Drive-By Disbelief in God, Lent Part 3

Spirituality Column #228
March 22, 2011
Current in Carmel - Westfield - Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Lenten Series 2011: Just Not that into God, Part 3
Drive-By Disbelief in God
By Bob Walters

The “Center for Inquiry,” a group plainly just not that into God, recently installed billboards around Indianapolis, Washington DC and Houston, Tex., exclaiming:

You don’t need God – to hope, to care, to love, to live. Livingwithoutreligion.com.

What a great discussion starter. It’s even better when transposed into a question: Do you need God? In a hundred different ways Jesus asks the same thing throughout the Gospel. The billboards are fascinating.

First, note that they contain no direct mention of Jesus Christ. The billboards merely and clearly target the Creator God. If they meant someone else, it would be small-g god. I wonder whether it was politeness or perspicacity (shrewd awareness) – it likely wasn’t faith – that led them to capitalize “God.” And if their main pitch is that God is insignificant or doesn’t exist, then they capitalize to patronize.

I mean, who would both admit capital-G God exists and claim He is unimportant?

Second, and however, these particular billboards obviously and especially target Christ because they appeared the first week of Lent, the purely Christian season preceding purely Christian Easter. Citing “hope” and “love” – two of the big three divine gifts (faith, hope, love) of 1 Corinthians 13:13 – it is a dead giveaway, so to speak, that denigrating Christ, the giver of all life, is central to cfi’s anti-religion pitch.

The group says, soberly, that the Lent timing is “just coincidence.” Whatever.

Third, the group’s logo is an inscribed circle surrounding lowercase initials “cfi.” A flame dots the “i.” A flame … symbolizing human intelligence? The eternal hope of the Holy Spirit? The eternal flame of Hell (capital H)? None of the above?

Fourth, the billboard logo says “Center for Inquiry.” The real cfi logo includes the unpunctuated motto: “Reason Science Freedom of Inquiry.”

Reason? They nullify the author of all reason, Jesus Christ.

Science? Ultimately science doesn’t replace God, it reveals God.

Freedom of Inquiry? Except … don’t freely inquire about God.

Jesus was big on free inquiry. He asked, “Who do they say I am?” “Who will cast the first stone?” “Do you love me?” When people asked Jesus questions, He typically answered in thoughtful and thought-provoking stories. He wanted us – then and now – to constantly inquire with our entire minds, hearts, souls and faith, “Who is He?” and “Do we need Him?”

These are questions we should never fear, tire of asking, or stop answering.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) believes it’s more of a “God thing” than a cfi “coincidence” that the billboards popped up now. PS - Following publication of this column, cfi responded that the flame in its logo "symbolizes the light of knowledge that science shines on the (dark) world." That, evidently, is what they believe.