Issue 16 - On the Usefulness of Christianity
Cultural Understanding
In Issue 14 I discussed how many secular thinkers were beginning to appreciate the benefits of Christianity. Continuing on that thread, I was reading about how Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion” and one of the “four horsemen” of the New Atheist movement, caused a stir this past spring when he noted that he is a “cultural Christian,” that Christianity is “fundamentally decent” and that “it would be truly dreadful if we [the English] substituted any alternative religion” (just to be clear, he still does “not believe a word of the Christian faith”). He’s previously expressed the sentiment that we should be slow to celebrate the fading of Christianity in the West, because whatever replaces Christianity could be worse.
Dawkins’ friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was also a prominent figure in the New Atheist movement, caused even more of a stir last fall when she announced that she is now a Christian. Some have questioned the validity of her conversation because of her stated reasons for doing so. I am not primarily interested in litigating the genuineness of her faith. Rather, I believe she provides a useful case study because I think her stance reflects a growing sentiment among many non-believers in the West.
As her first reason for conversion she notes her fear that a secular liberalism cannot withstand forces that threaten it, including authoritarianism (particularly Russia and China), global Islamism, and “Woke ideology”. Regardless of the merits of her assessment, the critical point is that her assessment was based on her realization that most of the attributes she holds dear about our civilization all actually find their roots in Christianity. As she put it
“That [Judeo-Christian] legacy consists of an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom, and dignity - from the nation state and the rule of law to the institutions of science, health, and learning. As Tom Holland has shown in his marvelous book Dominion, all sorts of apparently secular freedoms - of the market, of conscience and of the press - find their roots in Christianity.”
Her second stated reason for conversion is the crushing nihilism of atheism. In her words “I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable - indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: What is the meaning and purpose of life?”
This relates very closely to what I argued in Issue 15 about confronting people with the idea of God’s death. She did not want to relinquish the Christian values she held dear, and she did not want to relinquish the meaning that Christianity could give to her life, and so she did the intellectually honest thing by subscribing (at least in some form) to the beliefs that provide those things. And lest anyone knock her for pursuing God in search of something “practical”, the Gospels are full of examples of people whose initial encounters with Jesus were motivated by desperation over something practical. Not to mention most of us have probably heard of, or perhaps lived through, a testimony that began with some version of “My life/marriage/family/job was in shambles and I thought that surrendering to Jesus would help fix it.”
I think that as society continues to unravel, the “usefulness” of Christianity will become a powerful apologetic. For all the talk that divorce rates in the church mirror society at large, research actually finds that regular church attendance is strongly negatively correlated with divorce. This may be because wives who attend religious services regularly with their husbands have the highest rate of high-quality marriages. In an increasingly isolated and lonely culture, Christians (ideally) provide loving community (which may explain why regular church attendance is correlated with reduced depression and even reduced mortality, at least among women).* In a world that says all truth is relative, Christianity provides an objective rock on which to anchor yourself.
Many people are craving meaning, truth, and community - things that they hopefully see demonstrated in our lives. And if, in their search for that, we can put a Bible in their hand, invite them to church, and explain to them that surrender to Christ is even better than all of those things, then I think we provide opportunities for an encounter with the Holy Spirit. At that point, anything can happen, and I suspect many future believers will find their way to faith in Christ by seeking the good that He provides, as Ayaan has done.
*To be fair, some of this research is not based solely on Christianity, but in the US context, the vast majority of people who pray with their spouses, attend weekly religious service, and believe that God is part of their marriage, will be Christians.