Baptists and atheism.

Atheism is an urgent theological issue today, claims Fisher Humphreys in his new booklet, Baptist Theology: A Really Short Version. In fact, he writes that "for millions of people today ... their default setting is atheism rather than belief in God." (1)

Fisher is on to something really big. The April 9, 2007, issue of Newsweek featured a debate over whether God is real. Participants, both authors of best-selling books, included Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, California (The Purpose-Driven Life), and Sam Harris, an intellectual proponent of' atheism (The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation).

Then three days later, the April 12 edition of The Wall Street Journal featured the front-page article, "As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit," measuring 81 inches of copy as it continued onto page All. This article pictured Michel Onfray, identified as "France's high priest of militant atheism" whose Atheist Manifesto is "a best seller in France, Italy and Spain." The article described "zealous disbelief in God" as an "increasingly potent phenomenon in Europe." Britain's National Secular Society even provides a "certificate of de-baptism" for individuals who convert from Christianity to atheism.

Do Baptists, other Christians, and Jews have any reason to be concerned about these aggressive atheistic developments? We do indeed! While we Baptists, by conviction, must defend the right of people to adopt atheistic positions, we must also recognize that growing patterns of secularism and hedonism that deny God strike at the heart and soul of the totality of Baptist history, theology, and experience.

Therefore, what better time is there than the present to communicate positive, Bible-based, God-affirming initiatives to the public at large? What better opportunity could Baptists possibly have today than to resurrect and share historic Baptist convictions about the power and grace of God?

Allow me to get personal.

March 7, 2007, was a gloriously beautiful Appalachian day. The temperature in Asheville, North Carolina, was in the 70s, gentle breezes were blowing, the sky was a rich shade of blue, and puffy white clouds floated along. Sitting under a tent in the cemetery of Beaverdam Baptist Church, with my father's casket lying to my left and my mother's gravestone at my feet, surrounded by the beautiful and mysterious mountains in which I had grown up and played and prayed, and looking down the hill at the church building in which I had been baptized and received my spiritual training from birth until I went to college, I felt the presence of God.

As I sat under that graveside tent, the minister read scripture, prayed, and offered pastoral comments. My mind calmly reflected on the biblical ethics my parents had taught me. (My father always had us at church thirty minutes early, even though we lived only one mile away). I remembered ways the church had shaped me: hundreds of Sunday School classes, training classes, and sermons; annual Vacation Bible Schools; numerous study courses and revivals; and many baptisms, Lord Suppers, weddings, funerals, and Youth Week preaching experiences. And all of it happened because my parents cared! Why did they do that? Because they had learned that God was real, that he cared for them, and that they had a duty to share God with their children.

Atheism is real today. So is God. Who will win--a philosophy of life that says no to God, or the God who created those who deny him?

My recent visit to a cemetery helped me put things in perspective. My parents are in heaven. God is real. Christ will come again.

(1.) (Brentwood, TN: Baptist History and Heritage Society, 2007), 15.

Charles W. Deweese

Executive Director-Treasurer

Baptist History and Heritage Society