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Atheism, I believe, becomes more popular when religious communities become more corrupt – and especially when their corruption includes violence. This occurred in the decades after the Thirty Years War in European history, and I think we're entering a similar period today. When religion seems to produce violent or arrogant or hypocritical believers, many people decide it is more ethical not to believe.
Interestingly, Jesus said something about this phenomenon in his “Sermon on the Mount.”
He said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” A resurgence of atheism could be seen as people “throwing out and trampling underfoot” a version of religion that has lost its "salt," a religion which is doing too few good works but instead is either doing too much nothing (other than talk) or doing too many evil things.
So when the world’s second largest religion seems (to many people) too tolerant of terrorism and sectarian violence, and sometimes even encourages and justifies them, we shouldn’t be surprised that many people reject religion. When the world’s largest religion seems (to many people) too tolerant of militarism, unjustified war, and consumerism, and sometimes even encourages and justifies them, we should be even less surprised.
When both religions do too little to promote active peacemaking, care for the poor, concern for the environment, and the renewal of communities, when they seem more concerned with “straining out gnats” of religious trivia than “swallowing camels of massive social injustice, we should only be surprised that more people haven’t become atheists.
Many if not most of us who are believers are so because of people and faith communities we have met ... groups characterized not by the bitter taste of violence and hypocrisy, and not by the bland taste of nominalism and lukewarmness, but by the salty taste of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness, and self-discipline. Where faith communities are helping people be formed in these qualities of character and daily living, it's hard not to believe in God, just as when the opposite is happening, it becomes hard to believe in God.
So, I would say that much of the appeal of today’s popular atheists – from Richard Dawkins to Sam Harris – lies in the corruption of religion. There are other factors too – the ongoing celebrity death-match between a form of aggressive scientific reductionism and a form of reactionary fundamentalism that won’t engage with science constructively, for example.
But I am more interested in a new phenomenon: a growing desire for dialogue among professed atheists and people of faith in regards to global crises. (This is the subject of the book I am currently working on.) A few years ago, a group of leading scientists (many of them convinced atheists) whose science increasingly alarmed them about the environmental crisis called for a meeting with religious leaders. “We have the scientific data that tells us we’re in trouble,” they said. “But we don’t have the means of motivating people to change their behavior and their values. We need you to do that. Let's work together.”
That’s where I believe some of the recent attempts at “atheist evangelism” will be counterproductive in the end. The atheists are right: there is a lot of unhealthy, unsavory religion out there. But they are not necessarily right that the world would be better off if religion just went away and everyone joined them in their atheism. Their aggressive posture will, I think, have the unintended consequence of increasing the reactivity of the religious … and perhaps the arrogance of the irreligious too. A world with more reactive religious people and more arrogant irreligious people is not a pleasant thought.
In light of our pressing global crises, in a world like that, everybody loses.
There’s a better alternative than a death-match between religion and atheism: for people of faith (including readers of this blog) to seek to take the logs out of our own religious eyes by dealing with the racism, militarism, imperialism, terrorism, sectarianism, consumerism, judgmentalism, nominalism, and other –isms that are corrupting our religious communities … and to collaborate for the common good, to make our world more the kind of place that our Creator would desire, working side by side with everyone who is willing, including those who don’t believe in a Creator.
By
Brian D. McLaren
|
December 27, 2006; 2:21 PM ET
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Posted by: David | October 31, 2007 6:25 AM
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This is an excellent post, Mr. Mclaren. I believe you are right. People look at the Religious Right and 9-11 and think, "Well, there you go. That proves how destructive religion is." But people like Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins take an extremely narrow view of religion, only seeing the bad and ignoring all the good. They are bigots. The solution Mr. Mclaren offers is a very good one. Let religious moderates and secular humanists WORK TOGETHER and combat the abuses of religious fundamentalism. I think the secular fundamentalism Harris, Maher, etc promote is simply counterproductive.
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Posted by: Mark | October 18, 2007 6:40 AM
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Is the current atheism really about spiritual power and trying to wrest the moral high ground from religious leaders who haven't "walked their talk?" Many of the crazy and irrational behaviours that atheists find repellent amongst believers stem from believers egotistically identifying one's pet interpretations with "the Word of God".
The dirty infighting between the Young Earth Creationists that's torn them apart is one example. A certain Creationist leader has carved a fiefdom out for his own personal gain - as much as he claims it is for "God's glory" - and created a lot of bad-blood between him and his parent organisation. And is, in minature, is the cause of countless schisms and disputes between Churchs, time and time again.
Internecine conflict over "god's Truth" makes that truth seem somewhat hollow to outsiders, and has plagued Churches from the very beginning. Back in the 2nd Century an Elder named Marcion split the Church and for a time his teachings were the dominant form of Christianity. But Marcionism's power died with its originator, and faded out over the centuries. I wonder how many other schisms will outlast their leaders?
Posted by: Adam | June 16, 2007 3:55 AM
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Mr. Mclaren,
To all atheists...God is real, and God is only love. It is understandable if your non-belief is based on what has been done by religions in God's name.
God sees no religion, just souls who have the choice to turn towards the Sacred light or away from it.
Since God hears the prayers of everyone, and responds to everyone, this world has almost 7 billion true prophets of God.
If your church or religion says there is only one true prophet of God, then it perpetuates a world of darkness, hate, and war.
Posted by: Roger | June 16, 2007 12:30 AM
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Mr. Mclaren,
To all atheists...God is real, and God is only love. It is understandable if your non-belief is based on what has been done by religions in God's name.
God sees no religion, just souls who have the choice to turn towards the Sacred light or away from it.
Since God hears the prayers of everyone, and responds to everyone, this world has almost 7 billion true prophets of God.
If your church or religion says there is only one true prophet of God, then it perpetuates a world of darkness, hate, and war.
Posted by: Roger | June 16, 2007 12:30 AM
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Mr. McLaren,
While I appreciate some of your points concerning certain failures of contemporary Christianity, I think you miss the point on atheism. Romans chapter one clearly teaches that men reject God not because of the failures of the church, but because their hearts are sinful and rebellious. Paul writes in vs. 18-22, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools." While good works and strong community have their place in evangelism, a Biblical approach to atheism must be centered on Scriptural teaching about sin, God's wrath, and His loving plan of salvation found only in Jesus Christ.
Posted by: Doug | May 23, 2007 1:17 PM
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Mr. Mclaren,
While I'm sure that you sincerely believe in the platitudes you recite in this posting, I'm afraid that I would have to agree with Pam in the notion that "you miss the point." You say that "Where faith communities are helping people be formed in these qualities of character and daily living, it's hard not to believe in God", but my studies of the Christian faith over the centuries indicate that Christianity has a brutal, horrible record when it comes to tolerating other faith communities--Hindus, Native Americans, pagans, and so on--a record that had a strong part in making Christianity the largest religion in the world today. Even to this day, Christians are spending billions of dollars annually for the express purpose of converting other people to Christianity all over the world without a single thought as how such conversions cause damage and conflict within other faith communities. Tell me: how can Christians such as yourself insist on working with other faiths for a common good, when Christianity's position of power in today's world is grounded in centuries of intolerance of other faiths?
I don't agree with atheists often, but if religious communities don't take each other seriously, why should they?
Posted by: Rev. Rod Righteous | May 12, 2007 9:38 PM
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Hi Bryan,
Thanks for your comments. I think what bugs me most about the Sam Harris crowd is it's (and his) incivility. Harris doesn't comprehend that he upsets people because of his mean spirit, not the strength of his arguments. Most of us who are comfortable with our faith have been through the arguments against God's existence and found them frail. For me, I'm really disappointed in Sam and the Dawkins gang because they simply resort to name calling and dump the elegance of science down the tube by modeling immaturity. That's not new either.
A bold, well integrated commitment to the Beatitudes needs to be promoted anew, and those among us who claim Jesus as their saviour would go a long way in quelling the shrill atheists by walking His talk.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Saatkamp | May 7, 2007 5:09 PM
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I'm surprised that no one else commented on this one.
Boy, do you ever miss the point. I'm not an atheist because of corrupt religions, or because it's "too hard" to believe in God (whatever I may be, I'm not intellectually lazy). I'm an atheist because I see no evidence whatsoever for anything supernatural in the world. I have no fear of death (not that I'm in any hurry) and no psychological need to believe in life after death. I see that as the driving force behind religion, and I think it amounts to no more than wishful thinking.
Posted by: Pam | January 12, 2007 4:07 PM
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