The skeptic, the Christian, and the question they lead me to ask

By Mark A. Taylor

Two opinion pieces published in nationally read newspapers Easter weekend stopped me in my tracks.

While they present what seem to be competing views of reality, together they lead me to one question. Keep reading, and I’ll share it at the end.

Praising godlessness

The most notorious and widely quoted piece appeared Good Friday in the Los Angeles Times. The writer, Pitzer College associate dean Phil Zuckerman, suggests “Why America’s record godlessness is good news for the nation.”

Zuckerman first describes the decline in American religious activity today: falling church membership and attendance, waning belief in the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, the rise of atheism, and the increasing percentage of Americans classed as “nones,” i.e., those with no religious affiliation. By his definition of godlessness, it most certainly is on the rise.

By his definition of godlessness, it most certainly is on the rise.

He then points to predominantly secular western democracies (Japan, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Australia, Canada, and Uruguay) where secularization has occurred “simply because people living in these societies lose interest in the whole religious enterprise.” In such places, he says, the majority support a wide range of beliefs and practices debated and often rejected by religious conservatives in this country: universal healthcare, gay rights, environmental protections, gun safety legislation, support of the scientific method. General agreement with and adoption of each of these, in Zuckerman’s opinion, leads to all-around “dignity, liberty, and well-being.”

Donald J. Trump delivered remarks at the Liberty University commencement ceremony, May 13, 2017. Photo by Shealah Craighead.

Meanwhile, he says the “whole religious enterprise” has contributed to factors alienating those outside the church: an increasingly strident religious right, the evangelical-Republican alliance, an anti-gay agenda, and the Catholic Church’s sex abuse problems. Zuckerman has read the quotes and seen the headlines around issues like these and decided that religion is a force for harm in our society.

Maybe we wouldn’t agree, but certainly we can concur with the foundation of Zuckerman’s frustration: Religion alone will not make a better world. This has been true since long before his examples even existed. As my boss used to say, “More wars have been fought about religion than any other issue.”

But faith is another matter. And that leads to the second essay. This one, published in the Wall Street Journal the day before Easter, came from Robert Barron, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Titled “Recovering the Strangeness of Easter,” Barron’s piece says the story of Christ’s resurrection is filled with “novelty and surprise,” exactly the last thing we’d expect to encounter at a cemetery.

Stained glass window of the Resurrection of Jesus in St. Julie Billiart parish (St. Stephen's) in Hamilton, Ohio. Photo by Robert Richter

Convinced of the resurrection

Barron points out several ways this story is unique.

• It doesn’t read like a myth, but instead as an historical narrative. The bishop points out that myths tell fantastic stories not located in a specific time. But this is a fact-based account, grounded in verifiable details of Roman rule and filled with incidents of Christ’s contemporaries talking and eating with the resurrected Jesus. Furthermore, preachers like Paul were driven to share and ultimately die for the truth that Jesus is Lord, in a time when Caesar claimed that title for himself alone. A myth would not motivate such passion or sacrifice.

• Second, it ratifies the claims of Christ about himself. Jesus had spoken and acted like God throughout his ministry, a fact hated by the Jewish establishment and not fully understood by his own disciples—until after the resurrection. In the centuries since then, Barron points out, believers have echoed the conviction of Thomas whose doubt was dispelled only after he saw and touched the wounds in the body of the resurrected Jesus. “My Lord and my God,” he proclaimed. And so do we.

• Third, Barron says the resurrection shows us “God’s love is more powerful” than anything else the world has seen. Why would God the Son come to earth just to suffer and sacrifice? Love is the only answer.

Demonstrating love

But I’m wondering if the first essayist, Phil Zuckerman, has ever experienced this kind of love from devout Christians. Has he seen from the church only political posturing and bluster? Has he never come across Christians with a self-sacrificing compulsion to share good news? Has he heard more angry or afraid self-defense from Christian spokesmen than gracious invitations to connect with the living God?

Where is the Christian friend, as patient with him as God is with each of us, who would invest the time to show Zuckerman the beauty of Jesus?

Where is the Christian to show Zuckerman the beauty of Jesus?

Barron says the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection creates for believers “a moral imperative to make him unambiguously the center of our lives.” Ah, but too often my commitment has been ambiguous at best, and that points out the problem. Phil Zuckerman is right to decide mere religion holds little hope for our troubled society. But what about neighborhoods full of people sold out to the mandates of Jesus? What about everyday Christians expressing daily the kind of love Jesus demonstrated, especially to those excluded from society’s center? 

We need to listen to skeptics like Zuckerman as well as scholars like Barron. Together they challenge every believer, not to fight against godlessness, but to demonstrate godliness.

If Christians will replace the trappings and traditions of religion with a transformed lifestyle, bored or alienated nonbelievers will notice. Which leads me to my question: As I ponder the implication of each essay’s conclusion, I’m wondering, What are the Phil Zuckermans in my life deciding as they watch my so-called Christian life?

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