Christian tolerance should extend to non-believers

OPINION: God loves you whether you've been naughty or nice", "Let's take this upstairs", "Maybe this is the sign from God you've been waiting for" - these are just a few of the slogans displayed outside Wellington churches in recent weeks. Whether or not you're buying what they're selling, it's a fair bet you weren't seized by the urge to deface the billboards or to launch a vicious attack on the people who promoted them.

While it's great that mainstream churches are able to promote their faith without fear of persecution, don't let this fool you into thinking all New Zealanders can expect this degree of tolerance.

When the liberal Auckland church St Matthew-in-the-City recently attempted to spark debate by erecting a billboard showing an image of Joseph and the Virgin Mary in bed together, conservative Christians and the Catholic Church were outraged. The billboard was removed after it was splashed with paint and then slashed with a knife.

And when atheists launched a campaign to raise money to pay for bus ads reading, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life," there was a predictable outcry from people who felt that atheists should, actually, just shut up.

Archbishop John Dew, president of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, made the usual noises about upholding the rights of atheists to express their views before making it clear that those views were much less deserving of respect than the views of, say, Catholics. "I find it interesting that a group of people who claim not to believe in the existence of God have chosen to make God the focus of their bus campaign," he said.

Quite how the bus campaigners could have had a discussion about the existence of God without mentioning God at some stage is not explained by the archbishop, whose use of the word "claim" is revealing. It would be fascinating to see how the Catholic Church would react if anyone suggested Catholics only "claim" to believe in God.

Archbishop Dew appears to think atheists cannot possibly hold their beliefs as strongly as Christians hold theirs. From his standpoint, atheism is nothing but a failure to engage: atheists are empty vessels waiting to be filled by Christ.

But this view looks positively charitable compared to that of New Zealand Herald assistant editor John Roughan. He thinks atheists are even "scarier" than power- hungry religious extremists because they display a "fearful conceit" that no power is beyond them.

Mr Roughan himself seems to be agnostic, but is awash with fuzzy nostalgia for the "ancient splendour" of the church. His suggestion that atheists consider themselves above God - difficult to consider yourself above something you don't believe in, I should have thought - appears to be based on having once witnessed a Russian tour guide being disrespectful in a cathedral.

No journalist would get away with bashing Christians, Muslims or Jews in the way that critics such as Mr Roughan bash atheists, which is precisely why the bus campaign has been such a success. Writer Ariane Sherine launched the campaign in London a year ago, after seeing a bus ad giving the address for a Christian website that cheerily reminded non-believers they would be spending all eternity in torment.

Atheists who haven't said boo to a goose for years, largely out of a desire not to offend religious people, are getting a mite tired of being subjected to this sort of thing. That's why the bus campaign has spread around the world, and that's why New Zealand bus campaigners have raised more than twice as much as they'd aimed to in less than a month.

Atheism isn't as taboo a subject here as it is in the United States, where saying you don't believe in God is a genuine act of political courage. But there are still issues we should surely be able to discuss in a measured, non-hysterical fashion: the rise of Destiny Church, for example, and the practice in some Pacific Island churches of naming and shaming families for not giving large enough donations.

Then there's the decision by many evangelical churches to ignore climate change, presumably on the assumption that God will, in his own sweet time, turn the thermostat down, just as he once allowed the floodwaters to fall. Surely this is exactly the point at which we need to hear from atheists, who, with no belief in an afterlife, might be more inclined to try to save the life we have now.

- © Fairfax NZ News