A reluctant defence of the new atheists

One of the critiques theologians who engage the new atheists, such as Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, often level is that the atheists apologists know little or nothing about theology. The religious targets they rail against are disproportionately crude, unsophisticated fundamentalist extremists of various sorts: Suicide bombers, homophobes, misogynists, creationists, theocrats and, gasp, Sunday school teachers. When they try to refute various theistic philosophical ideas, they typically do an abysmal job. They know little or no history. And so on. All these faults are compounded by the air of superiority they have about them.

This drives theologians and theistic philosophers up the wall. One random example off my bookshelf is from John Haught's God and the New Atheism:

The new atheists unveil religion at its absolute ugliest. They are not interested in taking a balanced approach essential to real scholarship. Serving up the most extreme forms of rabid religiosity, they try to convince their readers that this repugnant material is the essence of faith. What most of us consider the most objectionable religious expressions sum up for the new atheists what the theistic faiths are really like. Like their religious opponents, the new atheists are just as closed off to open-ended dialogue with theologians as are anti-Darwinians such as Henry Morris, Ken Ham and Duane Gish. Harris complains that "there is just no talking to some people," but after reading his two books and those of Dawkins and Hitchens, it is hard to imagine how an open-minded theological conversation with any of these uncompromising critics could ever get off the ground either. (28)

Point well taken, of course. If the new atheists really wanted to critique religion properly, they would go for the best religion they could find. The fact that they go for the lowest of the religious low seems definite proof that they are dishonest, or at least less than academically rigourous. Why go for Ken Ham when you could go for Pannenberg?

But here's the problem: In pointing this out (and in other ways critiquing the new atheists), theistic apologists are committing the exact same mistake. They are not engaging the best of atheism, but picking on it lowest and most unsophisticated forms. Why go for Dawkins when you could go for Nietzsche?

The reason, I think, both illuminates what motivates the new atheists and renders the objection to theological ignorance superfluous. Why write a book opposing the new atheists? Other than the chance that you might actually sell a couple of books for a change, critics of the new atheism perceive something of a threat in the popularity of the movement. They are concerned about the popularity of new atheism. One obvious threat is the simple propagation of untruth regarding both God and religion. This untruth can then foster publicly accepted myths that make the cultural environment hostile towards God and religion, hindering missional work. There might be deeper concerns too, that do not only concern religion itself and its work in the world. What will the societal implications of the erosion of religion? What will the ethical implications be? Without the restraint of religion, where will our society go? Without the Absolute, what will be absolutised in its stead? And so on.

Likewise, the new atheists perceive a threat in religion and are concerned. They think religion in dangerous. It flies planes into buildings, as you might remember. They think it's unscientific. And so on.

So, it's wrong for theistic critics to call out the new atheists for being militant - for not being balanced and academically rigourous in their books. Like the critics themselves, the new atheists aren't interested in the simple weighing of ideas. They are responding to a perceived threat.