This article first appeared on the Christian Values in Education website (cvie.org.uk).
Richard Dawkins recently described himself in a radio interview as a ‘cultural Christian’. Given his status as a notorious atheist, this may have been seen as a positive development, perhaps an indication of a shift in his world view. Christians rejoice to welcome converts, and where that person is particularly widely known, visions of Saul of Tarsus pop into the believer’s mind.
The reality is that he has not left his atheism behind, and he won’t be disavowing his evolutionary convictions any time soon. What then does he mean in calling himself a ‘cultural Christian’? The term betrays an error common in the secular world, namely that there is a way to be a Christian aesthetically or morally only. It is the idea that there can be enjoyment of certain traditions and an espousing of particular convictions on a sort of spectrum of Christianity, where you can choose just how Christian you want to be.
Now, given the goodness of God in natural law, any movement that finds Christianity of value culturally is better than one that doesn’t. For many, the impact of Christianity on our culture – law, music, art, architecture – is a positive, and far superior to the contributions of other faiths. Dawkins, for example, said that Christianity is a ‘fundamentally decent religion’. But Christians know that Christianity demands the proper noun, not just the common. A Christian may be one who likes some things that are a product of Christian truth – a cultural Christian – but a Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ, which demands repentance and faith.
