Twenty years on from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, New Atheism has “tanked” according to one of the movement’s most outspoken opponents, former professor of divinity, Alister McGrath.
Speaking to The Telegraph, McGrath, who is now emeritus professor in science and religion at Oxford University, said that the New Atheism championed by the likes of Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens had failed to provide meaningful answers to the questions of life and that the young in particular are once again interested in faith.
“I am seeing a growth in young people wanting to talk about Christianity. Others have seen it, but right now no one really wants to emphasise it. It is probably best just to let it happen,” he said.
Referring to his days debating Dawkins, McGrath said the New Atheists “were aggressively asserting atheist beliefs, but posing as if they were telling incontestable truths … I probably unwisely allowed myself to have a reasonably high profile.”
He added, “The New Atheism seems to have tanked. It’s on its way out, because people have seen that it was never really answering the big questions.”
Human beings, McGrath, said, “are all looking for meaning, significance, purpose - and more than that.”
He continued, “In my view, Christianity can engage all of these significantly and persuasively. This goes beyond beliefs, to where we’re dealing with the deepest longings and aspirations of humanity.”
The approach of the New Atheists has also been criticised by their own spiritual successors, some of whom argue they failed to properly engage with or understand the faith and beliefs they were raging against.
On his podcast earlier this year, Alex O’Connor, who might best be described as a New New Atheist, criticised his intellectual forbears, saying, “I do not believe that any of the popular New Atheists from that sort of time period … had the slightest understanding of the subject material that they were dealing with.”
O’Connor added, “I speak with love of Christopher [Hitchens] because he was such an influence over me and also someone like Richard Dawkins … but I just don’t think they engaged with the material.”
