“God is dead,” declares Nietzsche’s madman in his oft-quoted passage from The Gay Science. Though not the first to make the declaration, Nietzsche’s philosophical candor and desperate rhetoric unquestionably attribute to its familiarity. In graphic brushstrokes, the parable describes a crime scene:

“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. ‘Whither is God,’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I! All of us are his murderers…Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder?…Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”(1)

Nietzsche’s atheism, unlike many contemporary atheistic mantras, was not simply rhetoric and angry words. He recognized that the death of God, even if only the death of an idol, introduced a significant crisis. He understood the critical role of the Christian story to the very underpinnings of European philosophy, history, and culture, and so understood that God’s death meant that a total—and painful—transformation of reality must occur. If God has died, if God is dead in the sense that God is no longer of use to us, then ours is a world in peril, he reasoned, for everything must change. Our typical means of thought and life no longer make sense; the very structures for evaluating everything have become unhinged. For Nietzsche, a world that considers itself free from God is a world that must suffer the disruptive effects of that iconoclasm.

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“Please—Mr. Lion—Aslan, Sir?” said Digory working up the courage to ask. “Could you—may I—please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make my mother well?”

A child in one of the Narnia books, Digory, at this point in the story, had brought about much disaster for Aslan and his freshly created Narnia. But he had to ask. In fact, he thought for a second that he might attempt to make a deal with Aslan. But quickly Digory realized the Lion was not the sort of person with which one could try to make bargains.

C.S. Lewis then recounts, “Up till then the child had been looking at the lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them. Now in his despair he looked up at his face. And what he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and wonder of wonders great shining tears stood in the lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.”(1)

Charles Dickens often spoke of his characters as beloved and “real existences.” I have often wondered if the “safe but never tame” Lion cared for C.S. Lewis half as much as this figure has comforted others. Lewis was a boy about the age of Digory when his mother lay dying of cancer and he was helpless to save her.

“My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another…”

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I remember a cerulean, cloudless sky. It was an extraordinarily beautiful, fall day, unusually so for a city with poor air quality most days of the year. The air was still warm, but the cloak of heat and humidity so common in the south, had been taken off and hung up for repose during the season of cooler weather. It was a day much like other days until the unimaginable happened.

At first, rumors circulated quickly about planes, buildings, and New York City. I assumed a private plane had lost its way and flown into the side of the Trade Center tower. But, then, our normal workday routines ended. We all ran to the youth building at the church and watched on the big-screen television, not one, but two planes crash into the Twin Towers. The rumors continued… there were other planes. I panicked—what if we were under attack? What if countless commercial airplanes had been co-opted as weapons of mass destruction? What if my city was next?

Like many others, I watched the Twin Towers collapse and fall to the ground. Like others, I went home that day and sat in my backyard and looked into that same cerulean sky and was scared by the silence. I did not know if I would ever have another restful night of sleep again, and I felt regret over taking for granted something as simple and as lovely as peaceful sleep. At the end of the day, more than three thousand persons, representing countries all over the world, were dead, including one of my high school classmates. I remember the numbness that I felt, followed by a heightened sense of caution, and then outright fear at every stranger, in every public place.

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In Mere Apologetics, Alister McGrath points out that “one of the most familiar criticisms of Christianity is that it offers consolation to life’s losers.”(1) Believers are often caricatured as being somewhat weak and naïve—the kind of people who need their faith as a “crutch” just to get them through life. In new atheist literature, this depiction is often contrasted with the image of a hardier intellectual atheist who has no need for such infantile, yet comforting, nonsense. This type of portrayal may resonate with some, but does it really make sense?(2)

Firstly, it is helpful to define what we mean by a “crutch.” In a medical setting, the word obviously means an implement used by people for support when they are injured. The analogy implies, therefore, that those who need one are somehow deficient or wounded. In a sense, it is fairly obvious that the most vulnerable might need support, but as the agnostic John Humphrys points out, “Don’t we all? Some use booze rather than the Bible.”(3) As this suggests, it is not so much a question of whether you have one, but it is more of a question of what your particular crutch is. This is an important point to make, as people rely on all kinds of things for their comfort or self-esteem, ranging from material possessions, money, food, and aesthetics to cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, and sex. Rather than being viewed as signs of weakness, many of these are even considered to be relatively normal in society, provided they don’t turn into the more destructive behavior associated with strong addiction. Nevertheless, many of these only offer a short-term release from the struggles of life and they sometimes only cover up deeper problems that a person might be suffering from. To suggest, therefore, that atheists are somehow stronger than believers is to deny the darker side of humanity, which is only too apparent if we look at the world around us. As McGrath explains:

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There are a few great lines I know by memory simply because my boss is fond of repeating them. Ravi Zacharias often quotes a song titled The Lost Chord, which was penned by Adelaide Proctor and later set to music by Arthur Sullivan. It is a hymn that describes a moment of transcendence, a hint of wonder that appeared momentarily and left the narrator yearning for more. The song tells her story:

Seated one day at the organ

I was weary and ill at ease,

and my fingers wandered idly

over the noisy keys.

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French playwright Moliere once uttered this curious line: “Nearly all men die of their medicines, and not of their maladies.”(1) Musician Tori Amos asserts something similar in the chorus of one of her songs: “She’s addicted to nicotine patches/she’s afraid of a light in the dark.” Both of these artists are perhaps known for exposing the hypocrisies of society in biting verse. Through satire, Moliere sought to amuse but also to instruct his audience with the peculiarities of human behavior, while Amos croons of life as she sees it, through blunt, often angry, lyrics.

Certainly, artistic observation of humanity can rouse insight and inspire an inward look at our own lives. Do these artists communicate a common truth about the human condition? I think they might. We have all known people who seem blind to their own maladies, people who would prefer their pain to change. But I also believe there is something that communicates the complexities of human behavior even more accurately.

Abraham Heschel referred to Scripture not as humanity’s theology, as it is often received, but as God’s anthropology. In these ancient Scriptures, human behavior, human emotion, human duplicity is all depicted with curious accuracy. And often, in these pages, that God knows us far better than we know ourselves is displayed in the form of a question. To study the great questions posed in Scripture is a remarkably convicting study in human nature and behavior. But even more remarkable, the New Testament scriptures offer an answer to these questions of what it means to be human. In the person of Jesus Christ, we are shown one in whom the Triune God’s purposes of creation are fulfilled, the future of creation embodied, and humanity is given the invitation of one who is making us more human.

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Recently, an interesting article caught my attention: “The Golden Triangle of Happiness” by William Verity and Yasmin Parry. The article attests that all over the world, people of all persuasions are in pursuit of happiness. It cites the latest findings of the Australian Wellbeing Index that involved more than sixty thousand participants. Conducted twice a year over the last fifteen years, the study concludes that besides genetics, there are three simple indicators of a happy life. Being part of an intimate relationship is the most vital component in contributing to a person’s sense of wellbeing. Second, people are happiest when they are active, when they have a goal and a sense of purpose in life. And third, people are happiest when they have financial control. While money alone cannot make us happy, a lack of stability can make us miserable.

To phrase it simply, the three components that define happiness according to this study are relationship, meaning, and security. In a world that constantly tries to project power, pleasure, and more pleasure as indispensable to human happiness, this may well offer a refreshing counter-perspective. I wonder if it might also reaffirm the truth of the Christian gospel? For relationship, meaning, and security are the very things God offers us through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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The sun bore down on my neck as I walked through neatly laid stones, each row like another line in a massive book. My eyes strained to take in all of the information—name, age, rank, country—and perhaps also death itself, the fragility of life, the harsh reality of war. In that field of graves, a war memorial for men lost as prisoners of war, slaves laboring to construct the Burma-Siam railway, I felt as the psalmist: “laid low in the dust.” Or like Job sitting among the dust and ashes of a great tragedy. Then one stone stopped my wandering and said what I could not. On an epitaph in the middle of the cemetery was written: “There shall be in that great earth, a richer dust concealed.”(1)

It is helpful, I think, to be reminded that we are dust. We are material; when we die, we  remain material. It is a reminder to hold as we move through life—through successes, disappointments, questions, and  answers. For the Christian, it is also a truth to help us approach the vast and terrible circumstances leading up to the crucifixion of God. Beginning with the ashes of Ash Wednesday, the journey through Lent into the light and darkness of Holy Week is for those made in dust who will return to dust, those willing to trace the breath that began all of life to the place where Christ breathed his last. It is a journey that expends everything within us.

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We don’t need the movies to show us how much of a disparity there is between truth and lies, though the twists in plot and suspense often remind us. We all hold certain values, and if we’re honest, we might admit how often we fail to honor them. And yet, there is something peculiar about how our minds work. We can so easily bracket our own lives from an acknowledgment of how consistently we miss the mark. It is like a built-in avoidance mechanism.

The issues of self-deception and denial are more serious than we care to admit. Tendencies toward self-pity, self-preoccupation, self-righteousness, and self-aggrandizement are intense and dangerous. Or as Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr describes it: “Sin is thus the unwillingness of man to acknowledge his creatureliness and dependence upon God and his effort to make his own life independent and secure.”(1)

One of the most helpful insights I know toward sorting through truth, lies, and deception is in Scripture’s calling us out of ourselves and always towards God. We are reminded often that the human heart is more deceitful than anything else. “Who can fathom it?” asks Jeremiah. “God alone, who searches the heart and tests inner motivation.”(2)

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