Christians must nurture dialogue with atheists
The headline from Catholic News Service read "Catholics must nurture dialogue with atheists ." I changed it above. And if you read it, you will see that this is what he is talking about. In fact, he is talking about people of faith. It is a good article, much better than the articles that appeared in the British mainstream press.
Yes, Christians should seek dialogue. But will the "new atheists" entertain this idea. Instead of dialogue we have mostly press releases, op-eds, and competitive debates.
LONDON (CNS) - Catholics must seek to nurture understanding and dialogue between Christians and atheists, a British cardinal said.
Addressing the rise of aggressive secularism in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, argued that God was often misrepresented by prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, author of the 2006 best-seller "The God Delusion."
In reality, the cardinal said, there was a persistent element of doubt in the convictions of both Christians and atheists that "could become the basis for an open dialogue."
"The line dividing faith from unbelief passes through the heart of each of us," Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said in a May 8 lecture, "Faith in Britain Today."
"I would want to encourage people of faith to regard those without faith with deep esteem because the hidden God is active in their lives as well as in the lives of those who believe," he said.
"Believers need to recognize that they have something in common with those who do not believe," he added. "But it is no less true that unbelievers might benefit from recognizing that there is something of the believer in every person."
The proper "response to God" was faith and not absolute certainty, the cardinal said, inviting Christians to examine how they might have given people a misleading view of the mystery of God.
"God does not need polemicists on his behalf, but God needs witnesses, and the quality of witness that we give to God is a more effective pointer to God than anything else," he said.
The cardinal discussed the phenomenon of rising public hostility to religion in Britain, where many atheists and agnostics are arguing that religion must be solely a private matter without a role in public life.
The cardinal argued that such "privatization of religion" had created a new "spiritual homelessness" which was impoverishing the country.
"Many people have a sense of being in a sort of exile from faith-guided experience," he said. "They think that even if they wanted to believe, faith is no longer an option for them."
Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said he senses "among many people a sense of loss, of not being in touch with living sources that can nourish them.""They want to live by shared values that can sustain our society but do not know where to find them. They want to find a context that can give lives a deep meaning, but, again, are unable to find it," he added.
The cardinal said that "only a modern person" would think that religion is a private matter whereas Catholicism was "profoundly social."
"Our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free zone, and we must not allow Britain to become a world devoid of religious faith and its powerful contribution to the common good," he said.
Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said he wanted to challenge the many "new atheists" who were unable to cope with the notion of an intelligent and reflective Christianity and were seeking to isolate religion from other forms of knowledge and experience in order to marginalize it.
He criticized campaigning atheists such as Dawkins for presenting a false picture of God."I usually find that the god that is being rejected by such people is a god I don't believe in either," he said. "I simply don't recognize my faith in what is presented by these critics as Christian faith."
My name is Dan Porter. I have always believed in God. And I have always been a Christian, which means I have always believed, at some level of understanding, Christian assertions about Christ. But during all of my adult life—I am now 65—I have struggled with many seeds of doubt brought on by modern science, objective history, the question of why a loving God would allow so much suffering in the world and difficulties with seemingly conflicting moral precepts.