Infectious Christianity
In his best-selling book, “The God Delusion,” Atheist Richard Dawkins argued that faith is akin to a deadly virus that has proven extremely difficult to eradicate
“It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, ‘mad cow’ disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”
Our recent experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has given us greater insight into Dawkins’ metaphor. We now understand more about viruses, their transmission, and how containment and treatment measures can succeed or fail.
The early Christian movement began as a small outbreak of young men following around a charismatic religious teacher. Jesus’ teachings were infectious. He said things that made their Jewish heads spin, yet they sensed something bigger was happening, and the world would never turn the same way again. While His following was initially just a localized religious infection, Caiaphas, the leading Jewish epidemiologist of the time, recognized the potential danger of this contagion and thought it was better to kill the index case than let the whole nation perish.
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” (John 11: 49-50)
At Jesus’ crucifixion, the Roman and Jewish Centers for Religious Disease Control mistakenly believed they had contained the infection. However, three days later, it reemerged, infecting everyone attending the annual Pentecost convention.
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2: 1-4)
Their tongues became inflamed, and Christian fever spread like wildfire.
And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47)
Since the convention attracted numerous participants from around the world, the contagion spread quickly when they returned to their hometowns.
Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” (Acts 2:9-11)
Jesus had previously warned one of the religious leaders that when the Gospel goes airborne, symptoms will break out everywhere, and they won’t be able to contain it.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3: 5-8)
Christianity then became a global pandemic, spreading from Judea to Samaria and the ends of the Earth, infecting every governmental, cultural, and societal institution. A phenomenon well-documented by Historian Tom Holland in his monumental book “Dominion.”
“All of us in the West, whether we are believers or nonbelievers, whether we are Jews, Muslims, Hindus living in the West, we are all of us in a sense goldfish swimming in Christian waters, because Christianity has so radically affected our assumptions, not just about ethics or morality, but about the most basic way we contemplate society; the idea of the secular; the idea of there being something called religion; all of this is so shaped by Christianity.” (Tom Holland in an interview with Peter Robinson on Uncommon Knowledge, October 2022)
Once Christianity went airborne, it became, as Christian apologist Glen Scrivener described it, “The Air We Breathe. ” This gave the world a persistent historical case of Long Christianity characterized by symptoms of “Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality.”
“The tiny Jesus movement of the 1st century embraced every aspect of this “unbelievably preposterous story”, to use (Jordan) Peterson’s phrase, and yet it “has stretched into every atom of culture”. The triumph of the Jesus-movement has defied all human expectations.” (Glen Scrivener- “The Air We Breathe, loc 2395)
The Jesus movement, however, has also experienced slowdowns, such as when the Enlightenment attempted to “flatten the curve” by urging us to “follow the science” and not be taken in by resurrection conspiracy theories. However, despite the best efforts of these atheist scientists to abolish this religious infection, the world appears to be once again spiking a Jesus fever, making way for what Christian apologist Justin Brierley has described as “A Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God.”
I want to credit Dawkins for recognizing that Christianity did indeed go viral, but I challenge his characterization of it as deadly. It did go airborne, but rather than causing the death of civilization, it breathed life back into the world. Instead of leading to brain death, it resulted in a renewal of the mind. Interestingly, Dawkins, despite his religious hypochondria, intellectual masking, and social distancing, is now showing signs and symptoms of infection, including enjoying Christian music and admiring the beauty of houses of worship. However, he claims it is just a mild form of cultural Christianity and proudly points out that the virus hasn’t infected his mind, which seems a bit odd since he admits to enjoying the cultural company of those severely afflicted with Christian encephalitis.
“I do think we are culturally a Christian country. I do call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos, and I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense. It’s true that statistically the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down, and I’m happy with that, but I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So, I count myself a cultural Christian.” (Richard Dawkins interviewed by Rachel Johnson, March 2024)
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