Blogs For Victory

Just another example of why we should never, ever give up on those who don’t believe – after all, God never does:

British intellectual A.N. Wilson, by his own admission, was a member for many years of the company of smug mockers of religion that dominates Britain’s chattering classes.

Not any more.

Writing in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, Wilson recounts why he has abandoned the trendy atheism of which he was formerly a prominent apostle.

Raised a Christian, Wilson’s faith weakened as he matured and collapsed completely by the time he was in his 30s.

And by the 1990s, he had authored a book, titled Jesus: A Life, that denied the divinity of Jesus and the miraculous aspects of his birth, life and death.

“Why did I, along with so many others, become so dismissive of Christianity?” Wilson writes in his Daily Mail article, Religion of hatred: Why we should no longer be cowed by the chattering classes ruling Britain who sneer at Christianity.

“Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.

“To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious. With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy, like having spots or wearing specs.

“This playground attitude accounts for much of the attitude towards Christianity that you pick up, say, from the alternative comedians, and the casual light blasphemy of jokes on TV or radio.

It is very hard to cut through the morass of lies and nonsense which has been erected for the purpose of keeping people away from God. But the trick can be done – God is always calling to us, and if anyone who does not try to live by God’s will decides, even for a moment, to be still and listen, the call will become irresistible. I know that some of my “born again” brothers and sisters have it that a radical change was made, but I think that most of us who turn our lives over to God will state that it was a slow, at times halting, process. For me, it has taken years just to get to the point where I really consider myself a Christian, though one with a very long way to go before I’m worthy to stand with the least of Christ’s servants (this isn’t false humility – once one does turn towards God, one of the more stunning discoveries is just what a creep one has been…the atheists and agnostics don’t comprehend this; neither the fact of their creepiness nor the liberation which comes with understanding what one is, and what one is leaving behind). While the acceptance of Christ was the work of a moment, the act of becoming like Christ is a much longer process.

My fellow believers can speak for themselves here, but one of the things I’ve noted since turning towards God is that I have less and less attachment to – or, indeed, tolerance for – popular culture. I’m no longer even remotely interested in the nauseating parade of pop-culture glitz and glam. I understand there is a show called “American Idol” where people attempt to sing their way to fame while subjecting themselves to various forms of public humiliation…I’ve never sat and watched the show: the whole concept is a horror to me. Meanwhile, when a pop-culture event becomes so large that literally everyone has to hear about it – such as the case a year or two ago of Britney Spears’ meltdown – I’m moved to pity for the poor people involved. The people who get caught up in such social meat grinders could have had such wonderful lives and done so much good…but now they’re just the fodder for incorrigible gossipers.

And all of that is just the noise – the screaming shout of “look at me!” which distracts the human mind from family, home, Church…and faith. How can a pastor who is only a so/so speaker compete with the titillation of, say, some bottom-feeding celebrity show dredging up the worst behavior possible? How can a devoted wife attract the attention of her husband while he’s wrapped up in the day to day affairs of some Hollywood freak show? What chance has a troubled child to get parental attention form parents who spend their time discussing the vagaries of celebrity divorce and scandal?

But it can be got around, as Mr. Wilson has shown. There must have been, God be praised, some quiet corner where he could think undisturbed and where the example of real Christians could be pondered in opposition to the shallow anti-Christianity of modern pop culture. Our greatest hope, as believers, will have to be in our ability to convince people to shut off the TV, and listen to the call of God.