The Patriot Post® · Dawkins the So-Called 'Cultural Christian'

Richard Dawkins, famed evolutionary biologist and member of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, might be more honest than many self-proclaimed Christians. “I count myself a cultural Christian,” he said on Easter Sunday. “I’m not a believer,” he reiterated, but “I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.” How many people who occasionally show up in churches should admit the same thing?

Indeed, that self-reflection is important for anyone who claims to be Christian but probably isn’t. I’ll come back to that.

What prompted Dawkins’s comments? It wasn’t Joe Biden and “Transgender Day of Visibility,” though last year Dawkins did say, “There are two sexes, and that’s all there is to it.” No, this time he was alarmed that London Mayor Sadiq Khan turned on 30,000 lights in the UK’s capital to celebrate Ramadan just in time for Easter and what that means for British and Western culture.

“I must say I’m slightly horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted instead,” Dawkins said. “I feel that we are a Christian country.”

He added: “It’s true that statistically, the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down, and I’m happy with that, but I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So, I count myself a cultural Christian. I think it would matter if we … substituted any alternative religion — that would be truly dreadful.”

The contrast between the world’s two biggest religions drove Dawkins to speak up. “If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam,” he said, “I’d choose Christianity every single time. I mean, it seems to be to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that Islam is not.” He says Christianity is “not great” on women’s rights, but the “holy books of Islam” promote “active hostility to women.” He continued, “I’m not talking about individual Muslims, who, of course, are all quite different, but the doctrines of Islam … [are] fundamentally hostile to women, hostile to gays, and I find that I like to live in a culturally Christian country, although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith.” He went on to specifically reject key Christian doctrines, such as the virgin birth of Jesus and his resurrection.

Dawkins’s comments were notable primarily because he has been so hostile to Christianity for so long. He literally wrote a book called The God Delusion and encouraged his own followers to “ridicule and show contempt for” Christians. He’s called training up children in Christianity worse than sexual abuse. The whole point of New Atheism is that religion shouldn’t simply be tolerated but opposed at every turn.

That Dawkins would even begin to entertain the idea that maybe Christianity isn’t so bad is monumental. May it be the beginning of a conversion. Even the thief on the cross converted just before he died. Even Saul, the relentless persecutor of Christians, became the Apostle Paul.

Which brings us back to the matter of true Christianity versus cultural Christianity. The Washington Examiner’s Kaylee McGhee White poses a relevant question: “Why is this faith the most conducive to a free and just society? Indeed, why are its tenets undeniably linked to human flourishing? Could it be because Christianity is rooted in an unchanging truth about who we are and what we need?”

It’s a lousy foundation if all someone believes is that Christmas carols are nice and parish churches are pretty. Christianity is so powerful because its tenets are rooted in fundamental truths about humanity and our relationship to our Creator. If Jesus was just a good teacher and not the sinless Son of God, then His death on the cross is just a sad event in history — never mind His resurrection. And if none of that is true, then what’s the point of the cultural influence?

As our “Pop Culture Contrarian” podcast team discusses today, truth without love results in nothing more than a struggle for dominance and people chanting “Christ is King” as a cudgel rather than a sign of submission and worship.

On the other hand, love without truth yields people like Joe Biden, who is hostile to Christianity while pretending to adhere to it.

Cultural Christianity is the path to beautiful but empty cathedrals. It’s nice to hear Dawkins tone down his criticism and even offer a defense of traditions, but what he’s advocating now is precisely why Christianity is in decline in the West — it’s merely a cultural shell that is largely bereft of its deeply spiritual and life-changing truth.