Like many people who lost faith, I felt anger with myself for having been ‘conned’ by such a story. I began to rail against Christianity, and wrote a book, entitled Jesus, which endeavoured to establish that he had been no more than a messianic prophet who had well and truly failed, and died.
Why did I, along with so many others, become so dismissive of Christianity?
Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.
To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious.
What a wonderful story. Thank you so much for posting it.
Well, welcome back. I remember how disappointed I was when I read A.N. Wilson’s biography of C.S. Lewis. It was shortly afterward that I discovered he had become an atheist. It is heartening to find out that apostasy is not always permanent. Malcolm Muggeridge would be happy.
How strange and deeply touching. I believe that the biography of C.S. Lewis is, on the whole, a very good book. Among other things, it alerted me to The Abolition of Man. Of course, you could hear the sneer in Wilson’s voice when he discussed the “trilemma” (either Jesus was a liar, or insane, or he was telling the truth) — except I’m not much impressed with the trilemma either. What’s so touching about this is the directness and simplicity of the position Wilson finally reached. Very uplifting — and thanks for posting it.
Wow. I would never have guessed from the pen of A. N. Wilson would come such a powerful piece. Welcome back, indeed.
Believer to atheist to overconfident believer. It’s amazing how some people are incapable of any belief but the extremes. Maybe ten years from now he’ll be an atheist again.
[url=http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism]Here[/url] is some more from A.N. Wilson, from an article published in early April, 2009 at New Statesman:
[blockquote]When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love. It is not that (as they believe) they have rumbled the tremendous fraud of religion – prophets do that in every generation. Rather, these unbelievers are simply missing out on something that is not difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is too obvious to understand; obvious, as lovers feel it was obvious that they should have come together, or obvious as the final resolution of a fugue.
I haven’t mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler’s neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer’s serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.
My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God “a category mistakeâ€. Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . ‘The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.†And then Coleridge adds: “‘And man became a living soul.’ Materialism will never explain those last words.†[/blockquote]
[blockquote]The Easter story answers their questions about the spiritual aspects of humanity. It changes people’s lives because it helps us understand that we, like Jesus, are born as spiritual beings.Every inner prompting of conscience, every glimmering sense of beauty, every response we make to music, every experience we have of love – whether of physical love, sexual love, family love or the love of friends – and every experience of bereavement, reminds us of this fact about ourselves. [/blockquote] He has crafted some excellent thoughts. When I was in a state of unbelief about Christ, I think I actually hated Him and disliked people who professed belief in Him. Of course that says more about how black my heart was than who He was. I never confronted my late mother about her faith since I suspect at some level I understood that to be holy ground. She probably prayed me back into the Kingdom, for God courted me with the patient love of my mother.
Thank you, #7; my son is sadly taking a break from faith right now, and your words touch me deeply.
#5 Sidney: Help us out here, where is the “over-confident” part in this article? I’m missing it.
The New Statesman piece was particularly rewarding, Brien. Thank you for the link.
Wilson’s writing here demonstrates an acute sensitivity to one of the key aspects of modernity and “post-modernity†– the healing of the rift between mind and heart. His return to faith, much to be welcomed, reflects an awareness of the absolutely necessity of mending this “great divorce†which has led us to the materialist-consumerist-ideological-secularist mess we see around us today. The secularist/rationalist dogma is, of course, doomed. Wilson’s thoughts point to the positive work of the Church, its speaking to the wreckage of meaning and moral coherence around us, bringing the Good News to the denizens of a god-forsaken, self-loathing, and increasingly nihilistic society. In many ways, I think it is the Church’s role to teach us how to love again, based on the love of the Holy Three. Only that will awaken people to the utter vacuity and meanness of the “new atheism.â€
So many times, when tempted to become despairing about the cultural situation, I am reminded that the Prodigal can only come back to the love of the Father after the journey to a “distant land,†after he has rejected the Father’s care and essentially said: “drop dead.†In our desire for a bit of realized eschatology, we occasionally forget that the journey back to the heart of God necessarily requires a fall from that blessed place. Wilson’s thoughts here open up a lot to think about with regard to the mission field in which we find ourselves today.
First, however, we shall have to evangelize the older portions of the Anglican Communion. Wilson is speaking from a place of having learned the inherent worth of the Faith, however tentative his hold on it (which I interpret as a greater degree of humility than in his previous life as a disciple). His critique of our current ecclesiastical leadership is spot-on. We have created a hospital without physicians, where health is almost the enemy. With certain allowances for different eras, it is strikingly like the C of E of about 200 years ago. Let us pray this current spiritual desert in leadership is the prelude to an era of renewal and the kind humility Wilson evinces here.