Who you callin' a delusion?

For those unfamiliar with Richard Dawkins, his best-seller "The God Delusion" offers a self-explanatory title. It's been interesting to observe the extent to which Dawkins has been denounced by those who might be sympathetic to at least some of his conclusions, but decry his methods. A prime example would be this biology professor's review in the The New York Review of Books.

My favorite response to Dawkins of those I've come across is where else but at YouTube. The primary reason I like it is because it made me laugh, while provocatively engaging Dawkins. I'd be interested to find out what someone more inclined to agree with Dawkins, even absent the vitriol, thought.

A part of the audio is explained by its play on this quote from Dawkins' book re the "psychotic" God of the Bible: "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

While it might be easy to dismiss Dawkins as just a pretty angry, rhetorically sloppy and excessive guy, upset that not everyone else thinks as he does, the response he's elicited indicates that he's serving as an emotional outlet for the simmering resentment of a fair number of people.

For a patient Christian response that attempts to inhabit and engage Dawkins' views, on this page are the first three of ten posts entitled "The God Hypothesis" from New Testament professor Scot McKnight with comments from a university research scientist.

I think there's actually an irony concerning Dawkins and his ilk. Their vociferous denials are more attuned to the real God, who threatens and undermines our pretensions to autonomy, than many who are formally religious, have crafted their own "spirituality" or are apathetic, even if they claim to "believe" in God.

With respect to Dawkins' above-cited stream of invectives directed at God, we should be mindful of the fact that neither Dawkins nor anyone else in their efforts to shock, insult or otherwise can come close to approaching the actual offense of the cross where God in Christ was physically manhandled and abused while taking on himself every bit of our reproach. It is in and through our derision and denial that God calls us to himself, opening our eyes to the depth of our acrimony towards him (reflected in our treatment of one another, who are made in God's image, with Jesus - God and man - epitomizing both), even as he forgives us; so that we no longer deride and deny, but are those who confess and trust in the One whose abundant mercy and grace so defy our categories and expectations.