Gunning for God (11 page)

In another sense, however, Christ was “the King of Israel”. A week earlier he had allowed himself to be acclaimed by the crowds as
the King who comes in the name of the Lord
. Thronged by followers, he had ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey, deliberately fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy describing the coming of Jerusalem’s king.
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If it was this incident that the Jewish religious authorities had reported to Pilate, Christ had no intention of denying it, nor the claim he had thereby made.

But the religious leaders had misinterpreted him. Christ was not, as they were now making out, the leader of an organized band of freedom-fighters, ready to fight to the death in a holy war in order to drive the Roman imperialists from their country (as a band of freedom-fighters attempted to do in the war of
AD
66—70).

The only way Christ could answer was to explain to Pilate the nature of his kingdom and the power by which he would establish it. So he replied: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from this world.”
²²

Pilate would surely have earlier received the army officer’s report, informing him of Christ’s non-violent behaviour at his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane; so that it would now be clear that Jesus was telling the truth. But Pilate still had to make sure of exactly what Jesus was saying. After all, Jesus had just referred to his kingdom, which must imply that he did think of himself as a king. Could it be, then, that his refusal to let his followers fight to avoid arrest was merely a clever tactic? On being surprised by a squad of armed Roman soldiers, he could see that resistance was useless. If Pilate were to release Jesus now, given the right conditions, would he attempt to set up his kingdom by raising armed insurrection at a later date? Pilate probed further, for he could take no risks. “You are a king then?”

Jesus’ answer put the matter beyond doubt. His non-violent stance in Gethsemane was not temporary pragmatism: it sprang from the very nature of his kingdom or rule. Its power to gain people’s allegiance was, and could only be, truth. “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I have been born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, in order to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
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And one thing is clear about truth — you cannot impose it on people by force or violence. Religious fanatics and militant atheists have not always understood this.

“What is truth?” said Pilate, as he turned to leave. He was not necessarily being cynical. Truth, in the absolute sense in which Jesus obviously intended it, may not have been something in Pilate’s estimation that had much to do with the military and political affairs in which he was involved. Truth was the kind of concept that occupied philosophers and religious-thinkers. Yet, however unclear Pilate may have been on what truth meant, it is apparent that he had seen enough evidence to convince him that the accused prisoner before him, who abjured violence and was concerned only with truth, was no political rival to the emperor. Pilate was now in no doubt that Christ posed no threat to Rome, so he publicly declared him innocent.

That was not the end of the matter, of course. The crowd and its leaders at once subjected Pilate to such intense emotional blackmail that he lost the courage to act consistently with his moral convictions. It was Pilate’s moral cowardice, not Christ’s guilt, which led to the crucifixion.

We are thus presented with an unfortunate multiple irony. First of all, the New Atheists’ accusation against Christianity is precisely the same as the charge that brought Christ himself to trial — the charge of fomenting violence. Secondly, the charge against Christ was not brought by atheists but by highly religious people — the leaders of the religious community, of which Christ was himself a member.
²⁴
Thirdly, Pilate, the supreme commander of the Roman occupying power, declared Christ innocent of the charge of religious incitement to violence.

It is, therefore, abundantly clear that Christ did not attempt to impose his message of truth by force, but in the interests of truth he openly and plainly condemned the kind of rigid, unthinking, exploitative religion that concentrated more on outward ritual and social advantage than an inner attitude of heart, involving a deep relationship with God, which expresses itself in love and service to fellow human beings. Here is a sample of what Jesus had to say to some of the religious leaders of his day:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
²⁵

The upshot of all this is that the New Atheists’ claim to be committed to rationality and evidence-based thought does not square with their attitude to the history of the first century, which shows that they are seriously wrong in their assessment of the nature and history of Christianity. They inexcusably confuse the evils of renegade Christendom with the teachings of Christ, and thus think that violence is part and parcel of the Christian faith; whereas the Christian faith itself actually explicitly repudiates violence and religious exploitation. The New Atheists ought to be applauding Christ, not condemning him.

THE EXTENT OF THE VIOLENCE OF CHRISTENDOM

Now, in the interest of fairness, it would also be important to take a careful look not only at the teaching of Christ but also at the history of Christendom itself, since a great number of misapprehensions have grown up around that also. For instance, David Bentley Hart relates responses to a question posed in the
New York Times
: What is humanity’s worst invention? One respondent, Peter Watson, wrote: “Without question ethical monotheism… This has been responsible for most of the wars and bigotry in history.” It would seem that Watson has never heard of the twentieth century.

Yet blaming monotheism for most wars in history is a widespread popular view, as German philosopher and theologian Klaus Müller observes: “The thesis that there is a connection between monotheism and intolerance has been for a long time regarded as common sense even in prominent philosophical textbooks.”
²⁶
This thesis does not stand up to serious scrutiny. Religious persecution and intolerance are anything but peculiar to monotheistic cultures, as anyone with any grasp of world history should know.

However, we have been for so long bombarded with stories about the horrors of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the persecution of witches, that any attempt to assess the extent of such evils may well be met with incredulity, if not with outright rejection. Nevertheless, it is important for us not only to point out that the New Atheists have got Christ’s teaching wrong, but also that they are guilty of misrepresenting the subsequent history of Christendom. This has been shown most clearly by the comprehensive and magisterial work of the eminent historian Arnold Angenendt,
Tolerance and Violence
.
²⁷
Angenendt’s historical analysis has received press acclaim for its thoroughness and accuracy as “probably the most remarkable book on church history in recent years”, and as a book that cannot be ignored by anyone “who wishes to engage in substantial discussion about the relationship between the crusader mentality and the Christian message of peace or that between inquisitorial severity and religious tolerance”.
²⁸

The question is simply this: Is the “church militant” the “oldest and greatest criminal organisation in the world”?
²⁹
It is quite striking, for instance, to learn that, from 1540 to the middle of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition was responsible for 827 executions, and the Roman Inquisition for 93.
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Of course, there is no excuse even for one execution for a person’s faith in God; but, as we shall see in the next chapter, the crimes of secular philosophies of the so-called enlightened twentieth century are far greater than the crimes of the Inquisition. It would seem fairly obvious that the New Atheists try to focus attention on the latter to divert it away from the former — a very foolish ploy, if they wish to convince anyone who has a rudimentary knowledge of history.

Now it is impossible in a short book like this to rehearse the encyclopedic details of Angenendt’s research, but perhaps it has been sufficient for our purposes to record their existence to make interested readers aware of them.

VIOLENCE TO CHILDREN: DOES RELIGIOUS LABELLING CONSTITUTE
CHILD ABUSE?

Richard Dawkins feels very strongly about religious attitudes to children: so strongly that he uses a metaphor that is calculated to shock. He asks: “Isn’t it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about?”
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He is protesting vigorously against the habit of calling a child a “Christian child” or a “Muslim child” or a “Hindu child”, etc., simply because that is the religion of their parents. He says that they should be allowed to decide for themselves when they are old enough.

Dawkins might be surprised to know that I learned this from my parents. They took me to church; but they also taught me to be critical about what I heard, and to compare it with other worldviews. And in sectarian Northern Ireland, of all places on earth! Was it not Dawkins who wanted us to imagine with Lennon that wonderful world, in which there was “no Northern Ireland”? We know what he means; but he is wrong to think that everyone in Northern Ireland behaved as in his stereotypical image. My parents and many others I knew did not believe that a child is born a Christian, even if its parents are Christians. Indeed, they thought that this is one of the most important things to be clear about — that one does not become a Christian either by birth or by any ceremony or ritual performed on you as an infant.

The reason for this was that they took the New Testament seriously and saw there that we are not born children of God; one has to become a child of God by a personal act of trust in Christ as Lord. That act of trust is a free and unforced commitment based on evidence. That step cannot be made by an infant. My parents saw (as the New Atheists could see if they took the trouble to read what the New Testament says on the topic) that Christ’s ordinance of baptism was given as a public symbol to express the Christian life on the part of those who had already received it: baptism was given not to generate that life in the first place. The order of events is clear: people believed and were baptized as a public confession, which meant, of course, that baptism represented a very public standing up and being counted for the faith.

At the risk of being provocative, I would add that there is a sense in which the New Atheists are putting their finger on one of the great confusions of Christendom: that infants, children, or indeed adults can be made Christians by ceremony — tragically, sometimes administered by force. As a result, many people think that a ceremony conducted on them in infancy has made them Christians, even though they admit to having no idea what personal faith in Christ means.

I therefore agree with Dawkins’ statement that to say that a particular child is a child of Christian parents is not the same as saying that she is a Christian child. She may become a Christian child if she becomes a Christian; on the other hand she may decide the other way.

My parents did not ram their faith down my throat. They believed in encouraging their children to think through the issues for themselves and come to their own decision on the basis of available evidence. They would have been contemptuous of Dawkins’ notion that religion “teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding”.
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They believed the exact opposite. Indeed, the more I read Dawkins’ and others criticisms of Christianity the more it becomes obvious that the boot is on the other foot — it is atheism that appears to make a virtue of not understanding what the Christian case is.

Whatever other religion Dawkins’ remarks may apply to, they do not apply in any way to the Christianity my parents taught me from the Bible. Their home (and also that of my wife’s parents) was full of discussion. Here were people who encouraged me to be intellectually inquisitive because they were like that themselves — not in spite of their Christian faith, but because of it. For them, the Bible was an inexhaustible source of fascinating things to think about; of questions to be discussed, as well as principles to live by. I, for one, owe my parents an immense debt for their real Christian love, a love that gave me space to think. And, let it be said, Christianity gave me and has given me a great deal more than atheism to think about.