Atheism stands in permanent judgment over arrogant, complacent, and superficial Christian churches and leaders. It needs to be heard.
This interesting quote does not come from an atheist press, but from a book by Alister McGrath, a professor of historical theology at Oxford University and principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. A former atheist, he is now a Christian and has written a remarkably insightful and respectful book about the historical impact of atheism. The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise And Fall of Disbelief In The Modern World (2006) is neither a knee-jerk screed or a book that dares not tread on toes. It treads the toes of both theist and skeptic alike.
McGrath goers into detail into the historical and philosophical underpinnings of atheism and the role it played in the philosophical underpinnings of the French and Russian revolutions as it served as a refreshing alternative to an oppressive, ingrown Church. McGrath talks at length on many of the movements biggest lights: Feuerbach, Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche and how atheism reached its twilight and is on its way out as a legitimate paradigm.
The analysis is stunning. McGrath's viewpoint, as a former atheist, is that atheism is a creation of the Christian church when the church becomes arrogant and seeks power as an end in itself. Atheism, McGrath would say, is not created in a vacuum. The Church allows atheism to present itself as a legitimate worldview when the Church fails in its primary mission from Christ and merely becomes a self-serving institution.
However, atheism is now an institution in itself, and like any institution, it has itself bogged down in tradition and a failure to engage the human imagination. Today's atheist organizations too closely mirror their church counterparts and with strident, arrogant leaders such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, it is unlikely, in McGrath's view, that atheism will ever reach the apex it once enjoyed.
So how does the Church of today keep its advantage over the skeptic? By creating community and engaging the human imagination, two important needs of the human heart that today's atheists can no longer meet.
One fascinating note of trivia: Voltaire was not an atheist. A deist, he had nothing but scathing words for those who held to godlessness (when he wasn't tearing apart an arrogant, complacent, power-hungry Church).
I shall have to rewrite my essay on atheism.