God is Not Yet Dead

The Guardian has an article on the recent tidal wave of books breaking violently against the God domain.

There's the God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, End of Faith by Sam Harris, and most recently, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens.

People are burying God all over the place, and gleefully sending flowers.

Thing is, I think they're bombing the wrong building. God doesn't live in people's minds so much as He lives in people's hearts and souls and experience. God is not dead as long as He lives in people's hearts.

That is not to say that I refuse to grapple intelligently with religious questions. That is not to say that I cling foolishly and blindly to unsupportable beliefs. That is to say that when I wrestle with the issues, and I do wrestle, I wrestle with something that is alive inside of me, something that is an inextricable part of me because it is a real (not imagined or imaginary) part of my experience. It is my faith.

I know: such an intangible thing FAITH. So 'how do you keep a wave upon the sand' like.

I should probably concede, at this juncture, that it is very unfortunate that some have used religion in recent times in the public domain in such a manner as to bring it into disrepute. OK, I will concede, I do concede. But, I must also add that, before I point the finger outward, my particular brand of believing obliges me point it selfward. And selfward tends to silence.

All this reminds me of a story I stumbled upon, a while ago, that really hit the switch that turns on the squirming: the blasphemy challenge story on ABCNews about a website where non-believers were encouraged to express their non-belief by cursing God.

The numbers of those who do not believe are swelling in certain parts of the world. I think I get that.

I see an upside. I see that the label Christian has fallen into disrepute there. As a result, people are more and more unwilling to wear it. It is no longer a label that they pick up and drop absentmindedly, randomly, as they go about the business of defining who they are. Instead, they think about it a little more. A lot more. And, when they do take on that label, it is because they know what they believe and why they believe it. Certainly they need to believe it enough to stand being accused of being stunted on the evolutionary chain because they still need to believe in a God.

I don't think that's altogether a bad thing, as things go.