Carnett: Circuitous path to my religious core

The news media were all agog last week.

“Religion on the Decline in U.S.,” ballyhooed a Los Angeles Times front-page headline. The story’s sub-headline buttressed with metaphysical certitude the paper’s contention: “Number of Christians falls, and the trend is expected to continue.”

Disappearing Christians? Can anyone say Rapture?

Just kidding.

The lengthy Times article based its conclusions on a recent study by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

“For what is probably the first time in U.S. history,” the story breathlessly reported, “the number of American Christians has declined.”

Maybe America is becoming Europe. Maybe not.

I have family in Europe and have visited the continent numerous times. Cynicism toward God is rampant.

Maybe Europe’s grisly, 20th century bloodlettings have something to do with that. With the exception of those in Italy and Spain, European churches today are mostly empty on Sunday mornings. Others have been turned into B&Bs. Very sad.

A century ago, two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe. Today, it’s just over a quarter.

To slightly modify a line by Sir Edward Grey, Britain’s foreign secretary in 1914: “The (Christian) lamps are going out all over Europe.”

The Times article states further that a quarter of Americans label themselves agnostics, atheists or “nothing in particular.” Behind those numbers are weighty personal decisions.

Seventeenth century French scientist Blaise Pascal asked the following: “When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after (it) ... I take fright. Who put me here? By whose command and act were this time and place allotted to me?”

According to Pew, 71% of American adults were Christians in 2014, a decline of 8 percentage points since 2007.

To a degree, I understand where Pew’s “nothing in particular” outliers are coming from. I was an agnostic leaning toward atheism for more than a decade. Following considerable introspection and moral and spiritual enlightenment, I became a Christian in 1978.

Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens, among others, led the clamorous New Atheism movement.

“For me, as a Christian believer, the beauty of the scientific laws only reinforces my faith in an intelligent, divine creative force at work,” counters an Oxford mathematician, John Lennox. Multiple times Lennox has debated the imposing quartet above and acquitted himself nicely.

New Atheists are adamant, even angry, when presenting their case for the non-existence of God. Lennox is an affable Irishman with a disarming smile and brogue.

“(Stephen) Hawking, like so many other critics of religion,” Lennox continues, “wants us to believe we are nothing but a random collection of molecules, the end product of a mindless process. This, if true, would undermine the very rationality we need to study science. If the brain were really the result of an unguided process, then there is no reason to believe in its capacity to tell us the truth.”

The first time I recall considering my raison d’etre was at age 6. I lay daydreaming on our sofa and, for some reason, realized at that moment that life is but a vapor. It hit me like a left jab that there was a time when I wasn’t.

At age 8, I fell in love with the redeemer God, who sent his son, Jesus, to die for my sins. At 18, I reached the arrogant conclusion that the Gospel narratives were fairy tales.

I set Christ aside for 15 years. For a brief period I thought myself an atheist, but I came to view atheism as untenable. Still, even if there were a God, I wasn’t interested.

Then, in my early 30s, I began experiencing infernal bouts of discontent. Life’s accomplishments no longer satisfied. I had a restlessness of the soul.

Coincidentally, two colleagues began sharing their Christian faith with me. Over a period of months, I contemplated what they said. Their lives exuded integrity and they had a peace that I envied.

I considered their arguments. I considered my depravity. I considered life’s injustices. I considered Christ.

And I was ready.

That makes me a 71-percenter.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.