Do you remember when the New Atheism was at its peak? Do you remember when the so-called “Four Horsemen” of the movement were writing book after book that proclaimed and celebrated the death of Christianity and, indeed, the death of religion? Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris became household names and seemed to have standing invitations to appear on the nightly talk shows. You could hear their bold denunciations of faith, witness their popularity, sense their swagger, and easily begin to think that—in the West, at least—the end of religion was finally at hand.
Though that was not too long ago, it seems like ancient history. It seems like it must have been decades or centuries ago, not merely a handful of years. I am leery to declare any kind of formal “vibe shift” or outright transformation of the culture, but what’s clear is that these men and their followers were far too quick to declare that modern man had evolved beyond any need or desire for religion. And it is equally clear that they began to see that a world without religion is not a world they would want to live in, for when the influence of atheism surpasses the influence of Christianity, even they can see how chaos and repression will reign. Little wonder, then, that they want to be religiously atheist but culturally Christian.
Those with an eye to history will know that the New Atheists were hardly the first atheists. Neither will they be the last. Every generation or two gives birth to a new rise of those who despise God and declare we are better off without him. And every time we witness a new New Atheism, many Christians grow frightened, wondering if this is the time that Christianity will begin to wane and sink into decline. Like the disciples who fretted that Jesus was sleeping when the wind and the waves tossed their little boat, we can be concerned that God has sunk into a kind of slumber and allowed evil to put truth on the defensive.
But we must not mistake the rise of a movement, however great it seems, to be an indication of God’s apathy or inability. Rather, we can know and trust that God always has purposes he means to accomplish—purposes that sometimes involve allowing his opponents to rise for a time and perhaps even to seem as if they will triumph.
A lion crawls into a cave, lies down, and sleeps through the night. And while he sleeps, spiders conspire together to spin a web that will block the mouth of the cave. With the web complete, they celebrate together that they have caught the lion and will soon be able to feast upon him. But when the lion awakes, he rises to his paws, shakes his mane, walks into the sunlight, and roars with such intensity that he shakes the mountains all around. He does not even notice the web that was meant to trap him, for what is a spider web to a lion?
What is a spider web to a lion?
And in just that way, people continually spin their stories and weave their opinions in an attempt to prove the futility of faith, the naivety of believers, and indeed the death of God. Yet it is never long before the Lion of the tribe of Judah rouses himself and roars and shakes the nations so that his people hear his voice, receive his summons, and come willingly, joyfully to him.
What a spider web is to a lion are the arguments of Richard Dawkins, the scorn of Christopher Hitchens, the argumentation of Daniel Dennett, and the self-confident skepticism of Sam Harris. What is a spider web to a lion? And what is an atheist to the God who created this world, who rules over it, and who will bring it to its grand conclusion? Truth has always triumphed, and truth always will triumph.
Inspired in part by the works of De Witt Talmage
