Beware the Patronage of Unbelievers
Thabiti Anyabwile Blog | February 27, 2012
Carl Trueman has linked to an op-ed piece by Matthew Parris in the UK's Spectator that I think is a must read for professing believers. It's a must-read because this man, who professes no religious conviction, sees and speaks clearly about the necessity of truth in a way that most who profess belief simply lack clarity or courage to see and speak.The piece is entitled "Beware--I would say to believers--the patronage of unbelievers." In a day when Muslim officials in England are defending Christian prayer and presence in public spaces, I would say this article is a welcome piece of advice. It's 5 minutes extremely well invested.
Here's the conclusion:
Beware (I would say to believers) the patronage of unbelievers. They want your religion as a social institution, filleted of true faith. It is the atheists, who think this God business matters, who are on your side.
As an unbeliever my sympathies are with fundamentalists. They seem to me to represent the source, the roots, the essential energy of their faiths. They go back to basics. To those who truly believe, the implicit message beneath 'never mind if it's true, religion is good for people' is insulting. To those who really believe, it is because and only because what they believe is true, that it is good. I find David Cameron's remark that his faith, 'like Magic FM in the Chilterns, tends to fade in and out', baffling. If a faith is true it must have the most profound consequences for a man and for mankind. If I seriously suspected a faith might be true, I would devote the rest of my life to finding out.
As I get older the sharpness of my faculties begins to dull. But what I will not do is sink into a mellow blur of acceptance of the things I railed against in my youth. 'Familiar' be damned. 'Comforting' be damned. 'Useful' be damned. Is it true? --- that is the question. It was the question when I was 12 and the question when I was 22. Forty years later it is still the question. It is the only question.
Read the entire thing for a thoroughly well-written and insightful argument.
Comments:
February 28, 2012 at 08:49 AM
Thanks, Thabiti, for drawing our attention to this. I often see Matthew Parris's writing in The Times (of London), but not in The Spectator, so am glad not to have missed it. Parris is a remarkable man - gracious, understanding and sympathetic towards Biblical Christianity despite (it's worth pointing out) being an atheist and homosexual. He wrote not long ago about his great sympathy and appreciation for those who reach out for something/someone beyond themselves. He accepts that it is honest for Bible-believing Christians to say what they do about homosexual behaviour. He has written noting how the work of Christian missionaries in Africa has greatly improved the lives of people.
Many years ago he wrote an article in which he complained about Christ threatening with judgement those who did not believe his message. I wrote in answer to this. He replied with a resumé of all the correspondence he had received and acknowledged that the one justifying reason for Christ speaking as he did would be if it were true.
'Beware the patronage of unbelievers' chimed well with the message I preached last Sunday morning, including consideration of why Jesus forbade the evil spirits to speak the truth about him. The devil wants to blunt our message by getting some of his people to speak up for us. We only have to make sure that we don't let Matthew Parris become our spokesman either - but pray for his conversion!
February 27, 2012 at 02:33 PM
"As an unbeliever my sympathies are with fundamentalists. They seem to me to represent the source, the roots, the essential energy of their faiths."
Wow!! First time I have ever read of a secularist whose sympathies are with "fundamentalists."
"‘Familiar’ be damned. ‘Comforting’ be damned. ‘Useful’ be damned. Is it true? — that is the question."
Heh. That's why my blog handle is "Truth Unites... and Divides."
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