Richard Dawkins, the London-based professor, scientist and world-famous atheist, told a London radio show that while he thinks following Jesus Christ is a scam, he wants Christian ideals and values to be foundational elements of government.
Dawkins, 83, went as far as to refer to himself as a “cultural Christian” despite a career of mocking Christianity, especially its supernatural beliefs. He went on to state that if choosing between governance with Christian values and governance by Islam, there’s no comparison.
Dawkins told LBC Radio he was “horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted” in the U.K.
“I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense. It’s true that statistically the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down, and I-I'm happy with that, but I would not be happy if for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So I count myself a cultural Christian. I think it would matter certainly if we substituted any alternative religion, that would be truly dreadful,” Dawkins said.
Dawkins, who wrote The God Delusion, made sure his interviewer understood he does not “believe a single word of the Christian faith,” while embracing the values that he believes advance community, security and prosperity for all people.
“If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I choose Christianity every single time. It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not,” he said.
The interviewer asked Dawkins for greater clarity while noting that roughly 6,000 mosques are under construction across Europe, and many more are planned.
The thing about Islam is …
Dawkins said he has several concerns with Islam including “the way women are treated. Christianity has had its problems with female vicars and female bishops, but there’s an active hostility to women which is promoted, I think, by the holy books of Islam. I'm not talking about individual Muslims, who, of course, are quite different, but the doctrines of Islam, the Hadiths, and the Quran is fundamentally hostile to women, hostile to gays.
“I’m not a believer, but there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and a cultural Christian. I find that I like living in a culturally Christian country.”
Even cultural Christianity appears to be on borrowed time in the U.K., where the majority of people in both England and Wales do not identify as Christian for the first time since the seventh century, according to most recent census data.
“He’s admitting, he's saying, ‘I'm not a believer in Jesus Christ as my savior, but I sure do like the benefits of this whole Christianity thing,’” Walker Wildmon, an American Family Association vice president, said on American Family Radio Tuesday.
“He made some valid points. People can profess the truth. They can acknowledge the truth without fundamentally believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as their personal savior,” Walker told show host Jenna Ellis. “He professed the obvious, that cultures that adopt Christianity as their primary moral framework often benefit and are better for everyone – even for unbelievers.”
U.S. has ‘cafeteria Catholic’ in White House
It certainly appears that President Biden, who proudly professes a Catholic faith, would desire less Christian influence for the U.S.
Biden’s White House, on Good Friday, which honors the day Christ was crucified, released a statement proclaiming the following Easter Sunday – which honors His rise from death – as Transgender Day of Visibility.
While Dawkins refers to himself as a cultural Christian, Washington, D.C., Archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory, appearing on Fox News, called Biden a “cafeteria Catholic” who picks and chooses parts of his faith while “ignoring or even contradicting” other parts in a selective adherence.
Gregory, whose politics lean left, said a cafeteria Catholic refers to those who practice faith by choosing “what is attractive and dismissing that which is challenging.”
Back on the AFR show, Wildmon says Dawkins has hit the nail on the head.
“What he’s saying about Christianity and the cultural effects of Christianity are so very true," Wildmon commented. "If you want a society where human rights are protected, where justice is sought, where freedom and liberty are pursued, all within the confines of biblical morality, then Christianity is the way to go. That’s what's made America what we are today...Christianity, and the adoption of Christian principles.”
As in Europe, Christianity in America faces challenges even if those challenges look different.
If Christians want to protect their culture – more importantly their right to practice their faith – they need to be politically engaged, Wildmon said.
“It’s a myth that religion and Christianity don’t belong in government, that we’ve got to be this secular government, that we’re not driven by any type of set moral code,” he said. “Our Constitution is set up for a moral people, for a people that adhere to scripture, that acknowledge God as creator and sustainer. Until we get back to a place where God is part of government, where biblical morality is part of how we structure our laws then we’re going to be in a bad place.
“Because somebody’s ideals are going to win.”
Editor's Note: The American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
