Dr Paul Allen

In working with unbelievers and believers alike, we’re called to live and labour in a manner worthy of the gospel (Phil. 1:27). We should be quick to humbly confess and repent when we fall short of it. But how should we respond to coworkers who’ve taken offence not over our own actions but over those of other Christians? 1. Listen with humility. In the face of frequent, embittered accusations that all Christians are prejudiced or malignant, it may be tempting to respond with defensiveness, resentment, or even retaliation. But humility is defusing and disarming. Even the strongest and proudest among us may be persuaded by patience and a soft tongue (Prov. 25:15). Our best first step is to genuinely listen. This is more active (and self-forgetful) than silently crafting a rebuttal while the other person speaks. It involves praying for a tender heart that’s moved with compassion over the wrongs others have experienced as we mourn with those who mourn (Rom. 12:15). Our coworkers (or others

Paul Kurtz (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Having been failed by reason and science the New Atheism is now, as the humanist Brian Epstein has pointed out with obvious exasperation, reduced to  ‘seek[ing] to shame and embarrass people away from religion, browbeating them about the stupidity of belief in a bellicose god’  Things hit rock bottom on 30 September 2009. This was the date chosen by the Center for Inquiry —which promotes itself as the intellectual powerhouse of American secularism and has close links to the New Atheism—to be the first ever ‘ Blasphemy Day ’. The idea was to use freedom of speech to insult religions and religious people. The Center organized an art exhibition to mark this momentous event and included in the works exhibited a piece entitled Jesus Paints His Nails. It depicted a rather effeminate Jesus applying polish to the nails fixing his hands to the cross. The CEO of the Center for Inquiry, Ronald A. Lindsay , defended this and the other exhibits as ‘