Christians Urged to Meet Atheists in the Public Square

Christians shouldn't always turn the other cheek and ignore the attacks of secular thought, says one prominent conservative writer. They need to step out and meet the atheist critique.

"We don't want the public square to be dominated by the atheists," said New York Times bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza.

D'Souza believes Christians have left the public square unoccupied, limiting their expression of religiosity to church on Sunday, their families, and the Christian subculture.

As a consequence, atheists have entered the public square – what Christians thought would have been "neutral space," as D'Souza put it. And they want to drive the Christians out, remove Christian symbolism from coins, the pledge and public buildings.

"Ultimately, they want to discredit Christianity as something that is incompatible with modern life and modern thought," said the noted author in an interview with The Christian Post.

D'Souza is calling Christians back to the public square.

"There is a time to turn the other cheek but there is also a time to drive the money changers out of the temple," he said. "By that I mean there is nothing in Scripture that says Christians should ignore or embrace attacks on their face. But with the right tone, using not only Scripture but reason and science and experience, I think Christians should step out into the world and meet the atheist critique."

D'Souza is due to release What's So Great About Christianity next week. It's his first book, among many, dealing with Christianity in America. He originally set out to approach the topic in a modest and more secular way, he said, but found himself in the midst of a number of atheist books hitting stores and greatly widening the attack on religion and, more specifically, Christianity.

The atheistic arguments – that Christianity goes against reason and science and is based on blind faith – are resonating with people, D'Souza noticed, and hitting bestseller lists.

"I do think that we are seeing a more self-confident and perhaps even militant atheism," he noted. "Atheists are kind of on the war path, out to attack religion, demean it, drive it out of the public square, and remove all religious symbolism from American society. So something odd is going on here."

One such atheist is Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, who is urging atheists to come out of the closet and declare themselves publicly with his Out Campaign. Like other "new atheists," Dawkins publicly rejects the existence of God and wants to drive out religion.

Part of the reason society is seeing an emboldened atheism is that a lot of these outspoken atheists were hoping religion would disappear as society became more modern and developed, according to D'Souza.

"Religion was seen as more of an ancient form of belief that would go away as science progressed and as we all became more successful, educated and affluent," said D'Souza.

"But this has not happened,” he continued. “And, in fact, religion is booming in countries around the world," including the most modernized ones such as India and China.

"So the atheist in a way is getting a little more desperate," D'Souza believes.

Living in a culture that is to a considerable degree secular, D'Souza would like to see in churches across the country apologetics come to center stage not to displace what the churches have been doing but to supplement it in a very important way, he said.