used allegory to make his point. But his “regress” offers a glaring contrast to Bunyan’s “progress.” Lewis wanted to illustrate that his character found spiritual fulfillment not by progressing to a far-off land to be freed from a heavy burden, but in the fulfillment of a longing that, as he learned, could take place only in the Christianity he had rejected from his youth. He found progress by turning around and retracing his steps.

Sometimes that’s what progress looks like: turning around and heading back the other way. It can hardly be called progress if we are simply going further down the road but heading the wrong direction.

Lewis later described this in his autobiographical work Surprised by Joy: “But then the key to my books is Donne’s maxim, ‘The heresies that men leave are hated most.’ The things I assert most vigorously are those that I resisted long and accepted late.”4

As a young man Lewis walked away from his spiritual upbringing. And it took some time for him to get far enough away to no longer hate it. But then he came back close enough to learn to love it. He walked around an entire world just to come back home.

I’ve seen this process myself. I’ve known some who have walked away from Christianity and now find it difficult, whether they acknowledge it or not, to engage in a careful and considerate conversation about the faith. As Donne said, they hate most the heresies they have personally left. They’ve walked away from Christianity. And now they despise it.

You’ve probably known someone who fits that description. They dismiss Christianity with visceral hatred, yet go on to talk about the virtues of Muslim prayers, or the value of Buddhist meditation, or the solitude of Hindu temples. They are, according to Chesterton, still too close to see clearly. That’s because proximity matters.

I’ve experienced what may be akin to a skeptic’s rejection of Christianity, though my story doesn’t involve losing faith in God. In the middle of my college years I made a decisive break with the brand of Baptist fundamentalism I had grown up with. I didn’t renounce faith in God or anything like that, but I did leave the denomination of my childhood.

It took me a few years to get over it, to be honest. I was bitter—probably because I was hurt. It was hard to even talk about it without feelings of resentment welling to the surface. I channeled my anger through public expression in a way that I now find unfortunate. Not necessarily because I have come around to change my opinion per se, but rather because I realize that emotional tirades aren’t synonymous with compelling arguments.

I think about this when I read the e-mails or Facebook posts of friends who have left Christianity and embraced atheism. Though I don’t assume I understand their journey, I think I can empathize a little, as can many who may be more objective than I was in the face of similar emotional unrest.

This tendency is illustrated in a 2013 article by Larry Taunton, “Listening to Young Atheists: Lessons for a Stronger Christianity,” published in The Atlantic. After traveling to numerous college campuses and surveying students in various skeptic organizations, Taunton made six summary observations: (1) these students all had religious backgrounds of some kind; (2) they felt the mission and message of their childhood churches were vague; (3) they felt their churches offered superficial answers to their serious questions; (4) they had respect for leaders who took their questions seriously; (5) the ages between fourteen and seventeen were crucial in their later decision to become atheists; (6) and their decision to leave the faith was discussed primarily in emotional categories.5

Taunton’s observations offer insight on the traction that the new atheist movement has gained since 9/11 and the subsequent publication of Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith. The new atheist authors have a receptive audience with young people who have left the church. And the emotional nature of their decisions, as described by Taunton, can make it difficult to build bridges for meaningful conversations.

Dueling Evangelists

Thomas has tended to ignore the banter of public atheists like Richard Dawkins. So much of the exchange between Christians and atheists in mainstream media is unfortunately filled with anger and scorn. But Thomas can’t ignore his roommate, Zach. They’re lifelong friends. They’re in it for the long haul, as the saying goes.

But when Zach comes out as an atheist, Thomas is at a loss for how to respond. The resentment Zach now feels toward his religious past can make things awkward between them at times. Thomas represents something he wants to leave behind. But Zach doesn’t want to leave Thomas behind. It’s complicated.

Thomas is also committed to their friendship, and deep down he hopes one day Zach will find his way back. But Zach is hoping Thomas will come to see things his way. So, it’s a bit of an evangelistic arm-wrestling match.

Some Christians might be surprised by the amount of resources designed to help skeptics deconvert Christians. Much like the evangelistic programs Evangelism Explosion and FAITH Evangelism for Christians, atheists have books and videos tailor-made for propagating the message of naturalism. I’m guessing they won’t co-opt the title soul winners for their skeptic missionaries, though.

In his book A Manual for Creating Atheists, Peter Boghossian describes the optimal evangelist for deconverting Christians: “Enter the Street Epistemologist: an articulate, clear, helpful voice with an unremitting desire to help people overcome their faith and to create a better world.”6 The author uses the term epistemologist to describe a person who helps others determine what constitutes true knowledge—which is to be found, he suggests, in atheism. In other words, a worldview that begins with something other than nature, like Christianity, cannot provide true knowledge. Such knowledge can only be found by beginning with a God-free cosmos.

That’s why Boghossian encourages atheists to invite their Christian friends into “a world that uses intelligence, reason, rationality, thoughtfulness, ingenuity, sincerity, science, and kindness to build the future.”7 Such a view is contrasted with Christianity, which is said to be “built on faith, delusion, pretending, religion, fear, pseudoscience, superstition, or a certainty achieved by keeping people in a stupor that makes them pawns of unseen forces because they’re terrified.”8 You can’t argue with a thoughtful and kind worldview versus a perspective built on delusion.

Another book with a similar theme of godless evangelism is 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian, by Guy P. Harrison. The questions are intended to displace confidence in the Christian message. The first question, “Does this religion make sense?” is also the guiding inquiry of my book.9 It’s a question that hits home with Thomas. He must decide, “Am I sufficiently convinced to call myself a Christian?”

This summarizes Thomas’s mission in the face of Zach’s challenge. A challenge that launches an authentic conversation about faith between friends. A challenge ripe with opportunities.

What’s the Matter?

This reminds me of the exchange between...