A.N. Wilson, an English academic who specialized in skeptical books about famous Christians, like C.S. Lewis, has announced that he has started to believe again, and offers a perceptive and interesting perspective on his “conversion” to atheism. Here is the newspaper article.

The paper also offers a Q/A with Wilson, and I was struck by this exchange, during the Q/A session:

What’s the worst thing about being faithless? The worst thing about being faithless? When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own. Ditto when I read the lives of great men and women who were religious. Reading Northrop Frye and Blake made me realize that their world-view (above all their ability to see the world in mythological terms) is so much more INTERESTING than some of the alternative ways of looking at life.

Here is an excerpt from the newspaper article:

“Watching a whole cluster of friends, and my own mother, die over quite a short space of time convinced me that purely materialist “explanations” for our mysterious human existence simply won’t do – on an intellectual level. The phenomenon of language alone should give us pause. A materialist Darwinian was having dinner with me a few years ago and we laughingly alluded to how, as years go by, one forgets names. Eager, as committed Darwinians often are, to testify on any occasion, my friend asserted: “It is because when we were simply anthropoid apes, there was no need to distinguish between one another by giving names.”

“This credal confession struck me as just as superstitious as believing in the historicity of Noah’s Ark. More so, really.

“Do materialists really think that language just “evolved”, like finches’ beaks, or have they simply never thought about the matter rationally? Where’s the evidence? How could it come about that human beings all agreed that particular grunts carried particular connotations? How could it have come about that groups of anthropoid apes developed the amazing morphological complexity of a single sentence, let alone the whole grammatical mystery which has engaged Chomsky and others in our lifetime and linguists for time out of mind? No, the existence of language is one of the many phenomena – of which love and music are the two strongest – which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true. As a working blueprint for life, as a template against which to measure experience, it fits.”

Here is a well written summary of how the Lutheran liturgy is a blessing to those coming in to our congregations from churches that either are non-liturgical or who have moved away from it. This is written by Mr. James Blasius. He is happy to grant permission to reproduce this for anyone who finds it helpful.

I grew up in a fine Presbyterian church – a good church, excepting for the Sunday school unit on higher criticism that traumatized me. But one thing of which the Presbyterians never had much, and now have
less is the liturgy. And liturgy is something I desperately wanted. I
didn’t know it’s what I wanted, but I loved the few times we’d do
responsive readings from the Psalms, the doxologies, and so on.

As
a nouveau Lutheran (vs. an Old Lutheran, who would have the catechism memorized, would know the colors of the church year, and would know the
difference between Matins and, um, not-Matins), I may yet have some
insights on the liturgy that those who have lived with it don’t: A poor
man might have a greater appreciation for the marvel that is clean tap
water than a rich man.

1. The liturgy is memorable. I love confession and absolution, and
   miss it terribly when the service doesn’t have it. Because I can
   remember so much of the liturgy, the confession rolls off my lips any
   time I am reminded of my sinfulness (although I don’t typically absolve
   myself). The words are concise, essential, complete, scriptural. And
   there are the songs, praise, thanksgiving, doctrine. These appear on
   the tip of my tongue at appropriate or inappropriate moments. It gives
   me a wider repertoire than I had as a child, where our regular service
   component was limited to a doxology and a benediction.
2. It’s Biblical. The Lutheran Service Book has nice scriptural references next to each
   part of the liturgy, and Christians love to hear the words of
   scripture. They dig it. Scripture makes ‘em want to dance in their
   underwear (well, an ephod) as the ark did for David. In a world where a
   standard church reading is one verse, being surrounded by scripture
   throughout the service is A Good Thing.
3. It’s participatory. Try going to a service where your only participation is to sing a hymn, or worse, just sit there and listen to a person with a microphone on a stage.
   It’s better to be able to have a role and speak the words of scripture
   as part of the body of Christ. Our society is oriented towards the
   individual, but the church is a body with each part doing working
   together. Somehow liturgy makes that real.
4. It unites us with Christians of all times and places. Liturgy unifies us only with the Christians next to us, but
   with the larger church in “all times and places.” The liturgy is
   similar to what was done 1000 years ago and 1900 years ago, and the
   singing of psalms goes back to David’s day. Another way to look at it:
   In New Testament days, there were no pastors driving up the aisles on
   Harleys and there were no swaying dancers in church, but there was most
   certainly the singing of the scriptures, there were doxologies and Scripturally meaningful songs of praise.
5. It’s musical. Music means something to us that’s
   different from prose. The Psalms have been sung since they were first
   written: David, in addition to dancing before the ark, was singing and
   making music with Israel when the ark was being brought to Jerusalem,
   and Paul writes in Ephesians 5 about “addressing one another in  psalms
   and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord
   with your heart.” And music is beautiful. There is value in it, and
   liturgical services are brimming with it.
6. It’s a wonderful vehicle for the Sacraments. I think of it like wrapping on a gift. It beautifies the Lord’s gifts coming to us through Word and Sacraments and underscores and highlights what we believe, teach and confess about the means of grace: God acting among us and for us. Reverent, holy, sacred, a place and  time set-apart—that’s why the liturgy is a great delivery-system for the Sacraments.

One can have a good church without a good liturgy, but good liturgy
is an excellent tool for worship and the Christian life. I’d put it as
second in importance only to sound doctrine, in my opinion, for it supports and enhances the teaching of God’s Word.