The Place Where Angry Atheists and Christians (Wrongly) Agree

So I want to note a strange place of intersection and agreement in our American culture between angry atheists and many Christians.

Angry atheists and many Christians have one thing in common: they both mistakenly believe that if there’s a God, we shouldn’t have to deal with opposition or calamity.

And Christians will go even further than the angry atheists and add: especially if I’m doing what I know or think God wants me to be doing. “I’m obeying God, doing what is right or good—why is this happening to me?” or "Why isn't God doing his part?" are frequent ruminations amongst those of us who call ourselves Christians.

This is an odd thing if we step back and look at. Christians follow Jesus who’s whole life was marked by 2 things: obeying God and by opposition from start to finish.

Christians sometimes mistakenly think that if we’re doing something God wants us to be doing that God OWES US “smooth” that we DESERVE smooth.

But the good news is that God doesn’t operate with a ledger. This isn't a math equation and nothing in the Christian life is about getting what we deserve. If we were keeping score or count, all of us would lose miserably.

Following God is about a life of mysterious grace, not a life of keeping count of what we imagine or think we’re owed.

And we see that most remarkably in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ himself. And in him, we see the true promise: not that we bypass opposition, but that opposition emphatically does not have the last word on us.

In Christ, God has the last word on us, not our opposition--not even death which is biblical shorthand for everything that's set against us.

Prior to Christ, death was the one great last opponent that no one escaped from. But now in Christ, there's victory over all our opposition--including our own conflicted selves, the world, the flesh, the devil...and most especially, from the power of death.

Now if only angry atheists and those of us who call ourselves Christians could come to the place of living into that reality--that would be something worth talking about.