Do Come Home, All is Forgiven!

A. N. Wilson, once famously atheistic, has rediscovered his faith. He writes how difficult it can be, in this modern age, to be a Christian.

Why did I, along with so many others, become so dismissive of Christianity?

Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.

To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious. With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy, like having spots or wearing specs.

This playground attitude accounts for much of the attitude towards Christianity that you pick up, say, from the alternative comedians, and the casual light blasphemy of jokes on TV or radio.

No cause for shame and he was hardly alone. Wilson is attending C of E services but has made an unpleasant discovery.

One suspects this is how it is viewed in most liberal circles, in university common rooms, at the BBC and, perhaps above all, sadly, by the bishops of the Church of England, who despite their episcopal regalia, nourish few discernible beliefs that could be distinguished from the liberalism of the age.

Not much different over here. Wilson was received into the Catholic Church many years ago, before renouncing it and proclaiming his atheism. Given the rapidly deteriorating state of Anglicanism, I hope he will consider making his confession and coming back to Holy Mother Church. I know just the priest for him.


Tiber Ferryman to the quality