Interview Between An Atheist & Unitarian
While I’m taking a slight detour from the standard fare of worship and music with this post, I think you’ll be intrigued by it.
This last week, noted atheist Christopher Hitchens lectured in Portland, OR. In preparation for the event, local magazine Portland Monthly had a feature interview between Hitchens and Marilyn Sewell, a retired Unitarian minister. You might think a discussion between an atheist and Unitarian wouldn’t be too interesting. Guess again. Hitchens, in certain respects, appears to have a stronger grasp of Christianity than Sewell. The intent of the article was to focus on Hitchen’s views, but I finished it thinking more about Sewell’s beliefs.
Here are a few highlights from that interview.
Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is a generally fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.
Further on in the interview:
Sewell:But I still consider myself a Christian and a person of faith.
Hitchens: Faith in what? Faith in the Resurrection?
Sewell: I believe one can go from a death in this life, in the sense of being dead to the world and dead to other people, to a resurrection in a new life. When I preach about Easter and the Resurrection, it’s in a metaphorical sense.
Sewell: I don’t know whether or not God exists, let me just say that. I certainly don’t think that God is an old man in the sky; I don’t believe that God intervenes to give me goodies if I ask for them.
Hitchens: You don’t believe he’s an interventionist of any kind?
Sewell: I’m kind of an agnostic on that one. God is a mystery to me. I choose to believe because—and this is a very practical thing for me—I seem to live with more integrity when I find myself accountable to something larger than myself. That thing larger than myself I call “God,” but it’s a metaphor. That God is an emptiness out of which everything comes.
This brand of liberal Christianity seems no more than self help, feel good thinking. Atheists may sneer and liberal Christians may reject the confessional Christian’s understanding of the faith, but I will still stand firm on what Christ has done for us and what He continues to do for us. What better way to end than singing the faith in the fine Lutheran chorale “I Know My Faith Is Founded.”
I know my faith is founded
On Jesus Christ, my God and Lord;
And this my faith confessing.
Unmoved I stand on His sure Word.
Our reason cannot fathom
The truth of God profound;
Who trusts in human wisdom
Relies on shifting ground.
God’s Word is all sufficient,
It makes divinely sure;
And trusting in its wisdom,
My faith shall rest secure. (LSB 587)
Related posts: