Richard Dawkins is Sad. He’s Had His Facebook Account Deleted And He Wants to Know XY

Richard Dawkins is Sad

Richard Dawkins is sad. Sad and angry and frustrated. And rightly so, I would imagine. His past few years have been – as one would expect as a person ages – quite enfeebled. And he’s especially enfeebled in the public square.

Of course there was that terrible conversion to Christianity of his former atheist partner in arms, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  You could hear the despair in his voice as he tried to reason her away from the faith.  He is withering on the vine!

But Dawkins is not just enfeebled from a strength perspective – or from his allies deserting him. His very framework for how the world could work – should work – is enfeebled also.

There was a time when Dawkins could envisage a world of open inquiry – once those pesky religious people pipped down – in which all viewpoints about reality would be discussed in the public square rationally and using scientific argument. Classic liberalism would win the day!

Yet, sadly – indeed saddest of all for Richards Dawkins – is this moment today.  For he’s just posted this on X (because we can’t read it on Facebook):

A pre-emptive strike surely. Facebook didn’t want the hassle of him calling something out – in the very field in which he is an actual expert – , so they shut it down early. Shut him down early.

Yes Richard, outright censorship. What did you expect of a society that has framed God out of the picture? Genuine liberal inquiry?

As a friend of mine, David mused so wisely when we just discussed this issue just now:

I sometimes wonder if the reason the soft-totalitarian left has been able to get so entrenched, is because of the culturally Christian commitment to classical liberalism. In wishing to think the best of the other by making space for alternative viewpoints,  some with predominantly leftist viewpoints (who don’t recognise the validity of alternative viewpoints) were able to entrench themselves more-or-less unopposed. Once entrenched, they have had no interest in returning the favour of allowing alternative viewpoints.  Dawkins is a classical liberal – and is astonished that without a strongly pervasive Christian culture, that classical liberalism will struggle to survive. I suspect the most extreme leftists take their cues from Marx – who philosophically only recognises power as the ultimate arbiter, and so feel perfectly right and moral in extinquishing spaces for alternative viewpoints.

Exactly. That nails it. We fight with one hand tied behind our backs. And I get that from a gospel perspective. I am no fan of the Christian Nationalism thing at all! But let’s not kid ourselves that classical liberalism is going to live much longer, never mind be in good health. Things look grim. And what is set to replace it?

Look anywhere around the world where either a Marxist framework once thrived  – or within the institutions that house the current neo-Marxist framework – and you will never find genuine inquiry or discourse. Never. You will see a power play that shuts down all alternative viewpoints. Surely no one can argue that we are not on the way there.

Which should be a warning to Christians who think that somehow that classic liberalism is the default of the West and that things will never change. They not only will, they are!

And where does that leave us as Christians in the public square if the likes of Dawkins can’t speak his mind? Not well placed I have to say.

The Third Way Is A Dead XY Man Walking

The great irony is that just as the industrial machine of “Third Way” Christianity gets up a head of steam, the liberal position it felt it could speak into in our public institutions is dissipating.  Some things – increasingly more things – are not up for debate. And, sadly – sadly in a Richard Dawkins kinda way – many of those things are things we should be debating, but are not longer permitted to do so.

The Third Way Christian frame assumed a public discourse would still be possible, But in the end it is dying the death of a thousand cuts, as subject after subject that Christians should debate in the public square, are increasingly off-limits. You will get zero media oxygen for your opinion of such matters.

So what happens? You self-censor in order to maintain the important, hard-earned nuanced voice you have in the public square. But of course, no one is listening, because you’re not saying anything that anyone is talking about.

And yes of course this topic is not new. And yes of course I love Tim Keller’s stuff. But the world is moving on quickly and the Third Way is dead in the water.

In order to maintain a voice in the public square – it is assumed that we have to keep an audience. And the only way to keep an audience is to fudge the hard stuff.  Press into the hard stuff – the kind of stuff that gets Dawkins censored – and the game is over.  No more op-ed pieces in the local paper. Sorry if that sounds hard itself. But it’s true.

I fear that too much of Third Way Christianity seems to have settled into reconciling itself with keeping away from discussing topics in the public square that make the post-liberal world (especially the post-liberal media world) angry. I hope that’s not the case, but it increasingly seems to be so.

Argue with me if you disagree. Hey, as Richard Dawkins would say, I’m all up for a civilised argument!

This self-censoring risk become an art form. You can’t tip-toe your way around the subjects that cannot be discussed and assume that somehow you’re having important discussions that show how compelling Christianity is. Non-Christians want to know: What does the Christian faith have to say about the matters of anthropology that are tearing at the fabric of our society.

As it turns out, when you gut Christianity of the very discussions that the rest of the world is wrestling with (or boxing with) – as these Olympics have shown – you miss the opportunity to say something significant to the people who will never read a broadsheet or listen to the national broadcaster.

For too long people have dismissed nominal Christianity as part of the problem for evangelism, but my experience is that people who hold to a vaguely Christian worldview are the low hanging fruit of the gospel. They sense things are wrong. They send their children to Christian schools because they can see the confusion and craziness.

Now you may never meet such folk, but they need to become Christians too. If all our efforts are turned – and all our conversations are honed – towards sexually fluid, inner city post-liberals who hold down key roles in our institutions, then we’re accounting for about one percent of the population.

Sure they hold a lot of power. But the gospel’s never been about power, has it?

From what I can see, the nominals have all sorts of questions about some of the more confronting stuff going on around what it means to be human in our world, and what identity is all about.

What doesn’t help them, is when some sincere, but misguided Christians try to show how cool and detached (“nuanced” is the word) they are compared to all the enraged hotheads who are having a go. “We’re not those kind of Christians!” they seem to be saying.

Their response to that is “Well if this doesn’t upset you, what does?” And if your reply is “Read my column in the Sydney Morning Herald and you’ll find out,” then you don’t have all that much to say.

Which simply means that most Christians playing that game are waggling on the tee. But if you want to play golf, sooner or later you’re gonna have to hit a drive. And that first drive can really show you up!

Don’t Be Gaslit

While we are on the Olympian subject, let’s tack a little into the breeze of the past few weeks, because this also has relevance to that conversation.

I lost count of how many Christians wrote publicly saying that we could use The Last Supper/Not The Last Supper/How dare you insinuate it was The Last Supper?/Only an enraged conservative would conceive of it being The Last Supper, as an evangelistic opportunity for non-Christians.

Well, here we are two weeks later. How many of those conversations occurred? Was anyone compelled by the nuance? I said at the time that it is okay for Christians to be vexed by it (without being enraged).

To be honest I’ve been more vexed by the way so many Christians allowed themselves to be gaslit by claims and counterclaims about the performance’s real intent.

I’ve seen gaslighting up close and personal in institutions. And this was a textbook case. The real rage was exhibited by the Parisian mayor going on a foul-mouthed rant against all sorts of perceived enemies who were out to wreck her celebration of soft-left secularism.

In the long run, the most compelling Christians I read on this matter, were those who held their nerve, refused to say that blue emperor was dressed in anything by anti-Christian garb, and pondered a way forward for those who while vexed, were not outraged.

Christian On Christian

And finally all of this is not merely playing out between the Christian and the secular world. Too many revisionist Christians are more than happy to distance themselves – and implicitly fling mud at – those Christians who hold an orthodox line on issues of anthropology and sexual ethics.

“Oh look!” they say – to all who might be listening in (and they’re hoping against hope that the post-liberal institutional influencers are listening), “We’re much more nuanced, and definitely more relaxed about what is going on, than our unreconstructed cousins.”

Will they come to the aid of their orthodox brothers and sisters should the censorship take on a more menacing tone? Of course they will not. That’s been proven in the past, and from the language I see being used, the direction is set. Prepare for a deepening schism among evangelicals: Those who remain committed to the biblical teaching on nature and salvation, and those who do not.

And it’s been a bit sad reading Christians who are “we just don’t know” about the aforementioned Olympic boxer. A boxer who, I have to say, has been given a torrid time by some horrid people. But not everyone is horrid. And not everyone who questions their right to box against XX women is a right-wing rabid nutbar. Clearly Dawkins isn’t for one!

Once again, as seems to be the case in this sex and gender battle within the wider culture war,  it is women who are the losers. And I have to say, the silence by many women who I thought might speak up about this – or those who have shrugged their shoulders – is instructive. Are they afraid to say something because they see what happens if you do?

Do they genuinely have no compassion for a woman who has her nose broken with the first punch and throws in the towel in tears?  Who would know? They never say. Or perhaps they see what happens when women who do speak up get verballed, abused, shut down and accused of all sorts of things.

In the end Olympics is simply another captured post-liberal institution. And it will, all things being equal – continue to be captured sport by sport. That’s the way this has been working. That’s the direction. Expect more of this at the 2028 Games.

Dawkins is astonished by the censorship, and wonders why there was no spirited debate. Well there was no spirited debate, because that kind of debate is a vestige of the cultural Christianity he so admires. It didn’t spring up from the ether. Or the primordial ooze.

And there he was thinking it would be us that would shut him down. Turns out there are even more deeply religious zealots that we! Turns out when we get rid of God we simply outsource the role to ourselves.

Richard Dawkins once promoted the atheistic slogan that was splashed all over buses in London back a decade or two ago, “There’s probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

Richard may not be worrying, but from the looks of his latest tweet, he’s not exactly enjoying his life either.