McCracken Sermon, 1965-12-12, Atheism In Our Time

it's been it used to be said that atheism is a rare open new and very seldom met with no one knows what he's talking about would say that today atheism is the orsay show i meet all communist countries comprising something like one third of the population of the world and it is established in the us as well as in the east

the view not confined to intellectuals is widespread that belief in god do is amiss arranging this show dish sees there in the course of its evolution the human mind as outgrow when nietzsche the nineteenth century philosopher proclaimed a god is dead a little attention was paid to him he had had a mental breakdown and it was easy to write him off as neurotic mr angell way his proclamation has proved prophetic for that probably has never been a period in

history when the conviction was as common as it is no but this is a godless world it happens to be a conviction hailed an propounded by some christian thinkers john robinson author of honesty blog has written an audible when you're reformation which has her own appendix untitled cannot truly temporary person not be an atheist robinson is called by many people in britain the atheist bishop and in the judgment of something that appendix he has advanced a stronger case for atheism land

close he is and the bishops are writing staff and seventies compared with those all three christian american thinkers paul van buren william hamilton thomas and that said it quote a statement made by thomas allen set of emory university because it is typical off the new vertical movement in theology we are not simply saying that modern man is incapable of believing in op or that modern culture is an eye doctors flight from the presence of god or given that we exist in a time in

which god has chosen to be silent in so far as the theologians speaks off the death of god and actually means what he says he is speaking off the death of god himself he is saying that because god has disappeared from history he is no longer present for faith but he is truly absent she is not simply a hidden from view and therefore he is truly dead statements of that sort of shocked and old graves many many christians that have been for months of letters of protest and demands that man who believe that god is dead she would not be permitted to teach and universities in theological seminaries

for my own pop i call what jb priestly not the christians said about two british atheists got them stand being told by professor air and money to alaska that he doesn't exist but i remind myself also the radical know very radical bill is not a new phenomenon in believing set close in christian circles for my scar tissue that roamed eyesight two instances thomas chalmers median judgment of his days writing without a hold on price that is no hold on god a toll and marcus roberts the ceo jim explaining admittedly

anadarko explaining if only one could be sure of god the bible tells of people will grapple with the most devastating of doug's jeremiah for some of us of the old testament prophets jeremiah wondered whether god had become the city's words as the remote runs dry a spring that feelings job said about a search for god i go full of what he is not there and backward but i cannot perceive him on the us and i seek him but i cannot be older my turn to the right hand but i cannot see and carmody didn't stop their yuan editor went on to write but he knows the way that it nor can we leave out of reckoning

the cry of the election on the lips of jesus in the gospel according to mark which was the first of the gospels inclined to appear his last spoke in kai's mosque mr my god my god why has slowed forsaken me asks william hamilton if jesus and wondered about being forsaken by god i need to be blamed if we wonder some of you have been listening to me preach over the beauty and almost twenty years your normal fundamental for me beliefs in the godfather of our lord jesus christ is i don't know a bleak for the bodies to theologians but i do suggest that instead of denying them it again instead of castigate him we try to understand

what they're saying why they're seeing it what they're substituting for the faith they have discarded as the new chairman of the beleaguered emory university politically was appealing to irate alumni what is seriously propulsion should always be seriously considered even a nod to moderate heat them we ought to be confronted with ideas with which we violently disagree one lands far more from reading the works of thinkers who disturb and challenging them from thinkers who confirm his own opinions we can unlearn you know from radical dope dealers they are things

to say to us that are important and here again the past has lessons to teach as rufus jones wrote a book and called it the churches debt the heretics i hadn't been studying sepsis today very long before i noticed that every time i had a saber raised its head there was a fresh affirmation affirmation of faith on the formulation of the historic day it is the heretics or forced the church to deplete its mind yes and who have opened up to the church new insights and tools one that also the deepest thinking about law and price and men and so it may be with lee or radical theologians of today sites when they say he

has made at once at once the question arises it wants aid and says he alive for us because do you know what i'm going to tell you and after twenty years i know you pretty well they're passionate and beliefs is at a convention their concern is a challenge to our complacency they denied the existence of god but nothing is really you know from their writings than that they are obsessed by him they're like spinoza who was called the god intoxicated philosopher and we anything like that i dont think we got mr stiller live themself of us today

i will say one thing boldly and freely nobody in this life is mia of god and those who deny him and he has no more pleasing no more dear children that leaves a lot of all would've been dead leading by that i'm indebted father quotation to will have been and have been offers this interpretation of it the passionate and believe or who denies maybe all wrong in his ideas but at least he takes the cdc this kind of i don't believe it is normally i mean believe that he is a man who is all life as irs fiddling with the blog was your mind is preoccupied with the problem of faith

whatever else he may do he does not take god for grant he does not commit the ultimate sin or the indifference for that reason rather insists he is near to drop an idea to him some of you may think that it is a mistake to hope to be devoting time to a handful of radical theologians you may feel the layout and no sense more representative of the mainstream of christian thought the right of course you may feel that they should read that nietzsche and come home with an n but hoffler lesson study the bible a lot more and you may want to remind me of that into a statistical evidence fewer than one percent of the american people think of themselves

formally as atheists yes but i in giving sufficient weight to another bit of evidence are substantial evidence namely that increasing numbers so this man of affairs businessman scientists writers students adopting a negative attitude toward traditional religious beliefs and on a boat a professed faith in the god worshipped in the church is a personal god the god of the bible you see the two types of atheists that are theoretical atheists and then a practical atheists the number of the fall more undoubtedly is increasing in a secure a sculpture the latter constitute by far the majority of the population this is the case in the united states since the

case pitted nearly all around the world by practical a season i mean people live who lives from day to day as though there were noble people sold the word god no longer connects with anything concrete in their lights except with whatever happens to be less coal when all the other vital connections have been made the rituals of religion that says children about ty's couple of my shirt that shows however frequently army uniform upset out of conformity to a long established past this is the case with a great deal of church attendance as well who across the atlantic the masses of the church is high and i and when i say the masses i don't

simply means the workers i mean the middle class i mean the property loss they've left hand not so that europe the cradle of christian process is now it's all major mission field all of this points to one religion religious convictions religious experience ending in that place often all but it's less is an attitude as vague as mapping job despite its people it's not what you believe that is important it's how you lose that helps bishop robinson maintains that most people today our practical atheists and he spells out partisan homes by saying that for them god is

intellectually surpass humans he has a hypothesis the spends he says that for them he is emotionally dispensable they can go through the experiences of life without resorting to them and he says that in a world with too many tragedies custom that american soldier who lost both of his eyes and his right leg with too many tragedies personal and socially he is morally in colorado this is a bishop this isn't the contrast this as a bishop describing what he sees well what about our sailors do we do even though it's not a question to

answer on the spot of the moment it should only be announced soon after we have said reviewed the way in which we live our lives and considered well in what we actually put our final dress i would say that would lean on this is the one to avoid and when i meet people who are content she herself the goddess <unk> theologians and cop schuler about their own belief in god and talk about in mississippi what a man on the street and allow themselves on limited license of dogmatic affirmation about the most profound questions of existence i wonder i wonder whether they had a weight to what is going on around them whether they

have any gospel the dime editions of the problem for christianity any any feeling too foreign looking for whom god the word god has lost all meaning the people following god is no more except for sky blue souls william james frey's belief in god is difficult sky blue so so i was humble souls of engine artistic learned that mike optional than ever but the rest of the season bowl this is difficult isn't it difficult for us because i'm going to say this however care how the care no don't be critical of those sorely haltingly believe law can't believe the toll that they may come you know when something

will happen some lost some grief some sort trouble that will leave you no question it's going to keep the faith it won't necessarily be something that happens to you walk to somebody in your family sir it may be that you will become acutely aware suddenly aware awareness never before but i was after my first visitation of the giant actor and also wouldn't and that you'll find yourself asking how do with the world as it is can only endured i asked that question i mean i ask it for myself i can't understand how any thoughtful sensitive person can avoid

some time in his life asking that question i have to do battle for my faith and on especially since nineteen fifty eight something that one of my teachers got a family of cambridge has helped me he said that he had settled with himself that without running away from goats and christian ins for often through those boats and questioning he had come to her deeper he was always going to put the greater emphasis on faith he was always going to put his notes in the doc fest he was going to die without doubt before he doubted faith when it came

to an issue he was going deliberately and consciously to thrust his belief in his faith that be something within him which affirmed goal which said yes to the broad revealed in the new testament and he was going to try to direct his life accordingly well this impresses me years since seattle and sound and intelligent as i say it has helped me and i passed it onto you because it may help you in line with him and for its artful my class my daily threats and my final session in christ's interpretation of life i say with joy of snafus son of man whenever i don't love life

i think of the crisis soul the reality of things the good and the right and wrong belief and and really saw the reality of things look healey than anybody i know and live strong and die for that reality to me it is incredible that he was deluded that is rat fleas end going to be accountants law and explained as mystical fantasy or wishful thinking psychological self projection how hutu of faith owned and on an illusion have produced such a character such sexual life when i asked myself which

is more likely to be a write my doubts or his certainties the answer is obvious and apple mike stressed in his certainties and didn't that something the inside me which rises to which responds to and curtis is the scent for my and right now it is a memo obtained an inappropriate subject some of you may have been thinking with christmas on yeah i thought so too and practically made up my mind to show the subject until a new year than in restaurants and shops i had

the christmas cards and i looked at the people around the boatman and running through my mind was bishop robinson's victim most of us today are practical effects and the conviction to hoard of me that i must not show the subject of atheist but i must deal with it in an event but gotten from speaking about it to speak about him who came to reveal god who was such an old guard who lives from that certainty and i thought that certainty and has inspired that sincerely that certainty on their own the ages think about him about his birth in bethlehem is barring organizing

his appearance by the wake of galileo his preaching and teaching and mighty work think about his death and resurrection and he's hindu wedding patients don't know a thing about an aunt don't you know about this before you know that to which all that its highest and finest and this in new look really primes rice is the way and the truth and the life and to hand and his vision of broad you can commit you're being and your whole life