Atheists Confirming Christianity?

Atheists Affirming Christianity?

In 2020, we commented on an interesting phenomenon, "Atheists Need Christianity," which was becoming a growing trend among well-known atheists. More and more were defending Christianity as culturally necessary for preserving a civil society. For Richard Dawkins, it was the chaos, pandemonium, and brutality he witnessed once Judeo-Christian morality and ethos had been removed. Historian and atheist Tom Holland published Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, arguing that had it not been for Christianity, there would not be a Western culture. Atheist Douglas Murray published The Strange Death of Europe and argued that without Christianity, there would not have been an Enlightenment. Holland attends church, he and Murray refer to themselves as Christian atheists, and recently, Richard Dawkins has begun doing the same. It appears Christianity Today has noticed and printed, "Some of Christianity's Biggest Skeptics are becoming Converts."

Tom Holland, an award-winning British author and ancient Greek and Roman historian. At some point in his studies, Holland recognized the difference in values held by the ancient world compared to those he held instinctively. He realized Christianity is the reason we take for granted that it is better to bear suffering than to cause it—and why we assume all human life is equal in value.

As an avowed atheist throughout his adult life, Holland shocked fellow academics in 2016 when he too penned an article in the New Statesman titled “Why I was wrong about Christianity.” And while he may not yet consider himself a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, he confessed he has lost faith in the secular narrative, returned to church, and “surrendered to the truth” of the stories in Scripture (such as the Exodus), whether they are ultimately historical or mythical.

More recently:    

Former New Atheist thinker Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a similar turn just last year. As a research fellow at Stanford University and a Muslim, Ali was once described by Christopher Hitchens as “the most important public intellectual probably to come out of Africa.” But in 2023, she professed in her essay “Why I am now a Christian” (apparently a play on Bertrand Russell’s famous 1927 essay) that her desire and search for a unifying basis for belief in the humanitarian values of life, equality, freedom, and dignity ultimately led her to the Christian faith.

“The only credible answer,” Ali said, “lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.” She appreciated not only its focus on the intellectual status of humanity but also its “compassion for the sinner and humility for the believer.” In answer to those looking for meaning and purpose in their lives, Ali was compelled to admit that “Christianity has it all.”

It seems sound apologetics in academia is challenging the thinking of atheists combined, I would suggest, with an up close and personal look at a world that has abandoned Christianity. Will these "Christian atheists" become Christians? We pray that will be the case but, in the meantime, they are arguing that Christianity is necessary for a civil society.

https://mailchi.mp/010ce6562334/the-real-history-of-israel-and-palestine-pt-1?e=169825fd77