Author provocatively asks: ‘Does God believe in atheists?’

Nov 5, 2009
By BOB MOUNTS

John Blanchard, Does God Believe in Atheists? (Darlington, UK: Evangelical Press, 2001), 655 pages. 29.99 hardback.

One of my great concerns about the Christian ministry and message is that we sometimes seem to live and teach in a vacuum. By that I mean we present the Gospel without any real awareness of where the people we are trying to
address live, move, and think. That is not to say that the Gospel properly presented is not sufficient to break down the barriers of any mind-set, but it does mean that what we are saying often falls on deaf ears because we are not really challenging the thinking of the man or woman in the everyday world. John Blanchard’s aim is to better equip the average believer to engage a pagan world with the Gospel.

Blanchard is co-founder of Christian Ministries based in England. He is an internationally known Baptist author, teacher, and conference speaker with fifteen million copies of his publications in print in forty languages. He writes clearly, logically, and has the gift of simplifying difficult issues. He is probably best known for book his book, Right With God, and his tract, Ultimate Questions.

The title, Does God Believe in Atheists? is a little bewildering, but certainly grabs the attention of potential readers. The point of the book is to address the age-old question of whether or not God exists. Blanchard declares that there is no compromise on this point. Either God exists or He does not exist. He implies that many professing believers have not fully grasped the necessity of a clear concept of God, and have unwittingly adopted ideas that actually contradict biblical revelation. Consequently, part of his purpose is to supply data that will assist believers in forming a concrete worldview that will enable them to “give a reason for the hope that is in them.”

This book is a mixture of philosophy and theology, but not presented in a formal way. Blanchard presents a narrative style intellectual history from the period of the early Greeks into the contemporary era. Obviously, that much material must be limited in detail but it does supply a helpful guide for anyone interested in the history of Western thought. Blanchard’s historical approach clearly reveals that there is “nothing new under the sun.”

In his typical anecdotal style, Blanchard recalls a lecture in 1996 at Westminster Abbey: “Although you might feel the question of God’s nature and existence ‘ought’ to be obsessively important to each and every one of us, the simple fact of the modern world is that it is not felt to be. Most of us have little idea of what we believe and are also extremely confused on the subject of whether we would be willing to die for it.” That same lecturer concluded that most Westerners have only a “generalized religious belief” and cannot directly say what it is.

Dogmatic in his defense of the existence, nature, and character of God, Blanchard is very readable and has a captivating style. One of Blanchard’s stories about Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is an encouragement to persist in our witness for God’s existence. Sometime ago, he says, someone wrote graffiti on a New York City wall that read: “God is dead. Nietzsche.” Underneath someone added. “Nietzsche is dead. God.”

This helpful volume will strengthen believers who desire to better understand the world in which they live and witness. The bibliography is valuable to anyone interested in pursuing further study. The greatest weakness is that the chapter titles do not reveal much about the content, thus serving little purpose as a guide to his argument. I would heartily encourage every Christian to read this book. It will better equip you to do battle with a lost, even atheistic world.

Bob Mounts is the former director of Pastor/Church Staff Relations Department of the Florida Baptist Convention. The former pastor and the inveterate book-lover writes occasional book reviews for Florida Baptist Witness.

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