Should the Church Apologise to Atheists?

National apologies have become a feature of political life around the world. Believing that they have a positive therapeutic effect on those who have been wronged, and claiming that the national conscience (if one can be said to exist) will be cleansed only when the sins of the past are confessed and contrition expressed, an array of apologies have been offered. On behalf of the United States, President Bill Clinton said sorry to the Afro-American community for the slave trade. Speaking for the English people, Prime Minister Tony Blair said sorry to the Irish for failing to relieve the nineteenth-century Irish potato famine. More recently, France and Turkey have been engaged in a bitter feud over the unwillingness of Paris to concede that French forces committed crimes against humanity in its former colony of Algeria in the 1950s while Turkey has been condemned for failing to acknowledge the Armenian genocide of 1915 when as many as a million people were killed.

With the Australian government’s formal apology to the so-called “Stolen Generations” in February this year there will no doubt continue to be calls for collective apologies for past wrongdoings. One group that has yet to seek an apology is atheists. This is a little surprising. After all, those rejecting the sacred texts of Christianity and the temporal discipline of the church have been subjected in the past to physical torture and mental cruelty, they have been refused state employment, debarred from certain professions, suffered deprivation of their property and even denied a dignified burial.

In living memory atheists claim to have been the subject of personal discrimination in daring to promote unbelief and in resisting religion’s domination of the public square. Prominent atheists claim their sincerity is doubted and their honesty questioned because Christians think atheists lack an ethical code and are devoid of a moral conscience.

From Oppression to Oppressors

The first followers of Jesus were personally acquainted with persecution and oppression. Not only were Jewish Christians dislocated from their social and familial networks after the complete break between the church and the synagogue in the fifth decade CE, the Christians were deemed by the imperial authorities in Rome to constitute a dangerous sect entirely lacking in earthly loyalty. There is evidence in the New Testament that the church sought to avoid a clash with the empire by endorsing the authority of its appointed officials and promoting exemplary civil behaviour. This would deny the emperor any pretext for their violent suppression.

The early Christians were thoroughly opposed to the use of any form of coercive force either in the preservation of doctrinal orthodoxy or in the maintenance of religious order. They declined to accept responsibility for the health of the civil order as well. In the writings of Origen (c. 185–254 CE), an Egyptian-born Christian thinker, the underlying theme is the belief that Christians are set apart for a divine purpose: “[Therefore] it is not for the purpose of escaping public duties that Christians decline public offices, but that they may reserve themselves for a diviner and more necessary service in the Church of God—for the salvation of men.” Although Christians had been the subject of systematic oppression and institutionalised prejudice, they did not retaliate and refused to contemplate securing religious liberty for themselves by resort to force. While adherence to these principles brought suffering and hardship, they were clearly and consistently applied because they reflected Christianity’s core convictions about human conscience and personal integrity. It also made the Christians a distinct political and social community within the Roman empire.

This mindset changed dramatically when Flavius Valerius Constantinus became emperor in 306. “Constantine” was conscious of the acute dangers confronting the empire by incursions and invasion from without and by division and social decadence from within. With the Christian church practically constituting an “imperium in imperio” and Christianity having appeal as a potentially revitalising force, Constantine sought to strengthen and invigorate the empire with the active participation of the church. After his “conversion” in 312, he declared Christianity to be a permitted faith and persecution formally ended. But this radically reversed status happened so quickly that the church was not in a position to accept any responsibility for the social and political order of the empire, quite apart from the new challenges this posed for its own internal organisation. Put simply, the church was without a thorough critique or a positive program in discharging these responsibilities in the light of Christian principles. The church was hardly even ready to move from the margins to the mainstream of Roman society. Nevertheless, Emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity to be the empire’s official religion in 380.

It was Augustine of Hippo (354–430) who eventually provided the church with a theological treatise that could also serve the needs of empire. In his most famous work, The City of God, Augustine attempted to refute the charge that Christian “slave morality” and other-worldliness had undermined Roman strength and effectively prepared the way for barbarian invasion. In reply, Augustine believed that “the church might become coextensive with human society as a whole”. There were, he said, two cities. The civitas terrana was a transitory, earthly community where human beings seek power and prosperity intent upon creaturely satisfactions and earthly securities. The civitas Dei was the heavenly community of those whose lives are centred on the things of God. As different as the cities are, they yet have in common a striving for peace—an active, all-pervasive principle in the universe. Temporal harmony was based on the “tranquillity of order”. It involved individuals being in a right relationship with God and the right action of public authorities that are conscious of their subordination to God’s law. Private belief and public action were to be complementary. God would correct civil authorities through his earthly agent, the church. The church would promote the well-being of the state in return for a commitment to defend the church from its temporal adversaries.

After 312, the church in Europe acted as though it carried some responsibility for the stability of the political order and the character of social life. Church leaders sought control of the legislative and executive arms of state power as a means of extending the church’s influence and having the conduct of secular rulers conform to Christian principles. Eventually the church was in a position to appoint or depose emperors, to create and enforce its own laws, execute its own justice and to wage campaigns that would extend the physical bounds of the kingdom of God. The church dropped its former prohibition on coercive force in its embrace of violent means to secure compliance with its teachings and submission to its authority. The most vivid illustrations of this change of heart were the Crusade and the Inquisition.

The Crusade was proclaimed by the bishops and conducted with the church’s authority. It prescribed total victory. Compromise with the Lord’s enemies was unthinkable. The domestic counterpart of the crusades was the “Holy Inquisition”. Heretics threatened religious unity and were a blemish on the Body of Christ—the church. They had to be exposed, prevented from exerting any influence and obliged to recant their error before re-entering communal and sacramental life. While the church wielded a “spiritual sword”, the civil authority had been given a “physical sword” for use against rebels, evildoers, pagans, Jews, schismatics and apostates. And whenever pacifism, the unambiguous position of the early church, took a form other than the vocational pacifism of the clergy, it was associated with “heretical” groups such as the Cathari, Waldensians and Bohemian Brethren that were denounced and suppressed.

The sixteenth-century Reformation in Europe sought, among other things, to disentangle church and state. But the transfer of civil authority from the church to the state—the original objective of secularisation—did not lead to the complete abandonment of coercion with respect to the public standing of those deemed to be heretics or those declaring themselves to be non-believers. Indeed, it was not until the nineteenth century that the ideals of liberty and freedom were extended more fully to encompass religious beliefs. In Anglican England, Lutheran Germany and Catholic France, the church had become accustomed to state support and could rely on temporal means to contain the spread of unorthodox views, although thinkers like Michel Eyquem Montaigne, Pierre Bayle and John Locke tried to show that sins against God, such as heresy and blasphemy, did not justify sins against men, such as the Crusade or the Inquisition.

By the twentieth century, the steady rise of the modern nation-state had changed the mood completely. The state no longer needed the church because it could rely on national loyalty rather than religious sentiment to secure domestic order. While the church had little choice but to observe the emergence of new political institutions and the erosion of its temporal power, it remained free to determine the relationship it would maintain with individual nation-states. In most overtly Christian nations, the churches generally opted for a close relationship, with some organic ties. Being hierarchical in arrangement and conservative in social outlook, the churches tried to be socially inclusive organisations that would seek to exert a spiritual influence upon the whole of life through a system of integrated social and political interactions. To accomplish its objective without creating an intolerable strain between its ideals and reality, the church tended to compromise by adapting its beliefs and convictions to the relativities and exigencies of living in an imperfect world.

An alternative movement, strong in Britain probably perhaps because it had an established church, sought a return to the pre-Constantine clear separation of church and state. It was reminiscent of Mennonite and Anabaptist radical separatism. Noting Jesus’ statement that Christians were “in the world but not of it” (John 17:14–16), it was argued that Christian involvement with secular institutions must be tempered by prudence and conviction. Ralph Inge, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London from 1911 to 1934, concluded an analysis of what he called “theocratic imperialism” by exhorting the church to make a decision:

“I do not think that the political power of the Church is often used for purely religious and moral ends … it is notorious that political Christianity excites bitter hatred against the Church, such as is almost unknown in countries where there is no such organisation … The choice for the Church is between political power and moral influence.”

In the post-1945 world, the churches realised they could no longer rely on the state to promote, preserve or even protect their doctrinal systems. Heresy and blasphemy remained on the statute books, but they were “dead letters”. The only option open to religious authorities determined to curtail atheism was discrimination against atheists. But atheists were not willing to suffer such treatment.

Discriminating against Religious Defaulters

The recent deluge of books disparaging religious faith and denouncing religious institutions has taken most Christians by surprise. The tone and the tenor of these works were unexpected, given that Christians were not involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or in the recent spate of suicide bombings. Despite widespread fears of Islamic fundamentalism and religious violence, the main focus for militant atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris has been the established churches and orthodox Christianity.

Their complaints are long-standing and broad-based. Dawkins asserts that the Christian belief in God is delusional; Hitchens contends that religion poisons everything with which it comes into contact; and Harris argues that religion is the cause of much human misery and should not be tolerated. In each instance, these writers are not content merely to state their own position. They set out to ridicule religion and demean religious faith. They are not academic advocates of atheism as a philosophical response to life’s questions; they are polemicists dedicated to destroying the faith of individuals and driving religion from the public square. They are neither polite nor courteous. They are, in fact, offensive and insulting. They would be more accurately described as anti-theists. Why have they adopted such a hostile stance? I could detect three reasons.

First, they sincerely believe that the bases upon which religions are founded are false if not fabricated. They are adamant that there is no god and that efforts designed to prove the existence of God and to defend the propagation of religious faith are forlorn and futile. For the sake of intellectual integrity they cannot remain silent while much that they consider is fallacious is promoted as though it had the prestige of truth.

Second, they believe that religion is the source of much that is wrong with the world. In addition to causing personal anxieties and individual neuroses, religion turns men and women against one another and provides a basis for fanatical thinking and extreme actions. If human beings abandoned religion the whole planet would be a saner and safer place, while most societies would be more stable and secure.

Third, in believing themselves to have been the victims of anti-atheist sentiment, these writers seek something resembling revenge for themselves and like- minded others. They are plainly not content to make their anti-religious point and then move on. They want to undermine the social standing of religion and damage religious institutions. The latter intent is of particular interest to this article.

Militant Atheists: Martyrs for Freedom?

Throughout history there has been enduring suspicion of atheists. Plato and Aquinas, although their philosophical outlooks had very little in common, believed there were inherent dangers in atheism. It allegedly threatened the political community and undermined moral consensus. Atheists were not entitled to have their views tolerated officially nor should they be afforded the protection of the state. In some instances they were deserving of death if they refused catechesis and rehabilitation. John Locke was not inclined to extend religious liberty to atheists because they could not be trusted to make and keep promises or to give evidence on oath before the courts. They were, put simply, ethically unreliable people because they did not “fear” God. Atheists were, even to enlightened political philosophers, beneath contempt and there were widespread efforts to have atheists socially shunned even in more advanced societies.

Notwithstanding the embrace of political liberalism, Roman Catholics were “emancipated” in Britain before atheists, although history recorded the efforts of misguided Roman Catholics to disrupt democracy, overthrow parliament and return England to papal submission. Atheists had committed no such crimes against the state but the discrimination against them in Britain continued nonetheless. Charles Bradlaugh, a founder of the National Secular Society in England, was elected to the House of Commons in 1880 but was excluded from sitting as the Member for Northampton because he was a self-declared atheist and refused to take his oath of office on the Bible. After being re-elected twice, he was eventually allowed to take his place in parliament in 1886.

In an “age of reason”, atheists could also point to the tragic cases of Galilei Galileo, who was officially muzzled and placed under virtual house arrest for the remainder of his life for daring in June 1632 to promulgate the notion that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and Charles Darwin, whose theories of “descent with modification” and evolution by natural selection were vehemently opposed by the Church of England for undermining the creation accounts in Genesis and rejecting the notion that human beings had a special place in the natural order.

The shift of loyalties from the church to the state in the twentieth century worked to ameliorate some of the spite previously directed at atheists. And while many states have headed in the direction of religious disestablishment, removed religious tests for election or appointment to public office and vowed to uphold the right of all citizens to profess any religious view or none at all, there is evidence of a lingering mood of ill-will towards atheists in many Western democracies. This ill-will is most evident in the United States. By way of illustration, the chance of an atheist being elected to the American Presidency is almost nil, notwithstanding the strict separation of church and state required by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. This has led Phillip Adams to remark: “Frankly, I feel sorry for the Americans. Atheists add a lot to the pools, both gene and talent. The US, however, feels safer with a loony president who hears the Almighty talking to him—rather than relying on the razor-sharp insights of the disbeliever.”

The desire to create a level playing field and to guarantee a safe environment in which to debate competing claims about religion resonates in the spate of recent works promoting non-belief. Atheists want greater freedom to discuss the shortcomings and dangers of religion and general recognition of the inevitability and even the necessity of some citizens declining to embrace the religious views of their neighbours. There is a very clear sense in which each of these authors still feels constrained in expressing their views in public.

Richard Dawkins wants to “raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one”. His aim is to encourage other atheists, in a manner not unlike homosexuals have done in recent years, to “come out” and acknowledge what they are with pride because “being an atheist is nothing to be apologetic about”. Conversely, Dawkins says being an atheist “is something to be proud of, standing tall to face the far horizon, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind”. He laments that in contrast to evangelical Christians who exercise great political power in the United States, “atheists and agnostics are not organised and therefore exert almost zero influence”. He thinks this must change.

Christopher Hitchens is annoyed with the interference of religious people in his life. Christians apparently curtail his choices and restrict his liberty. Hitchens, who says he discovered several telling objections to religion “before my boyish voice had broken”, did not lose faith—it never existed in the first place. He is quite prepared to respect the spiritual sensibilities of his Christian, Jewish and Muslim friends “without insisting on the polite reciprocal condition—which is that they in turn leave me alone” (emphasis retained). But, he claims, acceding to this reasonable request “religion is ultimately incapable of doing”. Without drawing a distinction between mainstream followers and extreme adherents, Hitchens claims that “people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won human attainments that I have touched on”.

Sam Harris claims that the events of 9/11 revealed “religious faith at the moment of its political ascendancy” and prompted him to write The End of Faith. A Californian whose background is in philosophy and neuroscience, Harris says that with the spectre of religious extremists gaining access to WMDs and claiming divine sanction for their use, this is not the time to show respect or even tolerance to any religion. The worst offender, according to Harris, is Islam. Its beliefs, he says, “belong on the same shelf as Batman”. He implies that committed Muslims are essentially insane and prone to murder-suicide. He also believes “we must admit that not all cultures are at the same stage of moral development” and advocates an intellectual war to replace Islam with atheism because attack is the best form of defence.

In each instance, the authors point to a public space that is neither neutral nor benign when they are involved. Those who do not believe in God, they argue, must struggle to be heard and have to plead for toleration. There are, they claim, concerted attempts to silence their voice and to mute their contributions to public debate. While resistance to the promotion of atheism among parliamentarians and within the media is routinely justified on the grounds of showing deference to religion, leading atheists lament the corresponding lack of regard shown to those who do not share majority religious convictions. Why do the views of atheists continue to attract hostility? Let me offer a personal perspective.

A Personal Perspective

I must confess to some quite unexpected feelings when I deal with militant atheists either in person or in their published works. On the one hand, I am enriched by these interactions. There is usually much to be gained from encountering people with different, even opposing, viewpoints. It helps to sharpen the mind by strengthening the use of reason. Participating in public debates and reviewing works by militant atheists has obliged me to cover philosophical ground of previously little interest. This has included returning to the historic “proofs” for the existence of God; reconsidering what counts as “evidence” where God and providence are concerned; rethinking the origin of life and the teleology of evolutionary theory; reviewing the forces shaping the development of theistic belief over thousands of years; revising my views on the social construction of religion and the place of cultural forces in its inculcation; renewing my opposition to the persistence of religiously motivated violence; and reworking my approach to the place of tradition and fear in the maintenance of religious belief systems.

Challenged by emboldened non-believers I have felt obliged to account for my belief in the resurrection of Christ and to defend my reasons for expressing faith in the risen Jesus. This has been a valuable exercise. I have had to use language accessible to non-believers and to deal with apparent defects and conceded deficiencies in my own arguments. I have come to a better understanding of why some people are unconvinced as to God’s existence, where and how the case for religious belief needs to be improved, and why other people are unwilling to believe despite agreeing that the available evidence is compelling.

Had every atheist kept silent, I would have been able to avoid some tough and searching questions that deserved an answer. Dealing with these questions has given me an enlarged intellectual agenda and fresh perspectives on persistent problems. For prompting me to think in new and different ways, I am grateful to the militant atheists of this world. They are fellow travellers in ways they would probably not have imagined. But there are some elements of this engagement that I have appreciated much less.

I have met few atheists genuinely concerned with the effect of their virulent attacks on the spiritual health of individual men and women. Most simply want to win an argument or depart a debate feeling vindicated. I have encountered few atheists who have conveyed any sympathy that the prospect of abandoning faith might be a painful experience for a sincere believer. I usually note only glee that the mind of another person has been freed from childish delusions. In patronising tones they retort: it might hurt in the short term but in the long run the individual will be better off. I am angered that many atheists are so casual in their willingness to upset a person’s equilibrium by questioning and challenging their deep-seated personal beliefs. I resent the militant atheists’ scant regard for the complexity and subtlety of religious convictions and detest their readiness to disregard theistic belief often without displaying any evidence of having studied theology more consistently than they thought was necessary to reject God’s existence and to pose potentially intractable questions for believers.

In my experience, very few atheists show any readiness to reveal doubts about their atheistic certainties. Have they never been tempted to believe? Indeed, have they ever attempted to believe and then failed? Have they never experienced transcendence or savoured the numinous, and wondered whether there might be more to this existence than the material world? Do they ever suspect that there could be domains of being that are unknown to the finite mind or a deity whose ways are unfathomable to the human mind? Are they ever coaxed into at least hoping that there might be more than this life or disconcerted by future unknowns or the world’s darkness? Have they no desire to secure some posterity for themselves and their families? Does the pointlessness and nothingness affirmed by atheism ever depress them or lead them to think there might be an overarching purpose or a set of beliefs that might redeem the pain and suffering endured by so many in this world?

I cannot believe that all atheists have unassailable confidence in their own powers of reasoning and deduction all of the time. Surely they do not think it is wrong to doubt even their own faltering convictions—or must they always and everywhere remain strong and resolute in their denials of God’s existence?

And I am frequently appalled that many atheists claim to possess an all-embracing grasp of the physical world, to have resolved all the conundrums of human existence, and that this superior position entitles them to speak as though they have a compelling theory for everything that is without objection or tangible flaw. It is, to my mind, amazing that atheists speak of religious faith as belonging to humanity’s childhood and a phase from which men and women ought to have emerged when I increasingly fear I know less and less about more and more. To compound the situation, the little I do know about this world and its origins tends to prompt more questions than it answers. I would have thought at this stage in human evolution that a stronger sense of humility would have been appropriate as men and women recognise the definite limitations of human knowledge and the enduring mystery that each person is to themselves, let alone to those others with whom they live.

I am not here proposing belief in a “God of the gaps”—a deity who is only present in the realms of what human beings do not yet know. Rather my point is to question the extent of human knowing and the elusive nature of wisdom. I do not think human beings have reached a point where, as Richard Dawkins insists, we know the universe has no need of God and, furthermore, the human race is better off without any gods. The world evidently looks different through the eyes of Richard Dawkins, whose intelligence far surpasses my own but whose powers of intuition and imagination are so manifestly deficient. Perhaps this is why he is so lacking in a demonstrable capacity for empathy. For instance, could Dawkins possibly understand why I regard John Lennon’s composition “Imagine”, which he finds majestic and inspiring, one of the most despairing and depressing songs ever written? It does not strike me as adolescent or close-minded to not want the anarchistic and chaotic world Lennon extolled. Is the real world only seen through Richard Dawkins’ eyes?

To go a little further, I do not believe that evidence has been produced to substantiate the sweeping generalisations that religion causes all wars, that it brings out the worst in men and women, that it destroys everything it touches or that it is responsible for every social, economic and political ill on the planet. Claims of this kind show no respect for the selfless and laudable conduct that religion inspires. They exude an unwillingness to engage in a constructive dialogue with “moderate” and thinking Christians who are equally scornful of the ignorant and unsophisticated views of biblical literalists who make claims for Scripture that cannot be sustained and who dismiss scientific insight as Satanic utterance.

Little deference is shown by Dawkins et al to the intellectual capacities of dedicated and thoughtful theologians. They are lumped together with shallow American televangelists and tub-thumping preachers. The personal integrity of these hard-headed Christian thinkers counts for very little among those who seem to imply that the only outcome of rigorous enquiry into claims for God’s existence is unbelief. Dawkins gives the impression that militant atheists are the only honest, detached seekers after truth; theologians and religious leaders are predisposed to retain their spurious beliefs because they are anxious to preserve their livelihoods and to avoid hurting those they love with unpalatable truths. This is as insulting as it is inaccurate.

My own sensibilities tend towards conservatism, moderation, tolerance and reticence in debate. I endeavour to adhere to the Franciscan dictum of seeking first to understand others before being understood myself. Given the tendency of Christians and atheists to engage in ad hominem debate, I try to be scrupulous in avoiding personal attacks. But when militant atheists make themselves part of the message and claim that they are reasonable thinkers and that I, as a religious believer, am not; when they compare the clarity of their thought and the courage of their convictions with the stupidity of religious believers and the speed with which they allegedly cower before any questioning of their cherished beliefs; it is sometimes difficult to avoid wanting to comment on the lives and motivations of those who have achieved celebrity status through their loud advocacy of anti-theism.

I would, for instance, be unwilling to share a platform with either Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens because I dislike their attitude to other people. Having seen them on television on many occasions, I despair of their haughtiness, conceit and, in the case of Hitchens, downright nastiness. Both have shown a readiness to humiliate publicly those who do not share their apparently self-evident views. Although they regard religion as just another subject to be debated, they should not feign surprise or imply incredulity when believers are highly sensitive to their cavalier dismissal of all theological reflections on life. Religion touches on personal values and individual virtues. Christian people of high and low standing in the world accord religion considerable significance in their lives because, rightly or wrongly, they believe it involves matters of life and death. It is uncharitable and irresponsible to treat religious beliefs as though they had no greater significance than the reasons given for supporting one sporting team over another.

I am not trying to quarantine religious beliefs from scrutiny. My point is simply that a constructive and mutually beneficial dialogue rather than a take-it-or-leave-it debate is more likely to occur when there is adequate recognition of what is at stake and a proper regard for personal feelings. Nonsense is nonsense and should be exposed as such. But the sheer longevity of religious beliefs and the stature of the people who have held them mean they deserve at least some continuing respect. There is a world of difference between the beliefs of the Archbishop of Canterbury or Pope Benedict XVI and those professed by suicide bombers and fundamentalist fanatics of all religious persuasions. They are not simply different points on a continuum.

While I understand why Sam Harris so quickly condemns the perverted ideology of Mohammed Atta and his co-conspirators who flew planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in September 2001, it is unreasonable to deal with equal speed and severity with the views of Joseph Ratzinger and Rowan Williams. Their beliefs are manifestly dissimilar. They were derived by different means and have different social and political consequences. To claim otherwise is to misrepresent what is professed by both of these distinguished theologians and the basis on which their convictions are grounded. Nothing is gained by overstatement, exaggeration and distortion.

In my view, the outpouring of books promoting atheism can be partly explained by the desire among some to exact some revenge on a church that has been diminished by clerical abuse scandals and distracted by disputes over contentious matters of belief and controversial debates over behaviour. Given that apologies are sometimes offered to create the possibility of dialogue, is it time that the church confronted its previous mistreatment of atheists and apologise? By confessing that there are some shameful episodes in its past, might an apology from the church clear the air and provide the impetus for a fresh start?

Is an Apology Justified?

I would counsel all atheists against breeding vengeful thoughts towards Christians. Despite claims to the contrary, revenge never delivers what it promises. I can understand the deep disquiet some people feel about the continuing place of religion in civilised societies. While I would argue that religion was an integral component in the development and refinement of those civilisations, the resurgence of religiously motivated intolerance, bigotry and violence must be addressed—both root and fruit. But the pursuit of revenge masquerading as justice does not advance the cause of a civil society.

Before considering the morality and utility of a church apology to atheists, there are four things the church needs to acknowledge. The first is the failure of Christians throughout the ages to act in a manner consonant with their core beliefs. There is no mandate in Christian teaching to justify coercing individuals into believing. The church defies its own teaching when it excludes unbelievers from civil society or denies them dignity because they are unable to believe. The use of intimidation and cruelty in the past was morally wrong and those who employed these methods under the guise of fulfilling God’s will were mistaken. No one should have been tortured; no one should have been killed. What is worse, those sanctioning and conducting these activities should have known they were evil deeds at the time they were perpetrated.

The church also needs to acknowledge that it has displayed an obvious disrespect for the diversity found in the natural world, a diversity that was understood to be God-given. The desire for corporate submission to God’s will was misconstrued. The church used the implements of the state to demand blind obedience and the worst kind of conformity—uniformity. Christianity’s own teachings make much of liberty. Faith is predicated on freedom. This means that some beliefs will vary and some customs will vary according to time, place and circumstance. This enriches rather than diffuses the universality of the Christian message.

The third thing the church must acknowledge is its failure to display tolerance. This was born of a conceited belief that the church was God’s infallible and unerring instrument on earth. Where it should have embraced the humility of its founder and sought to serve others rather than to be served, the church confused the accumulation and preservation of its privileges with the benefits that would flow from the inauguration of the kingdom of God. The church and the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus were not synonymous. Had it better understood the complexity of God and the majesty of the created order, the church might not have demanded compliance with matters in which liberty was also part of the divine provision.

The church must, then, publicly renounce any desire to regain access to the coercive mechanisms of the state in order to achieve its spiritual ends. One would have thought that the church, which endured persecution and oppression for hundreds of years at the hands of the Roman empire, would never have engaged in behaviour of this kind. I do not detect within the major churches any desire for a return to theocracy or legal establishment, although there are socially conservative Christians who want the host society to be effectively baptised by legislative acceptance of Christianity’s moral code. They will continue to exist but their constituency will remain thankfully small. Acknowledging these four things would considerably alter the tenor of the discourse between Christians and atheists, and make it much more productive.

Should the church apologise to atheists? My answer is “No”. Quite apart from believing that such apologies are worth very little and that they tend to blur the necessary identification of actual perpetrators and real victims, the grammar of regret and remorse is preferable. The church must declare regret over its treatment of atheists and show some remorse for its enduring consequences. Rather than bickering over something that would be a symbolic gesture at most, more commendable and constructive is the provision of evidence showing a firm commitment and a genuine resolve to learn the lessons of the past. There needs to be a demonstration that the conditions that led to the original misconduct cannot and will not be repeated. Of longer-term value are credible signs that a new attitude is present and that a spirit of respect and empathy towards atheists and all non-believers has been willingly embraced. Only then can conversations about religious belief take place with any chance of eliciting more light than heat, and more insight than resentment.

Professor Tom Frame is Director of St Mark’s National Theological Centre in Canberra.
He contributed “The Future of Easter in a Secular Society” in the March issue.