Last week, someone posted something dismissive of Atheists on my Facebook page. I don’t think the person was trying to be rude, but I would like to respond because I want this to be a place where people of differing worldviews can come and find the same respect.
Jesus once summarized his path as being a good neighbor. It’s far past time for Christians to take those words seriously. There is nothing less neighborly than trying to convert everyone to Christianity. Just because the Grand Inquisitors believed in hell did not justify their bullying and torturing non-Christians to “save” them.
We sometimes hear the line, “There are no Atheists in foxholes.” The point of the cliché seems to be that in a crisis everyone will turn to a higher power. The saying can just as easily be understood to say that people free of religious brainwashing are less likely to find themselves in foxholes.
As some Atheists themselves have said, “That there are no Atheists in foxholes” is not an argument against Atheism but against foxholes.”
As a Christian minister, I love the church as an intimate spiritual community but I hate the church as a dogmatic institutional juggernaut. As I read the Sermon on the Mount it seems to me that Jesus would be much happier with empty churches than with foxholes filled with Christians willing to fight for Jesus but unwilling to trust in the power of love.