Atheism and Apostasy Not the Right Road

In October past I announced that The Telegram, our province’s largest daily newspaper, had accepted me onto their Community Editorial Board, and at the same time I also posted my first editorial.

Here’s my second editorial, published in Wednesday’s paper.

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Atheism and apostasy not the right road

Many people seem to think that the atheism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens is building great momentum. But can their philosophy be properly described as simply atheism? Or is it something much more sinister than merely denying God? To me it gives evidence of being oftentimes aggressively anti-Christian and anti-God. Shouldn’t it be better labeled as the spirit of anti-Christ? Is that too shocking and dramatic to say? I don’t think so but whatever it might

be called there is no doubt that a historically unique movement of people has been forming. Certainly these individuals disavow any connection to an oftentimes hypocritical and repugnant form of Christianity broken loose from its moorings in a post modern world. But again I ask whether what we are seeing is an expression of a fierce spirit of apostasy which has been breeding within the ranks of organized Christian bodies over long periods and which is now disguised as atheism.

Because atheism and apostasy pose grave threats to our well being as a society, I propose a review of some of the uncomplicated cultural distinctives throughout two millennia that have set the true Christian apart from the surrounding, and often godless, culture.

Maybe this review will prove helpful to the reader in assessing any question of apostasy and thereby any culpability in sustaining a post-modern “Christian” society overwhelmed by a culture of death. If so, it might count as a service to the soul since, I assume, we all wish to avoid the “terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries” [Hebrews 10:27], a reference to the future, and personal, encounter with God by all those who forsake Him.

In particular, those who shepherd the flock of God and who are sharply warned by Scripture against leading God’s little ones astray are urged to seriously consider this review. I suggest that the following historic Christian distinctives ought to urgently and intently preoccupy us.

1. Evangelizing society with unassailable drive. Preach Jesus Christ as the only way to be reconciled to God.
2. Viewing earthly life as a temporary residence. All thought and action must be accounted for and is a preparation for heaven to come. Choosing against Christ is choosing separation from God forever in hell.
3. Christians the most generous of people, giving up possessions, talents and even their lives for God and neighbour. Unparalleled hospitality and radical relief of the poor and the sick.
4. Christians bestowing great dignity, love and justice upon even the lowliest sinner, criminal or slave. Unequivocal opposition to abortion and infanticide.
5. Christians, the servants of all, ministering to others as unto Christ Himself. This revolutionized Christian leadership as well as the world of business and politics.
6. Christian marriage and the family replacing the State as the cornerstone of a new civilization. No sex outside marriage. All sexual activity, both heterosexual and otherwise, aimed at circumventing procreation constitutes a perversion of God’s order and an abomination. Strictly practiced by all Christians until first defied in the 1930’s by the Anglicans who sought exemption for birth control. Marriage and the family have not since recovered. Neither have the Anglicans, nor every Christian body which followed them, nor society in general.

Clearly we have strayed from the path. With courage we must return.