Richard Dawkins and Authentic Ministry

Religious people of all stripes -- Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, etc. -- can be arrogant, short-sighted, hypocritical, stupid, oppressive, closed-minded, insulting, two-faced, and many more terrible, awful, pathetic things.

Atheism certainly fits into this group as a religion (kicking and screaming as some Atheists might), despite the fact that it does not accept the notion of a deity. Religion is related to or manifests a faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality -- a definition that fits Atheism quite well, namely, a faithful devotion to the belief (notion, assertion, fact) that there is no God. Atheists can be just as evangelistic as any other religious group, and I rather enjoy listening to and reading Richard Dawkins, surely the best known evangelist for Atheism today. A very intelligent and articulate spokesman, he engages energetically in the ministry of Atheism, often in some kind of dialogue with (mostly attacks and dismissals of) the practice of Christianity on one level or another.

But I'm not here to fight against Richard Dawkins. In fact, as a Christian I often find myself nodding my head in agreement with some of his caricatures of historic Christianity. As a matter of fact, a lot of the criticisms brought against Christians by others are the result of Christian incompetence, willfulness, or even ignorance.

Now, I don't agree with Dawkins on many things. He is not merely criticizing Christianity for its hypocrisy, but for its foundations, though he tends to run the two together. (And in that sense, he reminds me of Christian apologists against atheism who put up straw-men). Even so, lively debate can be a good thing to shake the cobwebs out of our heads--if we will but do that (i.e., think).

The ancient philosophy of the man called Jesus Christ, as rooted in and interactive with what we call the "Old Testament" (to the ancients, merely "Scripture"), and some of his earliest followers, as now written down in the "New Testament," is an extremely valuable and precious witness of faith. My concern here is not to debate the questions of Jesus' existence, or anyone's delusions about God (one way or the other). I'm more concerned about the practice of the faith Christians espouse, but about which they are increasingly ignorant and shallow.

And this impacts directly on authentic ministry. Ministry is nothing more than serving someone else. I don't know his motives, but Dawkins appears to be trying to provide a service for mankind by raising the level of thinking about reality. As Christians we can kick and scream if we like, but maybe we should thank him for calling us out. Frankly, he's punching the daylights out of a lot of what parades itself as Christianity . . . and just as frankly, it's an easy mark.

Maybe we should stop yelling at Dawkins and look in the mirror. The ancient philosophy of Christ and his followers (utilizing both experience and the Jewish Scriptures) is centrally about serving and loving others. But today, "Ministry" has turned into an institutionally-based profession.

We don't need to defer to Dawkins, but maybe it is not a bad suggestion that we consider the nature and calling of authentic ministry. What good is it if we wax eloquent on whether God exists, but don't know the meaning of genuine ministry.