What Christians can Learn from Atheists

"Happy Clappy."  I saw a fellow wearing this shirt the other nite, and it has stuck in my craw.  Of course, maybe he was wearing the shirt in irony.  If so, he understands the world.  If not, he doesn't.

One problem (indeed the chief problem based upon my atheist friends) that atheists have with believing in God is that this is a messy, cruel world.  If there is a God, why can't the world be better?The chief problem that atheists have with Christianity specifically is that we preach morality, but live differently.  What can we learn from these very apropos criticisms?

First, during dialogue with a Jewish atheist friend, he told me that he had relatives who were victims of the holocaust.  "How can your God allow such a thing to happen?"  In my former days as a Southern Baptist, I would have said that God gave "free will" to man and, therefore, we are free to sin.  But this can't explain the scope of the sin of the Nazis, of Stalin, and of Mao.  Millions killed for no reason.

Now, I said: "This is a fallen world.  Whether you believe in God or not doesn't change the character of this world.  The question for me is whether there is a god who has a legitimate response to the world's fallenness.  Like maybe empathizing with humans in their experiences in this world.  So, maybe a God who would lock the gates to Eden so that we couldn't live forever in this fallen world.  Like maybe a God who shortened man's life-span after the Flood.  Like maybe a God who came into this world in the lowliest birth possible, in a backwater town, who was loved while he was healing people, but then ultimately was despised and killed for telling the church people that they were sinners.  Would a god like that be responsive to the fallenness of this world?"

We will never understand, certainly not fully, why the world is so messy.  Yet, Jesus' life reflects that He understood and indeed entered into life in this fallen world.  When Jesus' empathy is proclaimed, He becomes dear to fellow sufferers.  When Jesus' empathy is proclaimed, the self-righteous can let down their guard and embrace their own failings and pain.  Then, Jesus becomes a god who is approachable in our pain.

Second, Christianity is not primarily about morality.  As a good friend said: "Christianity is not really about morality--morality is just a byproduct."  As one of my sons said:  "The Bible isn't a rule book.  It tells us who we are--sinners; and who God is--our redeemer."  Christianity isn't  a religion with standards or rules to live by.  Instead, Christianity sets impossible standards for living--"be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect."  But it gets worse.  Even if you were able to live a life of perfect actions, unless your heart was fully selfless, it still wouldn't be good enough.  This is where Grace steps in and shuts the mouths of the outcasts (shut with thankfulness) and the self-righteous (shut with disbelief that they are not righteous).  Grace is the only possible answer to the impossible standards espoused by Jesus.

If we take Jesus at His word, we come to understand that we are ALL SINNERS, in need of God's GRACE.  When this is the message coming from Christian pulpits, instead of moralism, the atheist critique that Christians are hypocrites will lose its bite.