In an attempt to simultaneously wind up both atheists and Christians, I have on occasion referred to atheists as angels. The word 'angel' comes from a Greek word which means 'messenger'. Angels are messengers from God. To be visited by an angel is as close as anyone is likely to get to a direct conversation with God. There is a minor tradition of seeing people who play a part in someone's faith journey as messengers from God.
So, to describe atheists as angels means Christians should listen carefully to what they say. It is also mischievous. We should listen carefully to people telling us there is no God because they are messengers from God.
Atheists are right because they see through Christian false consciousness of God. In the next 3 posts, I will explore how Christians are prone to a false consciousness of God. If we are not prepared to listen to each other or to God, then God sends us other messengers.
Where I get impatient with atheists is when they tell me that fundamentalist beliefs are the true Christian faith and that I collude with fundamentalism by being a liberal Christian.
Fundamentalism is profoundly influential within the Christian faith. Even those of us who do not believe in this way find ourselves struggling to escape its influence. As a Christian I feel my own faith undermined far more by Christian fundamentalists than by atheists.
Atheists expose the ways fundamentalism substitutes idols for God. The mistake they make is to believe that having disposed of fundamentalism they have disposed of Christianity. I have challenged fundamentalism all my life and see it as a corrosive and profoundly misleading approach to faith. To be told by atheists, late to the debate, that I believe the same as fundamentalists believe is frustrating. It effectively locks me into an argument I can't win.
It also locks atheists into an argument they cannot lose. Their belief that fundamentalism is the only authentic Christian faith is so total, they believe they have won the argument. In truth, they have hardly touched the surface of it. One thing at a time. In the next 3 posts I am going to take three instances of Christian belief and show how idols are substituted for sound teaching. Then I will return to atheism and show where I think they are mistaken.
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