Title of Essay

With a particular audience in mind (University Christian Youth Forum for this essay), provide a script for a talk responding to the following key question within the field of apologetics:

Is Christianity good for the world?

Evidence must be drawn from within both Scripture and secondary literature.

Commentary:

Unfortunately, I am still not enamoured of this subject. I understand the need to engage with Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and other atheists but I do find that excessively negative.

Ultimately, the result was a high distinction: 85%. Kinda glad that this assignment and frankly, subject is done.

Is Christianity Good for the World?

Abstract

Some argue that Christianity is not good for the world but is violent, murderous and evil.  Christian values, however, form the basis of many or even all morals in society that would be considered by most people as axiomatically right and natural.  Without them, we would be subject to the whims of human self-interest which can be deadly.  New atheists level charges at religion, including Christianity, of being evil, malignant and poisonous.  The accusations of the new atheists are good for Christians to consider and to challenge their faith by.  Christians should challenge whether humans are merely subject to mere stimulus response or whether instead they are subject to a God given moral law that motivates their actions.  The morals that Christianity promotes are arguably a restraint on many of the evils of society and therefore good for the world rather than evil.    Actions that appear evil are not necessarily the sole province of evil people but can be engaged in by good people with good motives who have lost sight of the greater virtue that should rule their behaviour.  The new atheists argue that religious education of children constitutes child abuse.  Teaching children discipline within a Christian context is no more child abuse than teaching any moral story and studies show that religious instruction does not harm people.  Demonstrably, some Christians engage in poor behaviour.  Christians should confront this poor behaviour and denounce it, seeking God’s forgiveness for not only their failings but also for the failings of these Christians who misrepresent God.  Ultimately, the greatest good that Christianity brings to society is redemption and freedom in Christ.  Contrary to the dictum that “work makes you free”, a lie embraced by many in this world, Christ frees us from slavery to the cycle of sin and death and that is a great good for the world.

Introduction

Since the early 2000s, there has been a renewed debate about the value to the world of religion including Christianity.  Sparked perhaps by the events of September 11, with the religiously motivated attack on the twin towers[1], a new brand of atheists has attacked the proposition that Christianity is good for the world.  The New Atheists argue that religion poisons everything[2], that belief in God is a delusion[3] and faith can be linked to terrorism[4].  Christians disagree, asserting that Christianity is good for the world.  In today’s session, we will address some of the claims of the New Atheists.  Our aim is to show that Christian morality is an antidote to the self-interested actions of some humans; we will argue that rather than being the dragon that prevents peace, Christianity is a bulwark against the worst excesses of totalitarianism, we are going to assert that religious instruction is good for children supporting the development of their spirituality in adulthood and ultimately, we want to introduce you to the idea that Christianity has a message of eternal good for the world in freedom and redemption.

What Good is Christianity?

Life magazine’s number one event of the last millennium was when Gutenberg printed the Bible suggesting that the dissemination of God’s word is important and influential for the world.[5]  In line with this, Glen Scrivener argues that Christianity is so pervasive people don’t even actually recognise its effects, society just lives the values of Christianity as “natural, obvious [and] universal”.[6]  He suggests that there are seven values that society holds that are Christian in origin: Equality, Compassion, Consent, Enlightenment, Science, Freedom and Progress.[7]  Richard Dawkins, an atheist, in an interview in The Times of London admits, “I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, insofar as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”[8]  He highlights an important point.  The morality engendered by Christian values, if removed, opens society up to the whims of powerful people and potentially even to destruction.[9] 

We assert the good of Christianity for this world.  We could adduce proofs that each of the values that Scrivener asserts come from Christianity.  It is important for now, however, to tackle the arguments of the new atheists that Christianity, among other religions, is a negative influence on the world.[10]   

Confronting the Proposition that Religion is not Good for the World

Christopher Hitchens argues that religion poisons everything.[11] Dawkins and Hitchens develop seemingly strong arguments for the negative effects of religion on the world.[12]   How are Christians to respond to these propositions?  The arguments whilst cast differently from time to time, have been debated for centuries.  They echo earlier atheist ideas such as those of Bertrand Russell. [13]  Alister McGrath notes that Dawkins like Russell, contends that religion is evil, “a malignant virus, infecting human minds”.[14]   Hitchens’ uncritical[15] call for a return to “our enlightenment heritage”[16] may be quite seductive to some Christians in an age of reason.  Christians are energised to counter the arguments of Hitchens and others.[17]  They seek to approach their faith in an enlightened way, however they need to do so critically and with an open mind.[18]  Christians have wrestled with ideas that challenge Christianity for as long as there has been Christian thought.[19]  Many Christian thinkers believe that the debate develops Christian thinking.[20]  Alan Reynolds, in Touchstone, notes Christopher Hitchens’ book “Religion Poisons Everything” raises valid questions about the “goodness” of religion.[21]  He suggests that Christianity today needs critics such as Hitchens to force it to confront and question our beliefs.[22]  The prophet Isaiah encouraged Judah to reason together because of their moral failings, and Christians would be well admonished to do so too (Isa 1:18[23]).  Rebecca McLaughlin in “Confronting Christianity” asks hard and important questions about Christianity like those asked by the new atheists, although from a radically different perspective.[24]  Chris Hedges[25] asserts many Christian’s distaste for the “chauvinism, intolerance, anti-intellectualism and self-righteousness of religious fundamentalists” that writers such as Harris[26] for example, speak against.  The “Four Horsemen”[27] of new atheism are strident critics of religion, including Christianity, and they demand a “commitment to test [our] beliefs bravely, boldly and humbly” using all the “instruments” we have, including “reason and empirical evidence”[28].  Christians, among the accused, should consider whether this accusation is reasonable.  Is Christianity a moral good for the world?

Christian Morality: Antidote to the Self-Interest of Humans

What is the source of morality and moral actions?  Can science provide a moral basis for our actions?  Sam Harris argues that free will is a delusion, arguing that our actions are merely the result of a kind of stimulus response rather than based in a moral code.[29]  Dawkins and Hitchens contend that Christianity suppresses free thinking and encourages slavish obedience to the commands of a higher power and that we need freeing from this “totalitarian” regime.[30]  Alister McGrath notes that Dawkins counters religion with science as a self-correcting, always advancing, “mutually buttressing” basis for making sense of the world.[31]  So, Harris argues that science reduces us to stimulus response whilst Hitchens and Dawkins argue that we have no free will because of religion.  On the other hand, Rebecca McLaughlin observes that “if science is all we have, our sense of self is… an illusion and we have no moral agency.”[32]  Amongst these competing arguments about the motivations for moral behaviour, some argue that religion is the reason for genocide, injustice, persecution, backwardness and intellectual and sexual repression where for others, secular humanism is branded as the source of evil.[33]  Stephen Jay Gould argues that science might illuminate values but that values themselves are the domain of religion.[34] 

Steven Pinker, another atheist writer and thinker, claims morality was “discovered” rather than “given” in much the same way as mathematics was discovered.[35]  This does not obviate a source for those morals.[36]  Dostoevsky notes, “if there is no God, everything is permitted”.[37]  The challenge is not whether people can construct morality in the absence of God, but whether such a construction can satisfy a theory of stimulus response or impart moral agency.[38]  On the one hand, some scientists claim that humans are no more than atoms responsive to stimuli and little else; but on the other hand, modern moral frameworks all assert that humans are worth something and that life is important.[39]   What is the basis of the belief in the intrinsic value of humans?  In general, atheism presents an ostensibly simple scientific view of humans as atomic, stimulus responding constructions, where Christians affirm that humans are created in the image of God (Imago Dei Gen 1:27) with his morality dwelling within them (Rom 2:12-13; 7:23).[40]  As such, it appears that the valuing of humans is Christian in origin.  Chris Hedges adding the concept of sin as a moral construct, adds another dimension to the debate asserting that we have a lot to fear from those who do not believe in sin, observing that those who are free from the concept of sin (a form of moral code, breach of which is sin) become ungoverned and ungovernable (Gen 4:7).[41]  It is therefore arguable that the negative effects that Dawkins and Hitchens slate to religion are instead the result of humans engaged in self-interest (stimulus response), regardless of ideology.[42] 

Immanuel Kant observes that “two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within me.”[43]  CS Lewis asserts that an awareness of our moral failures (or sins) arouses our suspicions that there is something “directing the universe and which is making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong.”[44]  As McLaughlin implies, this is a worldview question[45].  She argues that there are physical principles of the universe that God created and there are moral principles ordained by God and that morals benefit the world as much as the laws of gravity do.[46]  If human self-interest rules, then humans must beware of totalitarian regimes and torture chambers.  If there is no higher morality to condemn those practices, we are trapped within the shifting dynamic demands of self-interested, influential power groups.[47]  Christianity may well be the bulwark against these groups that Dawkins asserts.[48]  Christian morality guards against immoral self-interest (Mk 7:21-22; Gal 5:19-21) that is destructive and dangerous to society and the functioning of safety and peace.  It is arguable therefore that the moral good that Christianity brings to the world, curbs death and destruction, murder and violence.  The morals that God engendered within us (note for example, Rom 12:2 “… by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”), perceived by Kant, Lewis and others, and that Christians teach are therefore very good for the world. 

Is Christianity a killer?

Bertrand Russell disputes this, asserting that religion is the dragon at the door that prevents peace.[49]   Hitchens explains why he would feel threatened if he encountered a group of men just leaving a religious observance, going on to describe a range of violence committed by religious people (listing occurrences in cities with the initial “B”: Belfast, Beirut and others as his examples, implying that there are many others than those with the initial “B”).[50]  Sam Harris in “End of Faith” relates a story of a suicide bomber on a bus killing many people to the pride and celebration of his parents and community and notes that one can deduce the religion of the bomber.[51]  Richard Dawkins in “The God Delusion” points to suicide bombers, 9/11, 7/7, Crusades, witch burnings, various wars and secession struggles, massacres, troubles, honour killings, the Taliban and other atrocities as all the product of religion and evidence for the evil of religion.[52] Fundamentally, these assertions may be a “red herring fallacy” in that they all take the extreme misdeeds of various individuals within various religions and confect uncritical outrage in place of rational and reasonable scholarly argumentation.[53]    Violence and murder because of ideology is by no means the sole province of religion; witness Stalin, Mao and the Khmer Rouge to name just a few[54] as Dawkins himself admits.[55]  Hitchens asserts that the reason religions kill or promulgate violence is that they are “wholly man made”.[56]  Human ideology can indeed be deadly.

The motives for evil behaviour are complex and may not always be slated specifically to evil intent.  Hedges, in asserting Christian disgust in genocide and other evils that are the product of evil people[57]  aligns many Christians (and the Bible – Psa 11:5 “… [God] hates the wicked and the one who loves violence”) with Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens.[58]   Reinhold Niebuhr on the other hand, observes in “Justice and Mercy” that Cromwell, though religious and asserting good motives, still invaded Ireland and waged “cruel warfare in the name of an evangelical faith”.[59]  He concludes, “Ultimately considered, evil is done, not so much by evil men, but by good men who do not know themselves.”[60]  He argues that faced with the judgement of God, the righteous will protest that they are not virtuous, while the unrighteous will be equally “unconscious of their deeds of omission and commission” (ref Matt 25:31-46).[61]  Jesus himself asserts that there is “no one… good save God” (Luke 18:19).  This is the complexity of the human condition, that out of “good” motives sometimes spring actions that, isolated from the context of the motives themselves, may be evil.  In partial agreement, Dawkins notes, quoting Steven Weinberg, “… for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”[62] It is simply not that simple.

Rather than a straightforward black and white interpretation, the assertion that religion kills is not as simple as it sounds.  The role of God’s people has, from time to time been one of violence (eg the “ban” of Canaan in Deut 7:1-11; 20:10-18; Josh 6:17-19; cf. Psalm 149:6-9).  For all that God’s people have been called upon to express his judgement on the nations (as for example in Deut 7:2), violence is expressly forbidden save at the behest of God in very specific circumstances (Exod 20:13).   Some Christians have called occurrences such as September 11, a punishment of God for the sins of abortion and homosexuality, justifying the thousands of deaths in the twin towers as just punishment for sin.[63]  The application of some kind of retribution principle by those Christians is questionable here.[64]  The fact is that misery and violence have always been our companions whether religiously motivated or not (Psa 73:14 “for all day long, I have been stricken and rebuked every morning”).[65]  Looking inward, Rebecca McLaughlin asks a deeply confronting question that we should consider: would we let anyone we spend time with, see a transcript of our thoughts and if they did, what would be the outcome (Rom 14:10-13; Psa 139:23-24)?[66]  Christians should not only seek God’s forgiveness for their shortcomings, but also for our collective shortcomings, including in the matter of violence perpetrated in the name of God and Christianity (Rom 3:23: Paul notes “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”).[67]  Many Christians would join Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins in condemning the evils they call out because of their Christianity, rather than in spite of it. 

Nietzsche asserts that pity is against the laws of selection, and he also argues that Christians take the part of the weak, the low and the botched.[68] Dawkins famously adopted just such an anti-pity stance, when he advocated for the abortion of children with Downs Syndrome.[69]  When it comes to compassion, perhaps the question is whether Atheism is more dangerous than Christianity if an atheist believes that pity is counter to Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection.  Rather than being killers, Christians preach compassion and value humans as being in the image of God.  Valuing and honouring humans is a good that this world values and needs.

It is incontrovertible that some Christians have pursued their base desires instead of valuing and honouring humans.  In recent decades, it has come to light that some Christians have engaged in the sexual abuse of children.  Without excusing this appalling breach of trust, the questions arises, if some religious people, Christian or otherwise, behave badly, does that make religions themselves intrinsically evil?[70]  In similar vein to the equation of the new atheists linking religion to violence and death, the new atheists link child abuse with religion,[71] conveniently ignoring the documented links between schools,[72] scouts[73] and other sporting organisations[74] or for that matter celebrity[75] with child abuse[76].  The Child Abuse Investigation Field Guide defines child abuse as “Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or an act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”[77]  Horrifyingly, (and it is well documented) some religious people have engaged in child abuse that meets that definition, whether with active institutional connivance in covering up child abuse and abusers or in secret.[78]  Paedophiles go to extraordinary lengths to access children including joining churches as well as other organisations where children are and even in some cases, organising the sharing of information about ways to access children in these organisations.[79]  Churches are much more vigilant about protecting children today than they were in the past.[80]  Christianity cannot ignore this past evil and in fact does not.[81]  For the victims of this abhorrent wickedness perpetrated by evil individuals, whether Christian or not, the institutions who were blind, wilfully or not, were not good for their world and this is clearly a stain on the reputation of Christianity.  The healing that Christianity offers in the person of Jesus who called the little children to him (Matt 19:14), is the only solace and good that Christianity can offer in the face of this trauma.

Is Religion itself Child Abuse?

Dawkins, as does Hitchens, expand their accusation of child abuse, linking it to the baptism of children and Christian discipline.[82] Does the teaching of religious belief to a child constitute child abuse as formally defined?  This is a bold claim.  Dawkins relates a story of his childhood where a preacher tells a story of soldiers blindly following orders to continue marching and doing so into the path of an oncoming train.[83]  He relates it as if the preacher committed some abuse against his hearers and that the children were uncritical in their thinking, unable to separate hyperbole from the message being conveyed. Dawkins at the same time however, admits to having critical thoughts about the story as a child, demonstrating that children are in fact able to separate hyperbole from a moral lesson.[84]  Hitchens likewise at one and the same time claims critical thinking that he employed as a child whilst claiming other children are indoctrinated without the capacity for critical thinking. [85]  He devotes an entire chapter to developing the idea that “indoctrinating” a child into a religion constitutes child abuse.[86]  In his introduction to the chapter he presupposes that religion psychologically maims children[87] but this is by no means a proven proposition[88].   Dawkins concedes that some teaching of our children such as the teaching from experience and the admonition to listen to one’s parents even in a religious context, are beneficial to the child.[89]   In the frameworks of both Hitchens and Dawkins, religion is no more than a fairytale or stories about a bogyman.[90]  If this is so, then as children grow out of believing in fairytales with no apparent harm and with fond memories even of such violent stories as Grimm’s fairytales, it could not be argued that religious lessons are any more dangerous to a developing mind provided that the teacher engages the task with age appropriate material.  One qualitative study[91] of twenty-five people who grew up “indoctrinated” in religion, demonstrates very mixed responses to the “set pattern” that their religious parents showed them in their development through childhood, with no discernible ill-effects in the adults that they became, provided that “capacity to doubt” was integral to their upbringing.  Some of the study participants rejected religion, others experimented with other spiritualism and all of them related finding spiritual direction and engaged in service to others and social justice as a result of their early training.[92]  Therefore, the argument that religious training and discipline is child abuse is questionable whereas, strengthening moral education in children is demonstrably valuable to the world.[93]

The Goodness of Freedom and Dignity in Christianity

We could assert the goodness that Christianity has brought to the world in literature and culture, science (in particular the health sciences), abolition of slavery and much else.  These are benefits to society and good for the world but ultimately, these good outcomes are temporary in nature.  Christianity offers eternal good for the world and for its people.  Jesus proclaims liberty to the captive (Luke 4:16-21; cf Isa 61:1-2; Psa 146:7-8; Isa 42:7; Isa 58:6; Lev 25:10).  To bring this liberation, Jesus gave up his life.[94]  Atheists such as Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens assert on the one hand that Christianity represses free will and on the other that human organisms have no free will and are subject to stimulus response.  Much of atheist philosophy asserts that freedom can be achieved without God, in much the same way as the Nazis proclaimed freedom to the captives in Auschwitz, “Work sets you free”, an evil lie masking the slavery and death of the camps.[95]  In the end, out of the confusion of stimulus response arguments and the premise that freedom from religion is freedom indeed,[96] true freedom is actually freedom in Christ (2 Cor 3:17; Jn 8:36; Gal 5:1, 13-15; Eph 3:12; Psa 119:45; Rom 8:1-4; Isa 61:1; Luke 4:18) and the ultimate promise of freedom is freedom from the law of sin and death (Acts 13:38-39; Rom 6:22; Col 1:21-23; Rom 8:20-21 “… the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God”).[97]    The true goodness that Christianity brings to the world is the freedom that exists in Christ and the redemption of all peoples[98].  Rather than being evil, malignant and poisonous, Christianity offers eternal good to the world.

Conclusion

The new atheists argue that religion, including Christianity, is evil and malignant.  On the contrary, Christianity asserts the moral dignity and freedom of all peoples in Christ.  Christianity offers hope in a society that contains all the evils ascribed to religion.  Ultimately, the source of the evils described by Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris with Russell and Pinker is not religion but self-interested humans.  In the words of the famous Psalm, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me… surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…” (Psa 23:4, 6)  Christianity offers the world blessings and goodness based on a spiritual narrative that takes us from failure (Gen 3) to redemption (Rev 22:2) and from slavery to freedom (Jn 8:30-36; Rom 6:1-7).  Christianity is truly good for the world.

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[1] Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York, NY: Twelve: Hachette Book Group, 2009), 60; Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006), 1.

[2] Hitchens, God Is Not Great.

[3] Dawkins, The God Delusion.

[4] Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason (New York, NY: W W Norton & Company Inc, 2004).

[5] Jeremiah J Johnston, Unimaginable: What Our World Would Be like Without Christianity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Bethany House Publishers, 2017), 11.

[6] Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress and Equality (United States: The Good Book Company, 2022), 13.

[7] Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 16–17.

[8] Quoted in Johnston, Unimaginable, 17.

[9] Johnston, Unimaginable, 17; Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 16; Alister E. McGrath, Christian Apologetics: An Introduction (Hoboken NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2024), 100.

[10] Gregory E. Ganssle, A Reasonable God: Engaging the New Face of Atheism (Waco Tx: Baylor University Press, 2009), 5; Dawkins, The God Delusion, 102; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 22.

[11] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 13.

[12] Ganssle, A Reasonable God, 5; Dawkins, The God Delusion, 102; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 22.

[13] Andrew Johnson, “An Apology for the ‘New Atheism,’” Int J Philos Relig.73 (2013): 6, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-012-9350-9.

[14] Alister E. McGrath, Dawkins’ God: From the Selfish Gene to the God Delusion (Newark, UNITED STATES: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015), 4, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=7104288; Dawkins, The God Delusion, 186.

[15] Alan Reynolds, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Review),” Touchstone 26.3 (2008): 68, http://touchstonecanada.ca/.

[16] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 283.

[17] McGrath, Dawkins’ God; Chris Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion: America’s New Fundamentalists (New York, NY: Free Press, 2009); Paul Hedges, Towards Better Disagreement: Religion and Atheism in Dialogue (London, United Kingdom: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016), http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=4653283.

[18] Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion, 18.

[19] McGrath, Christian Apologetics, 15–29; Joshua D. Chatraw and Mark D Allen, Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2018), 44–101.

[20] Reynolds, “God Is Not Great (Review),” 68; Chatraw and Allen, Apologetics at the Cross, 13; McGrath, Christian Apologetics, xi.

[21] Reynolds, “God Is Not Great (Review),” 67–68.

[22] Reynolds, “God Is Not Great (Review),” 68.

[23] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version) copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved

[24] Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion (Wheaton, UNITED STATES: Crossway, 2019), 18, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=5808337.

[25] Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion, 3.

[26] Harris, The End of Faith, 13; Wayne Finley, “The Four Horsemen of New Atheism: A Select Bibliography,” Journal of Religious & Theological Information 18.4 (2019): 124, https://dol.0rg/l 0.1080/10477845.2019.1660464.

[27] Finley, “The Four Horsemen,” 116.

[28] Kevin Rasmussen Vallier Joshua L., A New Theist Response to the New Atheists (Routledge, 2019), 14; Reynolds, “God Is Not Great (Review),” 68.

[29] Quoted in McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 219; Ganssle, A Reasonable God, 3.

[30] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 172–77; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 231; Hitchens quoted in Ganssle, A Reasonable God, 77.

[31] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 282.

[32] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 70.

[33] Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion, 9; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 230.

[34] Stephen Jay Gould quoted in Ganssle, A Reasonable God, 14.

[35] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 72.

[36] Ganssle, A Reasonable God, 76–77.

[37] Quoted in Ganssle, A Reasonable God, 76.

[38] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 73.

[39] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 73; cf. Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 41–42.

[40] David VanDrunen, Divine Covenants and Moral Order : A Biblical Theology of Natural Law (Chicago, UNITED STATES: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 59, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=4859200.

[41] Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion, 13–14.

[42] Ted Peters, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 8.

[43] Quoted in McGrath, Christian Apologetics, 98.

[44] McGrath, Christian Apologetics, 99.

[45] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 72–73.

[46] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 72–73.

[47] McGrath, Christian Apologetics, 100.

[48] Johnston, Unimaginable, 17.

[49] Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects (New York, NY: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1957), 47.

[50] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 18–27.

[51] Harris, The End of Faith, 11–12.

[52] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 1–2.

[53] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 49, 248–49; Dawkins, The God Delusion, 311; McGrath notes Dawkins’ uncritical lifting of decontextualised quotes of Luther from a website as an example of this in McGrath, Dawkins’ God, 145; Finley, “The Four Horsemen,” 124.

[54] Under Stalin Michael Haynes and Rumy Husan, A Century of State Murder? : Death and Policy in Twentieth Century Russia (London, UNITED KINGDOM: Pluto Press, 2003), 69, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=3386321; Tiananmen Square in N. Ganesan and Sung Chull Kim, State Violence in East Asia, 1 online resource (xi, 294 pages) vols., Asia in the New Millennium (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 121, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=521212; Khmer Rouge Ganesan and Kim, State Violence in East Asia, 147.

[55] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 312; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 229.

[56] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 17.

[57] Hedges, When Atheism Becomes Religion, 3.

[58] Harris, The End of Faith, 135; Dawkins, The God Delusion, 286; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 229–30.

[59] Reinhold Niebuhr, Justice and Mercy (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1974), 93.

[60] Niebuhr, Justice and Mercy, 93; Also see McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 206–7.

[61] Niebuhr, Justice and Mercy, 93.

[62] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 249.

[63] Jerry Falwell quoted in Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Is Religion Killing Us? : Violence in the Bible and the Quran (London, UNITED KINGDOM: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2003), 14, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=5309683; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 32.

[64] The application of Rom 1:18; 2:6; Psa 62:12; Jre 51:56 and Rev 22:12 would be considered by many Christians as overreach and misapplied to the events of 9/11, compare Felder’s discussion of retributive justice in Kyle D. Felder, Exploring Christian Ethics: Biblical Foundations for Morality (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 106.

[65] Alain Payrefitte, quoted in Vallier, A New Theist Response to the New Atheists, 143.

[66] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 206.

[67] Niebuhr, Justice and Mercy, 2.

[68] Friedrich Nietzsche quoted in Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 63.

[69] Twitter post by Dawkins in response to a question on the issue. Quoted in Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 61.

[70] Hitchens reviews this argument in Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 230.

[71] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 51, 217–28; Harris, The End of Faith, 18, 38,; Dawkins, The God Delusion, 309–44.

[72] D’Michelle P. DuPre and Jerri Sites, Child Abuse Investigation Field Guide (San Diego, UNITED STATES: Elsevier Science & Technology, 2015), 16, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=1920705; Clareece Packer, “‘You Are Not Alone’: Police Urge Victim-Survivors to Come Forward after Teacher Charged with Historical Child Abuse,” News.Com.Au, August 2024, https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/crime/you-are-not-alone-police-urge-victimsurvivors-to-come-forward-after-teacher-charged-with-historical-child-abuse/news-story/23b6d1b03e2aa76ef4b81e040e1fd429.

[73] Staff, “Scoutmaster’s Paedophilia Sentence Reduced,” News, ABC News, 15 March 2005, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-03-15/scoutmasters-paedophilia-sentence-reduced/1533670.

[74] Jessica Black and Rory Callinan, “Paedophile and Ex-Sunshine Coast Water Polo Coach Dean Carelse Found Working as Children’s Lifeguard at UK Family Resort Butlin’s,” News, ABC News, 1 February 2024, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-01/qld-paedophile-water-polo-dean-carelse-butlins-lifeguard/103409388.

[75] Josh Halliday, “Jimmy Savile: Timeline of His Sexual Abuse and Its Uncovering,” News, The Guardian, 26 June 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jun/26/jimmy-savile-sexual-abuse-timeline.

[76] Hedges, Towards Better Disagreement: Religion and Atheism in Dialogue, 109.

[77] DuPre and Sites, Child Abuse Investigation Field Guide, 15.

[78] Staff, “Leaders: Crimes and Sins; The Catholic Church and Paedophilia,” The Economist (London: The Economist Intelligence Unit N.A., Incorporated, 20 March 2010), http://dtl.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/leaders-crimes-sins-catholic-church-paedophilia/docview/223976251/se-2?accountid=202487.

[79] DuPre and Sites, Child Abuse Investigation Field Guide, 52–53.

[80] David Cloutier, “Church Ethics and Its Organizational Context: Learning from the Sex Abuse Scandal in the Catholic Church,” Theological Studies 68.2 (2007): 478–79, http://dtl.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/church-ethics-organizational-context-learning-sex/docview/212726624/se-2?accountid=202487.

[81] Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 83.

[82] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 311–15; Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 217–23.

[83] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 174–75.

[84] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 175.

[85] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 3.

[86] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 217–23.

[87] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 217.

[88] Janette Graetz Simmonds, “Other than ‘“the Set Pattern”’: Developing One’s Own Thoughts about Spirituality and Religion,” Mental Health Religion & Culture 8.4 (2005): 249–50.

[89] Dawkins, The God Delusion, 174.

[90] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 4–5; Dawkins, The God Delusion, 96.

[91] Simmonds, “Other than ‘“the Set Pattern,”’” 239, 250.

[92] Simmonds, “Other than ‘“the Set Pattern,”’” 250.

[93] Johnston, Unimaginable, 12.

[94] Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 159.

[95] Johnston, Unimaginable, 125.

[96] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 56.

[97] Scrivener, The Air We Breathe, 159.

[98] McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity, 192; John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 3rd Ed. (London, England: InterVarsity Press, 2021), 393.

Bibliography

Black, Jessica, and Rory Callinan. “Paedophile and Ex-Sunshine Coast Water Polo Coach Dean Carelse Found Working as Children’s Lifeguard at UK Family Resort Butlin’s.” News. ABC News, 1 February 2024. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-01/qld-paedophile-water-polo-dean-carelse-butlins-lifeguard/103409388.

Chatraw, Joshua D., and Mark D Allen. Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witnesses. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2018.

Cloutier, David. “Church Ethics and Its Organizational Context: Learning from the Sex Abuse Scandal in the Catholic Church.” Theological Studies 68.2 (2007): 478–79. http://dtl.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/church-ethics-organizational-context-learning-sex/docview/212726624/se-2?accountid=202487.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

DuPre, D’Michelle P., and Jerri Sites. Child Abuse Investigation Field Guide. San Diego, UNITED STATES: Elsevier Science & Technology, 2015. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=1920705.

Felder, Kyle D. Exploring Christian Ethics: Biblical Foundations for Morality. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

Finley, Wayne. “The Four Horsemen of New Atheism: A Select Bibliography.” Journal of Religious & Theological Information 18.4 (2019): 115–25. https://dol.0rg/l 0.1080/10477845.2019.1660464.

Ganesan, N., and Sung Chull Kim. State Violence in East Asia. 1 online resource (xi, 294 pages) vols. Asia in the New Millennium. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 2013. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=521212.

Ganssle, Gregory E. A Reasonable God: Engaging the New Face of Atheism. Waco Tx: Baylor University Press, 2009.

Halliday, Josh. “Jimmy Savile: Timeline of His Sexual Abuse and Its Uncovering.” News. The Guardian, 26 June 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jun/26/jimmy-savile-sexual-abuse-timeline.

Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. New York, NY: W W Norton & Company Inc, 2004.

Haynes, Michael, and Rumy Husan. A Century of State Murder? : Death and Policy in Twentieth Century Russia. London, UNITED KINGDOM: Pluto Press, 2003. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=3386321.

Hedges, Chris. When Atheism Becomes Religion: America’s New Fundamentalists. New York, NY: Free Press, 2009.

Hedges, Paul. Towards Better Disagreement: Religion and Atheism in Dialogue. London, United Kingdom: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=4653283.

Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York, NY: Twelve: Hachette Book Group, 2009.

Johnson, Andrew. “An Apology for the ‘New Atheism.’” Int J Philos Relig 73 (2013): 5–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-012-9350-9.

Johnston, Jeremiah J. Unimaginable: What Our World Would Be like Without Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Bethany House Publishers, 2017.

McGrath, Alister E. Christian Apologetics: An Introduction. Hoboken NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2024.

———. Dawkins’ God: From the Selfish Gene to the God Delusion. Newark, UNITED STATES: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=7104288.

McLaughlin, Rebecca. Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. Wheaton, UNITED STATES: Crossway, 2019. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=5808337.

Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jack. Is Religion Killing Us? : Violence in the Bible and the Quran. London, UNITED KINGDOM: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2003. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=5309683.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. Justice and Mercy. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1974.

Packer, Clareece. “‘You Are Not Alone’: Police Urge Victim-Survivors to Come Forward after Teacher Charged with Historical Child Abuse.” News.Com.Au, August 2024. https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/crime/you-are-not-alone-police-urge-victimsurvivors-to-come-forward-after-teacher-charged-with-historical-child-abuse/news-story/23b6d1b03e2aa76ef4b81e040e1fd429.

Peters, Ted. Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994.

Reynolds, Alan. “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Review).” Touchstone 26.3 (2008): 66–68. http://touchstonecanada.ca/.

Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. New York, NY: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1957.

Scrivener, Glen. The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress and Equality. United States: The Good Book Company, 2022.

Simmonds, Janette Graetz. “Other than ‘“the Set Pattern”’: Developing One’s Own Thoughts about Spirituality and Religion.” Mental Health Religion & Culture 8.4 (2005): 239–51.

Staff. “Leaders: Crimes and Sins; The Catholic Church and Paedophilia.” The Economist. London: The Economist Intelligence Unit N.A., Incorporated, 20 March 2010. http://dtl.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/leaders-crimes-sins-catholic-church-paedophilia/docview/223976251/se-2?accountid=202487.

———. “Scoutmaster’s Paedophilia Sentence Reduced.” News. ABC News, 15 March 2005. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-03-15/scoutmasters-paedophilia-sentence-reduced/1533670.

Stott, John. The Cross of Christ. 3rd Ed. London, England: InterVarsity Press, 2021.

Vallier, Kevin Rasmussen, Joshua L.,. A New Theist Response to the New Atheists. Routledge, 2019.

VanDrunen, David. Divine Covenants and Moral Order : A Biblical Theology of Natural Law. Chicago, UNITED STATES: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=4859200.