Two years ago I sat down for coffee with an ACU student who had immersed himself in the books of the New Atheists: Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens. He was, unsurprisingly, strongly affected by their arguments and wanted to visit with me about my take on all this. Why, he wanted to know, did I believe in Christianity?
For the good part of an hour we talked about the criticisms of the New Atheists. But it soon became apparent to the student that Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens are not really attacking Christianity. They are, rather, attacking a particular brand of Christianity, fundamentalism. So if you aren't a fundamentalist you don't feel particularly critiqued by the New Atheists. True, the New Atheists do criticize "liberal" Christians for creating a culture, by broadly legitimizing religious belief, that allows fundamentalism to flourish. My counterargument is that, as a "liberal" Christian and an insider, I'm much more effective in pushing against the worst strains within the Christian faith than the New Atheists (who are largely just preaching to the choir to sell books).
When we got to this point in the conversation the student still seem frustrated with my epistemology. He wanted black and white answers, true or false. I refused those categories and tried one more time to communicate my point. This is the exchange we had:
Me: "Do you want to live a beautiful life?"
Student: "Huh?"
Me: "Do you want to live a beautiful life?"
Student: "I think so. Yes, I'd like to live a beautiful life."
Me: "Okay. So what kind of life to you think is beautiful? What is your aesthetic?"
Student: "What do you mean 'my aesthetic'?"
Me: "Judgments of beauty require an aesthetic, some criterion which separates the ugly from the beautiful. So if you want to live a beautiful life you need some way of defining beauty. Here's a way to find your aesthetic, ask yourself these questions. Who, living or dead, do you admire the most? What moves you to tears? What shakes your soul? When you get answers to these questions you'll start to see the shape of your aesthetic, what you consider to be a beautiful life."
Student: "Okay, but what does this have to do with Christianity?"
Me: "I'm a Christian because Jesus of Nazareth is my aesthetic. He's how I define a beautiful life. I've noticed in my heart that every time a human action moved my soul or brought tears to my eyes that action reminded me of Jesus. And so, because I want to live a beautiful life, I follow Jesus."
