Are you a Cultural Christian?
The phrase ‘Cultural Christian’ is a fairly new kid on the block. What does it mean?
It may be surprising to learn that atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, now describes himself as a Cultural Christian.
In fact, according to Justin Brierley (author of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God) many of the former members of New Atheism as championed by biologist Dawkins, philosopher Daniel C. Dennet, neuroscientist Sam Harris, and journalist Christopher Hitchens, in abandoning the New Atheism movement, have reassessed their antagonism towards Christianity and its positive historical influence in forming Western societies.
Decline of New Atheism
Like Dawkins, historian Tom Holland has acknowledged that the message of Christianity has shaped our thinking, values, and ethics over many centuries ‘I began to realize that actually, in almost every way, I am Christian’.
Equally, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had rejected her Islamic faith and embraced atheism now says:
‘Tom Holland has shown in his marvellous book Dominion, all sorts of apparently secular freedoms — of the market, of conscience and of the press — find their roots in Christianity. And so I have come to realise that Russell and my atheist friends failed to see the wood for the trees. The wood is the civilisation built on the Judeo-Christian tradition; it is the story of the West, warts and all.’
Follow the link if you would like to see a debate between Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Ali (31) Richard Dawkins vs Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The God Debate - YouTube
By describing himself as a Cultural Christian has Dawkins rejected his atheism?
No. He is not claiming to be a Christian believer. But he is willing to acknowledge that a significant influence on his values, sense of right and wrong, morals, and ethics are derived, not from scientific atheism or his independent powers of reason but inherited from the impact of being marinaded in the New Testament gospels and epistles in England and elsewhere for many centuries.
Whereas Tom Holland’s re-evaluation of Christianity has led him back to actual faith in Christ, not so with Richard Dawkins:
‘Presumably what happened to Jesus was what happens to all of us when we die. We decompose. Accounts of Jesus's resurrection and ascension are about as well-documented as Jack and the Beanstalk’
(This, of course, would have been my own position before I examined the evidence that Dawkins distances himself from, claiming it doesn’t exist).
The question that emerges from the ‘splintering’ of the new atheists and the acceptance of the label ‘Cultural Christianity’ from various commentators like Dawkins, is ‘What is the difference between a Cultural Christian and a Christian believer?
For evangelical Christians, the answer may be as straightforward as differentiating between Jupiter and Mars, Sibelius and Sinatra, or cats and dogs. In evangelical terms unless and until someone has made a conscious decision to ‘leave their nets to follow Christ’ (whatever that might look like for each individual) and profess their faith in Jesus risen from the dead, they are not ‘born again’, not ‘saved’, not part of the church, and therefore, not a Christian.
For those who have a more sacramental view, the grace of God is at work in someone’s life by participating in rituals such as infant baptism or communion/Mass, whether or not they have a ‘conversion’ experience dividing their non-Christian past from their Christian future.
Let us consider these words of Jesus:
‘He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me…and whoever gives one of these little ones a glass of water… will not lose his reward’ Matt 10v40, 42
Am I blurring the lines?
I think I am, but only because of Jesus’s words in this verse and similar verses. The bible asserts that God looks on the heart. If so, only God can know what ‘receiving Christ’ looks like in each individual. And only God can truly know if a human heart is set in stone against His Son, Jesus Christ, and will not submit to His Lordship.
I have asked groups of Christians how many had a ‘conversion experience’ and can pinpoint the place and the time when they left their nets to follow Christ, and how many had more of a dimmer-switch experience and cannot pinpoint a moment of decision, but the reality of Christ dawned on them over time. The ratio has always been 50:50.
My own experience is that I can pinpoint the moment. It was as I opened my mouth to say the Creed during an otherwise unremarkable CoE Series 3 Communion service, at All Saints, Whitstable on Sunday 11th January 1976. And, because the liturgy is so precise, that must have been at approximately 10.50 in the morning!
On reflection though, can I really say that this moment divides time into two halves? The first time I can remember wanting to follow Christ was in 1964, twelve years before…aged 6…during a school assembly when the gospel story of the disciples leaving their nets to follow Christ. In my 6-year-old self, I was ready to do just that!
What is the difference between a Cultural Christian and a Christian believer?
In the intervening years, I absorbed the commonly held agnosticism of the times, but what I knew of the New Testament was still creating questions that I only found answers to many years later.
So I cannot tell you, from Christ’s perspective, when He captured me and won my heart and allegiance; maybe it was long before I capitulated consciously to Him.
Possibly the most dramatic conversion story still known as a Damascus road conversion (or Damascene conversion as some say it) – is of the Pharisee Saul - later known as St Paul. Surely this is evidence enough that life can be divided into two halves? But note carefully what Jesus said to Paul:
‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads’ Acts 9v5
Despite his implacable opposition to the gospel, and believers his opposition was hurting him; he was ‘kicking against the goads’. Each campaign, each arrest, or murder was like kicking a cactus thorn. A process was going on in his deepest being, possibly unknown to Saul, certainly resisted by him. Eventually, though, it was decision time. Over the following days, blinded in his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, and in a terrible state staying in Damascus, and with Ananias preaching to him, Saul came to a moment of decision. This is what the New Testament records:
‘He arose and was baptised’ Acts 9v18
Later he would testify that God had called him from the womb to be an apostle. When he looked back, he saw how God had been at work in his life bringing him to the point of decision and baptism.
In conclusion, we can be certain about two things:
• We cannot see what is going on in the hearts of those around us with respect to their relationship to Christ
• Whether someone calls themselves a cultural Christian or not, at the point of decision, no one can remain on the fence…for long.
The phrase ‘Cultural Christian’ is a fairly new catchphrase that many others apart from Professor Dawkins may start to use. But it can only be a holding position. Eventually, Cultural Christians will have to make up their minds about the resurrection; and ‘leave everything to follow Him’ and confess that Jesus is Lord, or take the awesome decision to refuse Christ.