Imagine you are one of the most famous — and influential — public intellectuals in the world. You are a highly educated, sophisticated, urbane, and successful individual.
You possess a cool English accent and a disarming smile.
You have written bestselling books, are in demand globally as a speaker, and have amassed a huge following of people over a several decades whose thinking you have influenced deeply.
When your name is searched on Google or Youtube, the hits seem endless.
You are incredibly famous for ... attacking Christianity.
Then one day you're walking down the streets of your city — London — and you see lights strung up in celebration of … Ramadan?
You recall no such public celebration for Easter.
And you realize your victory may have been a Pyrrhic one. Perhaps you didn't toss your grenade far enough. Maybe all your winning was in fact a whole lotta losing.
Welcome to being Richard Dawkins, the World's Most Famous Atheist.
Upon reaching the astounding conclusion that when Christianity is slowly edited out of a culture, it will always be replaced by something else, Dawkins recently said he prefers Christianity to Islam, and proclaims with something like the voice of a very confused prophet "I am a cultural Christian."
This is like inventing the automobile and then deciding that horses were better. Or figuring out that it is much more pleasant to be offended by a sermon (which you would not be forced to listen to anyways) than to have your head sawn off by a jihadist when you reject his sermon.
My first question is "what good things do you think you get out of being a ‘Cultural Christian'"?
And the second is like it: "Why do you think this will give you a better outcome than the anti-Christian world you were hoping to build?"
Let's consider the second first.
You'd have to be entirely clueless at this point in history to think that an invasive, non-assimilating Islamic culture in England would bring preferable living conditions for non-Muslims. Why do you think it is that many Muslim peoples move to the Netherlands, Germany and France, England, and the US and Canada? Are you puzzled that there is no similar movement in the opposite direction?
Name one non-Muslim you know who has moved to Afghanistan.
Pakistan.
Iran.
Just one. Have you even heard of such a thing?
Why is this?
Simple.
The Culture of the West — in the form of the modern secular state, has broadly speaking been built upon two foundations: Classical Liberal Enlightenment principles, and Christian thought and practice. The latter I love, and the former I have a deeply skeptical appreciation for.
In the West after the 18th century, generally speaking, ‘The State' is not a religious force, and the Church is not a political entity. Modern nation states (theoretically) permit people to believe and practice as they see fit, with very few interventions, and religious entities do not run governments.
This is the opposite of the order of things in an Islamic state — which is the very point of an Islamic state. The government is theocratic, and the religious system is what drives the government.
In America you can be a practicing Muslim. In Afghanistan, it is very, very difficult to be a practicing Baptist or Presbyterian.
That is the goal of the theocratic state — to create a "pure" people, united in their religious belief and practice: to have a fully shared and homogenous cultural life.
Christianity — especially in the post-Reformation world — is not a colonialist empire, so to speak. But Islam is — that is what it is at its core. If you don't believe me, then do two things: read the Koran, and look carefully at the 1,200-year history of expansionist Islamic states. Forced expansionism is the essence of Islam.
Richard Dawkins has spent a significant part of his career as an antagonist against Christianity, working hard to make Christians look like fools, uneducated rubes, believers in an ancient dead mythology.
As he has observed Islam beginning to take cultural hegemony over Britain, he has found himself increasingly worried at the results.
I wonder if he has considered what Islamic Law says about atheists?
That's right — 'misbelievers' — non-Muslim religious people and atheists are lumped together and are at risk of life imprisonment (for women) and death (for men) in some Muslim countries.
Poor Richard.
He is rather like the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-30): I want the benefits, but not the costs.
And in a Western country, at least thus far, you can actually do that — the benefits of a more or less Christianity-influenced culture, without being a Christian.
But if you have been tearing down the foundations of one of the main reasons that has made your life in England so good, so free, so blessed — do not be surprised at what rushes into its place.
