E.J. Dionne, Jr. has an interesting column in today’s Washington Post.

I very seldom agree with Mr. Dionne’s opinions; in fact, this may be the first time for me.

He talks of what he calls “neo-atheists”.

The neo-atheists, like their predecessors from a century ago, are given to a sometimes-charming ferociousness in their polemics against those they see as too weak-minded to give up faith in God.

What makes them new is the moment in history in which they are rejoining the old arguments: an era of religiously motivated Islamic suicide bombers. They also protest the apparent power of traditionalist and fundamentalist versions of Christianity.

As a general proposition, I welcome the neo-atheists’ challenge. The most serious believers, understanding that they need to ask themselves searching questions, have always engaged in dialogue with atheists.

I can’t describe air to you but I know I breathe it. I can describe God to you the way I believe Him to be, and I can’t force you to believe in Him or His Son Who died in payment for our sins, but I believe it with all my heart.

My finite mind cannot grasp there being nothing—a great void and then this Spirit we call God, Jehovah, The Great I Am, The Great Spirit or any other names given to the Only God, spoke and whatever He spoke came into being, but I believe with all my heart God created everything that was, is and is to come.

My finite mind cannot grasp love so deep God would send His Only Begotten Son to die to pay the price for my sins and ask nothing in return but acceptance and the worship He deserves, but I know in my heart it’s true.

We are so held back by our minds that we fail to listen to the Holy Spirit of God speaking to our hearts.

Wherever I have travelled I have seen the majesty of something too beautiful to have just been an accident of a few cells happening to come together, and if they happened to come together why did they continue to do so without a Supreme Creator?

It is not my wish nor the wish of any true Christian to run the world. We want godly people to lead us, but I also believe no one is in office that God did not allow to be in office, for whatever reason. That does not mean God approves of all leaders, but only that He allowed them their leadership positions.

Before God laid the foundation of the earth, He knew all about me. He knows me better than I know me. He knows what I’m going to do before I know it. He knows the number of gray hairs on my head and the number of black hairs on my head.

My finite mind can only imagine Heaven from the description given in the Bible. I can’t imagine grass singing in praise or streets of such pure gold one can see through them. I can’t imagine the wonderful jewels adorning the gates of Heaven, but I believe it all.

God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are all very personal to me. I don’t understand the Trinity, but I know God has three separate but equal parts and They are all of one accord.

You see, I have questioned and I don’t have the answers yet. I don’t know why I yielded to the calling of the Holy Spirit and people in my family whom I love dearly haven’t done so yet, but I’m grateful I did yield to the Holy Spirit and I pray urgently and fervently for my loved ones who have not accepted God’s free gift of salvation.

I go through troubled times and if I keep my eyes focused on the Lord I have peace that passes all human understanding. I can’t describe it, but I believe it with all my heart because I have experienced it.

The more I seek, the more I learn and one day if those questions that are unanswered in this life are still important I’ll ask the Lord Himself to explain them to me.

The problem with the neo-atheists is that they seem as dogmatic as the dogmatists they condemn. They are especially frustrated with religious “moderates” who don’t fit their stereotypes.

In his bracing polemic ” The End of Faith,” Harris is candid in asserting that “religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each one of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others.”

Harris goes on: “I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance — born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God — is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss. We have been slow to recognize the degree to which religious faith perpetuates man’s inhumanity to man.”

What’s really bothersome is the suggestion that believers rarely question themselves while atheists ask all the hard questions. But as Novak argued — in one of the best critiques of neo-atheism — in the March 19 issue of National Review, “Questions have been the heart and soul of Judaism and Christianity for millennia.” (These questions get a fair reading in another powerful commentary on neo-atheism by James Wood, himself an atheist, in the Dec. 18 issue of the New Republic.) “Christianity is not about moral arrogance,” Novak insists. “It is about moral realism, and moral humility.” Of course Christians in practice often fail to live up to this elevated definition of their creed. But atheists are capable of their own forms of arrogance. Indeed, if arrogance were the only criterion, the contest could well come out a tie.

As for me, Christianity is more a call to rebellion than an insistence on narrow conformity, more a challenge than a set of certainties.

In ” The Last Week,” their book about Christ’s final days on Earth, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, distinguished liberal scriptural scholars, write: “He attracted a following and took his movement to Jerusalem at the season of Passover. There he challenged the authorities with public acts and public debates. All this was his passion, what he was passionate about: God and the Kingdom of God, God and God’s passion for justice. Jesus’ passion got him killed.”

That’s why I celebrate Easter and why, despite many questions of my own, I can’t join the neo-atheists.

Stick to this kind of writing, Mr. Dionne. You are much better at it than you are writing op-eds about politics.

Also blogging on this: Captain’s Quarters.

Written by ~J~

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