Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Introduction – Beyond Belief ?

1. ‘You don’t need to go to church to be spiritual’

2. ‘The church is just too inflexible’

3. ‘Christians are such hypocrites’

4. ‘Religious people are too intolerant’

5. ‘You can’t trust what is in the Bible’

6. ‘Science has disproved Christianity’

7. ‘There’s just too much suffering in the world’

8. ‘There are too many religions in the world for them all to be true’

9. ‘There’s not enough proof for me to believe’

10. ‘Something 2,000 years old can’t be relevant to me today’

11. ‘If there is a God, why doesn’t he just send someone down?’

12. ‘That is all very well, but I’m not sure I believe in God’

Appendix

Further Reading

INTRODUCTION – BEYOND BELIEF?

I was fascinated when I saw the slender volume, Beyond Belief ? It is a research project into people’s current beliefs conducted by Nick Spencer and published in 2003. I have not been able to leave it alone. I could not help myself. I knew I had to respond to it.

Beyond Belief? is extraordinarily illuminating. Nick is a researcher who at that time worked for a very forward-looking organization, the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. (He now works for Theos, the Christian think-tank.) He does not generalize about attitudes in contemporary Britain. He will have nothing to do with the over-simplifications which are commonplace in popular discussions of postmodernism and its effect on religion. Here is a serious market researcher, taking the trouble to interview and discover the views of agnostics, who actually represent the mainstream of our population.

How Nick organized his research is explained in the appendix. The main points for us to notice at this stage are as follows. Those he interviewed are thoroughly representative. They do not go to church. They are unsure about God for a variety of reasons. Some would still call themselves Christians. Others would not. Bearing in mind the large proportion of the country they represent (66% according to the Office of National Statistics), his survey is therefore highly relevant to the social fabric of the nation and, of course, to the strategy of the church.

I have long been intrigued by the different faces of unbelief, and I was immediately attracted to the results of this survey. By their own definition the respondents were agnostic, and it is very instructive to examine their objections to Christian belief. Some of these objections were substantial and far-reaching, but many were disappointingly weak and confused. It reminded me how far most people in this country are from having any real understanding of the Christian faith. But the climate of the day draws them into rejecting the faith that many of them have never examined. Here are some quotations, derived from Nick’s researches, which show the spiritual hunger that most people have. They are expressed in much the same way, irrespective of age, gender or location, and they show a longing to believe – if only belief could be credible!

• ‘My head tells me there isn’t a God, but my heart wants to believe in it.’

• ‘Well, I suppose you could go to science and dismiss God altogether, but I think there is some sort of supreme power that is shaping our world – but what, I don’t know.’

• ‘I think people who say they are atheist have not thought about it. It is a massive statement to make. I think these days people find it difficult to relate to most religions, not just Christianity.’

• ‘I’d like to believe that there is a greater being of some description, but I don’t know that I do believe in him.’

• ‘I can’t be clear about whether there is a God. I find that very difficult to be absolutely sure about, but I do feel there is some kind of existence after we die.’

• ‘Without having that higher plane or greater being, you’d never have hope. Hope would be pointless.’

• ‘Without that hope what have you got? Nothing to look forward to. So, what is the point of life? A lot of people see it like that.’

• ‘I refuse to believe that you are born, you live, you die, and that’s it.’

• ‘I always wanted to believe it, but I can’t from an intellectual point of view.’

• ‘I would love to believe. That is my whole thing. I would love to believe, but however hard I try or don’t try, I have never had any kind of sign to me personally.’

In a word, what many of these respondents are saying is ‘I’d like to believe, but . . .’ I have written this book to try to remove some of those ‘buts’. For it is to address questions like these, so honest, so open, so spiritually hungry, that our Christian gospel exists. Real Christianity makes sense of our questions, our longings and our doubts.

My heart goes out to the thousands of people who are struggling with issues like these, who feel there is no solid ground on which they can stand. I am confident that there is solid ground. I hope that will become clear in the chapters that follow, as we look at a number of characteristic difficulties in belief which people hold.

As Nick and I talked, we were convinced that this should be a joint production. At the outset of each chapter, Nick has fleshed out the responses he received, giving the personal background which he knew, but of which I, having had no part in the research, was completely ignorant. I then attempt to respond to the difficulties raised by his respondent.

Nick then made many helpful suggestions about my responses! We hope that this joint book will be a help, both to those open-minded agnostics who form such a large proportion of our population, and to those Christians who want to connect with them.

Michael Green

Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, 2009