More from Clifford Longley

Tablet article extracts (see yesterday's blog conclusion)

A website exists where people are raising money to send a copy of Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" to every MP, so convinced are they that his arguments have only to be read to be accepted.

It is well known, though, that no one was ever persuaded that God existed or not by sheer rational argument. Or to put it the other way: if anyone was persuaded, it would not be God they had discovered the existence of, but something else. God is a person, not a thing. And that is the basic clue. A person is discovered in a relationship. The crucial test therefore is this: what impression would an honest and sincere seeker after truth form if they ventured into a relationship, no matter how tentative and with all options open, with, say, Jesus of Nazareth?

I would contend that after such an exercise most honest people would have to conclude that the story contained in the four gospels was weird, mysterious, profound and personally challenging. It defies all attempts to categorise, but it is impossible to dismiss as a fairy story. What other character in history or fiction has had such a story told about him?

And it is left open and uncertain, without a conventional ending. Is this man alive or dead? The story invites an intuitive encounter. Having encountered Jesus it may not be possible to live one's life without some sort of response.

Jesus points in the strongest possible way to the existence of God. Someone who did not know God, and read the Gospels, would no longer not know him. They may not welcome the knowledge. They may even stay atheists. But they will be changed atheists, even better atheists, never the same again.