Why atheism should celebrate its evangelicalism

A guest post by James Garth a Fellow of ISCAST with an active interest in the science/faith interface.

In a couple of weeks’ time the iconoclastic author and religious critic Sam Harris will visit Australia on a tour sponsored by Think Inc. I’ve written before of my admiration for Harris as a writer. I’m openly envious of his ability to craft sentences of impressive precision and economy. The taglines that Think Inc has used to promote his events are similarly punchy and thrifty. One in particular caught my eye: “Out with evangelicalism. In with evidence”!

I think “out with evangelicalism” is quite an ironic way of marketing Harris when evangelicalism is precisely what launched the New Atheism and made it influential in popular culture. This may sound like a counter-intuitive or even outrageous claim, so allow me to explain.

The etymology of the term “evangelical” is key here. I spent a lot of time researching it when we named our third son Evan. It turns out that the word’s history is much richer and deeper than its rather limited present-day use. Nowadays it’s frequently a pejorative for young earth creationism and the American religious right (doubtless what Think Inc had in mind).

But if we go back to Roman times, we find the Greek term “euangelion” was a term widely used to proclaim the great deeds of the emperor Augustus. It translates as “good news” or “gospel”. It was a military term; when a conquest had been made messengers would proclaim that the Pax Romana (the peace and prosperity of Rome) had now been established. And that was a good thing - now you don’t need to worry about the barbarians or endless fighting anymore!

So the term relates to a message which is willingly propagated because it is perceived to be good news worth spreading.

That’s the essence that the early Christians wanted to evoke when they co-opted the term in a subversive manner to proclaim their ‘gospel’ – that it was Jesus, not Caesar, who was Lord, and that his message of forgiveness and reconciliation was the true good news. Good news worth spreading.

Which brings us back to Harris, and the distinctives which make the New Atheism “new”. As atheist philosopher Massimo Pigliucci and Christian thinker Alister McGrath have both argued, there isn’t really much that’s new in this movement when it comes to substantive philosophical or intellectual content. The arguments it champions are essentially modern glosses on ideas previously proposed by Hume, Voltaire, Huxley, Nietzsche, Russell, Sartre, Mackie and others.

What is new is the fervour, the candour, the grassroots participation, the robust desire for engagement that has contributed to its popular reception.

This stands in stark contrast to the atheism of a generation ago. About twenty years ago I read this striking comment by Keith Parsons in his essay in the 1988 book ‘Does God Exist?’:

“.. why should atheists be at all interested in convicting theists of irrationality? Atheists are seldom interested in gaining converts: They don’t preach on TV, ring doorbells to prostelytize, or visit school yards to hand out copies of the works of Bertrand Russell.” (p178)

My, how things have changed!

And it’s easy to see why. By his own admission, the horror of the 9/11 terror attacks was what stimulated Harris into action. The very next day he picked up his pen to start writing his first book, the bestselling ‘The End of Faith’.

When an author is spurred to action, stirred by passion, to spread a message that he thinks will produce real change in the world, that’s evangelical.

When copies of ‘The God Delusion’ are intentionally mailed to MPs, that movement has become evangelical.

When an influential thinker like Peter Boghossian argues for proactive “street epistemology” - that actively dis-abusing religious people of their faith through a series of Socratic dialogues and deliberate interventions is a good thing - that’s evangelical.

When large groups of people gather to hear motivational-style speakers gather at slickly produced conferences, where commitment and political involvement is urged, that’s evangelical.

You don’t pay $334 for front row seats to hear someone deliver a message about a worldview with no content!

So I think the new atheist community would be well-served to re-badge its founding authors (Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris) not as the “four horsemen”, but instead as the “four evangelists”. That would be an equally witty but far more accurate description.

And there’s nothing wrong with owning it. There’s nothing wrong with being evangelical if you genuinely believe the message that you’re spreading is good news. Obama’s 2008 campaign was explicitly evangelical. The movement to recruit support for global action on climate change has distinctly evangelical elements.

So to those attending Sam Harris’ lectures, I wish you all the best. May they stimulate your thinking.

May they help you to cultivate genuine compassion. May they encourage you to pursue intellectual integrity and a deep willingness to reflect critically upon your own worldview and the worldviews of others.

But most importantly, may they help you to become more conscious of the evangelical aspects of your own thinking, and the movements with which you associate. And by doing so, hopefully this may help you to reflect more positively on the motivations that undergird those of us who, as Christians, hold to a different worldview. If we can use these events as an opportunity to promote better understanding, we will all be the better for it.

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