Darrow Miller and Friends

Will the Real Atheists Please Stand Up?

Sometimes Christians are accused of lacking the courage of their convictions. “If it were a crime to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” is one version of that.

Okay, let’s grant that some truth lurks in that question for many professing Christians. But are Christians the only ones guilty? How about atheists? If God’s followers fail to live up to their teachings, how about His deniers? How many atheists have been willing to live out the natural conclusions of their doctrine?

Not that there aren’t exceptions. In a forthcoming book, Darrow Miller gives print space to one (rare) honest atheist:

We were opposed to morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. (Aldous Huxley, Confessions of a Professional Free Thinker)

Kermit Gosnell

Maybe another honest atheist is “Dr.” Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist whose clinic included “the remains of old placenta and fetuses” and was described as “reeking of urine and feces from the cats that wandered freely through the building, echoing with the screams of women forced into labor and then abandoned for hours.”

The public is horrified at the story (the worst details of which we have omitted). And horror is the right response. But only if there is a moral, personal God who made man in His image as a creature of moral responsibility. If no such God exists, if man is nothing more than an animal of longer evolutionary development, why should anyone shudder at anything Kermit Gosnell did?

Indeed, Gosnell himself was reported to have been “a little befuddled at his arraignment on January 20. … He didn’t understand … the first-degree [murder] charges for the deaths of seven babies delivered alive and then killed in his clinic.” Isn’t his confusion consistent with an atheistic worldview?

Darrow’s book will point out that

The biblical paradigm affirms that people are made in the image of God, thus life is sacred. It follows that policies and parties grounded in the Judeo-Christian worldview seek to protect human life. Atheistic materialism, on the other hand, sees human beings simply as animals; the Darwinian principle of the survival of the fittest prevails. Such a paradigm leads inevitably to abortion: an adult has the power (and deserves the right) to end the life of her weaker baby. From this derive policies, parties and laws that support abortion.

Gary Brumbelow

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Gary is the Disciple Nations Alliance editorial manager. He manages Darrow Miller and Friends and serves as editor and co-writer on various book projects. For eight years Gary served as a cross-cultural church planting missionary among First Nations people of Canada. His career also includes 14 years as executive director of InterAct Ministries, an Oregon-based church-planting organization in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. Gary is a graduate of Grace University, earned an MA from Wheaton College and a Graduate Studies Diploma from Western Seminary. He lives near Portland, Oregon with his wife, Valerie. They have two married sons and twelve grandchildren. In addition to his work with the DNA, Gary serves as the pastor of Troutdale Community Church.

1 Comment

  1. David Rupert

    February 15, 2011 - 8:50 am

    People don’t believe because they cannot face the consequences of the truth — that they are not in charge!

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