In case you were on holiday in some far-off land where Twitter doesn’t reach (increasingly unlikely) last week, Richard Dawkins has been making headlines again.

Somewhat predictably, this furore was caused by a typically boorish tweet about Islam. The deepening cracks in Dawkins popularity amongst even atheists began to show earlier this year following his snide remarks about journalist Mehdi Hassan:

Mehdi Hasan admits to believing Muhamed flew to heaven on a winged horse. And New Statesman sees fit to print him as a serious journalist

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) April 21, 2013

Not chastened by the outcry of the Twitterati in April, Dawkins followed this up last week with the following nonchalant tweet:

 

 August 8, 2013

Even those that defended his attack on Hasan’s ability to be both a credible journalist and an orthodox Muslim (and for more context on the winged horse thing see here) couldn’t bring themselves to defend this. Tom Chivers, the Telegraph’s deputy comment editor whose love of science has been deeply influenced by works like 'The Blind Watchmaker' wrote this careful and sad denunciation. That day the voices of atheists distancing themselves from the man who has often been seen as their high priest became a cacophony, with Owen Jones in the Independent and Martin Robbins in the New Statesman piling in. Matthew Norman in the Telegraph added for good measure  “I write as one who became a devout atheist at the age of nine…. [but] I would now rather spend a year in a Cistercian monastery or a madrassa than a minute listening to Richard Dawkins”. While last year Richard Dawkins defended Sam Harris when he got into some hot water over comments about torture, there is no sign yet of the remaining two horsemen of the apocalypse stepping in to mount a defence this time. One can almost hear Dawkins mutter “Et tu, Brute?”

So how might religious people in general, and Christians in particular react to all this? The general approach so far has been to stand back and watch the implosion, gleefully retweeting these reactions and occasionally raising eyebrows with an “I told you so” expression. For many who have had to put up with people in the pub quoting whole sections of The God Delusion’s shockingly shallow, ill-informed arguments at them, this seems like sweet revenge. And this reaction is of course understandable. 

However, this elation does not create a better debate. More than 10 years of divisive, defensive and sometimes downright toxic conversation about religion in the public square has left us as a society no healthier, nor happier. So how might we seize this moment to create a more productive conversation?

Well firstly, I think we can empathise. Anyone who has felt angry and frustrated at public figures misrepresenting their faith should be able to build solidarity with atheists right now. The Westboro Baptist Church; Al Qaeda: we don’t need to look far to find people who speak in “our name” but radically misrepresent what we think religion teaches. We’ve been there, we know how much it hurts. Let’s not gloat.

Secondly, I think we could adopt a more loving stance towards Dawkins himself. Theos was launched in November 2006, around the same time as the God Delusion was published, and goodness knows we’ve had our disagreements. Dawkins may be responsible for more misinformation about religion and more unnecessary hostility than any other single living figure. However, he’s just a human being. We once had a lovely conversation over dinner. Of course he is blind and misguided when it comes to religion, and philosophy, a truly brilliant science writer operating far outside his field, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love him. Instead, to paraphrase, we could try some ancient instructions to “bless those who [misrepresent, bully and harangue] you, bless and do not curse…. Do not repay evil for evil… On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty give him something to drink” (paraphrase, from Romans.)

Richard Dawkins is having a bad week. I don’t really know what it means to bless him, particularly for those of us who are not in regular contact with him. I’m fairly sure he’s not actually physically hungry, or thirsty.  The odd kind email or tweet might be a start. Although I'm aware it's more likely to infuriate, so lets do it quietly, we could also pray. Beyond that, we are going to have to get creative. I have an old T-shirt which I go running in, made by a church in south-east London, which has emblazoned across the back, “God loves Peckham”. Maybe it’s time for all the churches in the UK to print a load of those. Because after all, God loves Richard Dawkins.

Elizabeth Oldfield (@theoselizabeth)

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