You may have seen the bumper sticker: “April 1st is Atheist Day: Psalm 14:1” (10). The passage reads, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1 KJV). The sticker does what bumper-stickers do: gets a few cheap laughs. (Never mind that this scripture has nothing to do with modern atheism.) But what does this scripture tell us about the hearts of the theists who stick it on their cars?

Rauser makes the important point that the atheist is our neighbour, and as such, deserves our love. Unfortunately, love is sorely missing from Christian-atheist dialogue. Christians from the Puritan era to John Hagee have repeatedly disdained rather than shown love to their atheist neighbour.

This attitude of disdain is rooted in what Rauser calls the “rebellion thesis:”

While atheists profess to believe that God does not exist, this disbelief is the result of an active and culpable suppression of an innate disposition to believe in God which is borne of a hatred of God and a desire to sin with impunity. (6)

Now, I’m sure you can find some people that this holds true for. The problem is that the generalization of this thesis against all atheists transgresses the Christian virtue of hospitality. Rather than making room for the other and demonstrating love, Christians refuse to listen to the atheists, thereby stripping them of their essential humanity in favour of a predetermined narrative (the rebellion thesis). “The Rebellion Thesis has prejudiced countless conversations and poisoned innumerable relationships” (90). For an example of this rebellion thesis in action, see the 2014 Christian film, God’s Not Dead.

I’m not naïve. Some atheists are hard to love—but that never stopped Jesus now, did it? Rauser ends his book with a series of practical ways to begin to love, rather than disdain our atheist neighbours.

Rauser, Randal. Is the Atheist My Neighbor? Rethinking Attitudes toward Atheism. Eugene: Cascade, 2015.