Not your mother's apple pie
August 6, 2011
While browsing a bookshop in Geneva recently, I came across a book with a fascinating title by a man call Klaas Hendrikse, Believing in a God who does not exist: the manifesto of an atheist pastor. It does not appear to be available in English but is available via Amazon here.
Well, the Rev. Hendrikse has made it on to the BBC website. I am not quite sure what to make of all this. On the one hand, it is refreshing to see an atheist pastor being open about his atheism; I suspect too many liberal pastors are like Tomas in Bergman's Winter Light, drawing their salaries by hiding their unbelief, making shipwrecks of the hopeless and despairing who come to them for help. Yet on the other hand, I wonder what all the people who attend his church think they are doing in the worship service. If I was an atheist I am fairly sure I would be able to find more constructive ways of spending my time.
Still, most worrying of all: I do not think God is like an apple pie either. Does that make me an atheist? Probably not, at least according to the lady in the video.
Well, the Rev. Hendrikse has made it on to the BBC website. I am not quite sure what to make of all this. On the one hand, it is refreshing to see an atheist pastor being open about his atheism; I suspect too many liberal pastors are like Tomas in Bergman's Winter Light, drawing their salaries by hiding their unbelief, making shipwrecks of the hopeless and despairing who come to them for help. Yet on the other hand, I wonder what all the people who attend his church think they are doing in the worship service. If I was an atheist I am fairly sure I would be able to find more constructive ways of spending my time.
Still, most worrying of all: I do not think God is like an apple pie either. Does that make me an atheist? Probably not, at least according to the lady in the video.
