Dr Albert Mohler has an interesting piece on Richard Dawkins and his defense of cultural Christianity. Dawkins says,

This [England] is historically a Christian country. I’m a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims.

“So, yes, I like singing carols along with everybody else. I’m not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.

“If there’s any threat these sorts of things, I think you will find it comes from rival religions and not from atheists.”

Mohler’s article continues:

Dawkins expanded on those comments in an article published December 13, 2007 by The New Statesman. In this article Dawkins explains that Christmas is a part of his nation’s history and culture, and thus to be acknowledged, if not celebrated, by all.

He even threw some barbs toward the United States, suggesting that political correctness and a fear of offending anyone’s sensitivities was leading to a denial of the cultural significance of Christmas. All this is unnecessary, he insists:

For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished. I am no lover of Christianity, and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending, but I must say I’d rather wish you “Happy Christmas” than “Happy Holiday Season”.

It is a good post and it must be read in its entirety to be fully appreciate, so please go read it.

The reason for my own post stems from a comment Mohler makes. He says, “The thought of Richard Dawkins singing any carols with explicit Christian content is difficult to hold — unless the Oxford professor intends to sing of a faith he does not profess.”

My first thought was that Professor Dawkins ought to feel right at home in a lot of churches: he will be standing with many others who sing the words and, perhaps, speak the Christian jargon necessary for membership in evangelicalism. These tares in the pews are practical atheists and have more in common with Dawkins than Christ. As Jesus said, quoting Isaiah,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me.

“‘They worship me in vain,
teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.’”

Truth be told, I suspect I would enjoy talking and spending time with Dawkins far more than I would many of the pew-dwelling weeds on a typical Sunday at most churches. Certainly the professor’s heart is far from God but, unlike the practical atheists in the pews, he doesn’t worship in vain or cause trouble in the church by teaching his own perverted beliefs as though they were biblical.

On judgment day, when unbelievers appear before God before being sent to their final, torturous destination, I believe it will go much easy for the Richard Dawkinses of the world than for those who sought to lead the elect down the wrong path. God takes a dim view of those who endeavor to deceive His own.


2 Cor 1.13