Christmas
ratings suggest that the demise of network TV may have been overstated. Here in
the UK the BBC’s new Dracula drama (a co-production with Netflix) has been
praised by the critics and watched by millions. My interest was piqued by
quotes attributed to its co-creators, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, self-described
“ageing atheists”. The thrust was that in their version of the story they had
set out to respect the “Christian themes” of the original Bram Stoker book.
With perhaps a gentle dig as some of their theological fellow-travelers they suggest
that there’s something in these themes to be taken seriously. The cross should be respected because “that
icon of morality built a civilisation”. Their broader point seems to be that
Western culture has been shaped by Christianity and that the cross is a symbol
that still resonates. The stubborn refusal of such symbols and what they symbolise to fade from the scene, particularly given the occasional claim that science
explains everything, can be usefully contrasted with "New Atheism".
“New Atheism” was dismissed in one recent article as “..a rather slight intellectual movement [that] fizzled out quickly..”; I’ve discussed
its decline previously. Its celebrity proponents have faded from view, and its
project seems to have moved on. God is apparently not a big problem anymore. Maybe
the New Atheists feel that they’ve so conclusively refuted His existence that
it would be in bad taste to continue banging on about Him. Except of course
they refuted nothing, and argued things to the same standstill as the old atheists,
except with less philosophical sophistication.
In terms of winning the population at large over to their
views, the evidence is not that encouraging. Recent data from the US, courtesy of
the Pew Centre, does show that in the US the proportion of those who
self-identify as atheists doubled between 2009 and 2019, at least that’s how an
atheist (old or new) might spin it. But it went up from 2% to 4%. Mind you,
after more Trump, it may have gone up further. In the UK, the figure for those
identifying as atheist was 8% in a 2017 survey. However, the other thing that
both of these surveys show is that the real problem isn’t atheism, but
apatheism – the notion that arguments about God just don’t merit a hearing. He
might exist, He might not. Either way, there is no point in bothering.
Just like "new" atheism, apatheism isn’t new. It’s as old as the
Bible (and probably older). It’s a state of mind and affairs that was familiar to the Old Testament prophets. God might be there, and might even
matter a bit. But His existence doesn’t make any practical difference to life,
so we can basically ignore Him for the most part. In modern terms, if I like old hymns, like a bit of ritual and
want to hedge my bets, I can turn up occasionally to a church service. If the best school for my kids is a church school, then it will do no harm
to sign on the dotted line, appear slightly more frequently, and actually learn
the words of a hymn or two. This might have the added benefit of currying some
favour with the Almighty. I’ll have some ticks
in the good column, to balance out the ticks in the bad column. Just as long as
no one takes any of it too seriously.
This is the “practical atheism” that the prophets in
the Old Testament, and the Apostles in the New, railed against. It’s a
kind of hypocrisy that I suspect the New Atheists would object to. At least
as far as Christian, Biblical, theism goes, it makes no sense. If Jesus Christ
is not who He claims to be, then he was (because He’s clearly dead, buried and
decayed) either a bad or a crazy man. He was extravagantly clear in the claims
He made as to who He was, what He was going to do, and how people should respond
to Him. If He was wrong you should have nothing to do with Him. But, if He is
who He says He is, then C.T. Studd put it well: “If Jesus Christ be God and
died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him”.
Polite respect for symbols and a
wistful regret at the passing of outmoded institutions just won’t cut it. Old and new atheism’s problem (or at least one of them) has always been the
cross, or more particularly the death of Jesus on the cross - a unique, Universe
shaping event with eternal implications and a means of transformation for individual men and women through history. Certainly
much more than an “icon of morality”.
