Saint Augustine once famously wrote ‘O Lord, make me chaste, but not yet’.
Richard Dawkins appears to have now said ‘O Lord make me Christian, but not yet’ .
Dawkins spoke this week about his ‘Cultural Christian’ faith, which is not necessarily a faith, but a sentimental attachment to certain aspects of Christian culture.
In the conversation, his comments echoed the old joke about the man who was asked in Belfast if he was Catholic or Protestant, to which he replied ‘Atheist’, before being asked if he was a Catholic or Protestant atheist.
Richard Dawkins is certainly a High Church Anglican atheist.
Speaking to Rachel Johnson, he mentioned his upset at potentially losing cathedrals, carols and other culturally Christian things, opining that Christianity is a ‘fundamentally decent religion’.
He also discusses the importance of using Christianity as a bulwark against Islam.
The scene is comically reminiscent of this scene from The Mummy.
There are a few important things to note with this speech of Dawkins.
Firstly, in the likes of Ireland, the Catholic faith prospered here for centuries even when monasteries and cathedrals were stolen or destroyed and the belief had to be kept alive in secret. This is something that Dawkins should meditate on.
Secondly, on a related note, Dawkins is speaking here about Anglicanism. He is not speaking about the pageantry of Holy Week in the Spanish speaking world, he is not speaking about the shrines of France and Germany and Belgium and elsewhere and he is not speaking about the soup kitchens and hospitals built by churches in Africa. He is seeking to preserve a Christianity which is comfortable, familiar and homely. The revulsion that Catholicism has always inspired in Dawkins is something that is in keeping with his affection for post Reformation Protestant power. This is the same Dawkins who was happy to fly on the jet of Jeffrey Epstein one minute while attempting to arrest Pope Benedict XVI the next. He would never have dreamed of arresting the head of the BBC for what happened with Jimmy Saville, or arresting Prince Andrew. Catholics should not mistake the comments by Dawkins on ‘Christianity’ as an openness to our faith, which to him is as foreign and outlandish as Islam.
In the video below, what he see is a deranged British Protestant jingoism, claiming that Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic. For our international audience, the ‘Roman’ part is always intended as a dig at Catholics by individuals such as this. Pope Benedict XVI was three unforgivable things in the eyes of the British atheist intelligentsia: a ‘Roman’ Catholic, a German and an intellectual who didn’t tow the line.
Even more surreal is the fact that he appears to be complaining about child abuse, while standing with Peter Tatchell, who has, in the most charitable way that we can put it, advocated for removing the age of consent, amongst other things.
Lastly, if Dawkins is seeking the true face of Christianity, perhaps he needs to look for smaller signs first.
In 2014, Dawkins called for babies with Down Syndrome to be cleansed from society, stating that women should ‘Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice’. Dawkins said that it would make the world ‘happier’ to have a ‘healthy’ baby rather than one with a disability. Dawkins also claims to have never met someone with Down Syndrome.
It is worth mentioning, that in society at large, the views of Richard Dawkins are accepted if rarely mentioned. In Ireland now, 95% of parents with a Down Syndrome baby choose to have it aborted before it can leave the womb and see their parents.
Yet it is really what distinguishes Christianity, and particularly Catholicism, from the rest of society in the current world and from the barbarian pre Christian societies.
To quote the object of the anti Catholicism, Germanophobia and intellectual envy of Richard Dawkins:
‘Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary’, as Pope Benedict XVI said.
Perhaps that would be a better starting point in understanding Christianity than three piece suits at Westminster Abbey.
Just as a last point to address his comments on Christianity’s decline, the numbers of Catholics in the world has increased by 16 million since 2020.
