CHARLO, New Brunswick, January 28, 2024 – If you open the door to Hell, don’t be surprised if the devil walks in and makes himself at home. Jesus’ focus was on the lost sheep of the house of Israel, not random people he happened upon in his travels. He never forced his views and opinions on anyone; those who came to hear him came of their own free will. We need to be reminded of this every so often. Standing on the street corner and shouting the “The End Is Nigh!” or handing out “God loves you!” flyers is not what Jesus taught us to do.

I was an atheist before I was born-again, so I know how utterly closed-minded (that is, spiritually deaf and blind) atheists are to Truth. They claim to be seeking the truth in their rejection of all things God, but what they’re actually seeking (although they don’t know it) is the truth according to Satan, which is of course the gospel of lies. Atheists and Satan are all about pride; both stake their claims with arrogance, and both disdain anyone who disagrees with their arguments, dismissing them as fools. But real Truth – God’s Truth – doesn’t need to be argued; it only needs to be presented, and those who genuinely love Truth will recognize it and immediately embrace it as such. Those who don’t love Truth will not accept it, no matter how clever or persuasive the argument.

We do God and Jesus a grave disservice when we argue God’s Truth. Arguing God’s Truth implies that God didn’t explain his Truth well enough in scripture so we have to make up for God’s shortcomings and oversights. I remember, as an atheist, editing the Ten Commandments for style and content (aiming for humor) and then faxing the marked-up copy to an ad agency, hoping for a job interview. What I got back was a stern rebuke commanding me never to contact them again. This is what happens when you try to one-up God.

I have never met a happy atheist, but I have met many a happy believer. “Happy believer” is so much a given, it’s basically a tautology, whereas “happy atheist” veers into the realm of the twilight zone. Snarky atheists abound, as do drug- and alcohol-addicted atheists, boastful atheists, cruel atheists, degenerative, debauched, and deranged atheists, depressed atheists, and suicidal atheists. But happy atheists? No. When I was an atheist, I sneered at the concept of happiness. I thought it a delusion for the weak-minded. I was certain that the strong needed to feel pain in order to be truly alive, which is why, I reasoned, all great writers and artists were of necessity suffering souls. Anything that fell short of this “necessary” state of (what I know now to be mostly self-induced) suffering was mere wretched contentment, as Nietzsche once phrased, derided, and dismissed it.

Happiness eludes the unbeliever because happiness, like all good things, comes from God. That’s  not to say that atheists can’t every now and then perceive sensations that are akin to happiness, as I used to on rare occasion as an atheist, such as when walking through a fragrant forest or sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking an ocean. But whatever the sensation was that I felt in those moments, it was fleeting and superficial and nothing compared to the deep steady joy that is my everyday reality as a believer. I don’t even drink alcohol anymore, not because I’m a teetotaling kill-joy but because alcohol just brings me down.

If I had one wish for atheists, I would wish for them to be made whole. To be made whole means to be healed, but a bone that has grown crooked first needs to be broken for it to be set straight. Now imagine if everything – mind, body, and soul – is crooked and in need of healing, in need of being set straight. Only God can affect such a monumental breaking and resetting, and that’s what I wish for atheists. I wish – no, I pray – that they be fully and properly broken, not caught and cushioned before they crash but permitted to crash hard. We Christians do people a grave disservice when we don’t allow them to crash; under the guise of helping them, we prolong their agony. Atheists in particular need to crash (as I well know and as I certainly did) because crashing is the only way to break their pride and make them whole again.