Ministry News

Thanks for the God Nod, Mr. Atheist

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Tuesday, 10 February 2009 13:10

While the ongoing “battle of the billboards“ continues across the Pond between an atheist group and Christians, a university-based ministry is taking another approach to telling the truth about God.

In January, the British Humanist Association (BHA) launched a marketing campaign that plastered more than 800 buses in London with an ad reading: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Response from various Christian organizations and believers has ranged from countering billboard ads to one bus operator refusing to drive his “no God”-labeled bus.

Now Christian Unions (CU), a collegiate ministry working on campuses throughout the United Kingdom, is using the highly publicized showdown to further discussions among young adults about God. Over the next two months, student leaders within the ministry will distribute more than 400,000 free copies of a special student edition of Mark’s Gospel.

“Richard Dawkins [the prominent atheist who endorsed the BHA campaign] is to be thanked for once again, raising the profile of God,” said CU communications manager Pod Bhogal. “His book The God Delusion was a brilliant platform for CUs to host events where the claims about God and Jesus Christ could be openly discussed, and through that, people have become Christians. Now his bus adverts clearly proclaim that atheists cannot be sure. This is evidently not a good basis to stop worrying! … Apathy is the greatest spiritual danger in our land, whereas Dawkins’ militant atheism gets everybody thinking and talking. We are grateful to him for keeping God on the nation’s agenda.”

As a follow-up to the Gospel distribution, CU is organizing outreach events such as lunchtime public forums, debates, lectures, question-and-answer sessions and café meetings. [christianpost.com, 2/5/09]