{"id":13722,"date":"2012-03-26T12:16:49","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T18:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=13722"},"modified":"2012-03-26T13:22:55","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T19:22:55","slug":"setting-polemics-aside-for-a-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2012\/03\/26\/setting-polemics-aside-for-a-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting polemics aside for a moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theological debates go back to the origins of the Church. But recent years have seen a number of debates receiving high profiles in the media; these have typically involved militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens. Most have been marginally interesting at best, and most fell quickly into stale tropes, both on the \u2018God\u2019 and \u2018anti-God\u2019 sides of the house.<\/p>\n

Therefore, when Dawkins engaged in a recent debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury, I expected more of the same, and I turned on the video feed expecting to switch it off within a few minutes.<\/p>\n

To my surprise, this turned out to be a very different debate. It was unusual in substance, and I will focus on that in another post. But in this one, I want to speak to an astonishing difference in style.<\/p>\n

Let me back up, though. The event was framed as a discussion, not a debate, and the main participants were the Archbishop and Prof Dawkins. Sir Anthony Kenny, the philosopher, was the moderator. The title was \u2018The nature of human beings and the question of their ultimate origin\u2019 and it was held at Oxford, in February of this year.<\/p>\n

A video of the entire debate can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What I found astonishing about the discussion was that it took on a civil and constructive tone from the start. There was no name-calling and no satire. The humour was gentle. The Archbishop didn\u2019t tear into Prof Dawkins but spoke calmly. And Dawkins responded in kind; the hectoring tone has sometimes emerged in these debates simply vanished. He opened himself to the possibility that there might be more to it all than \u2018the laws of physics\u2019.<\/p>\n

I ended up listening to all 90 minutes of the discussion, rather than the 5 or 10 I had originally planned. And I wondered whether the many Catholic and Christian apologists out there \u2013 on the lecture circuit, in blogs, in books \u2013 wouldn\u2019t benefit from adopting a more irenic style.<\/p>\n

Most public apologists for the faith or some aspect of it (this or that type of liturgy, for instance) see themselves as polemicists. Far too many adopt Chesterton or, even worse, Belloc, as their models; or C.S. Lewis, who eventually took on a rotund BBC accent but never got rid of the brawling Ulsterman inside him. Evelyn Waugh could match any of them in making belittling and disparaging remarks. Too many of today\u2019s apologists imitate their tone. And none of today\u2019s apologists can match their literary skill.<\/p>\n

To be sure, the topic for this debate \/ discussion did not lend itself to a polemical style. The Intelligence Squared debates titled \u2018The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world\u2019 or \u2018Pope John Paul II did more harm than good\u2019 or \u2018Atheism is the new fundamentalism\u2019 were, from the start, more likely to go down this road. But those debates did little to advance one side\u2019s understanding of the other\u2019s. The one between Abp Williams and Prof Dawkins did.<\/p>\n

In our discussions of liturgy and worship, here on Pray Tell<\/em> or elsewhere, we might do well to follow their example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theological debates go back to the origins of the Church. But recent years have seen a number of debates receiving high profiles in the media; these have typically involved militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens. When Dawkins engaged in a recent debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury, I expected more of the same. To my surprise, this turned out to be a very different debate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[1908,261,741,1912,1911,1638,643,1910,1907],"class_list":["post-13722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecumenism","tag-anthony-kenny","tag-rowan-williams","tag-atheists","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-debates","tag-evelyn-waugh","tag-g-k-chesterton","tag-hilaire-belloc","tag-richard-dawkins"],"yoast_head":"\nSetting polemics aside for a moment - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2012\/03\/26\/setting-polemics-aside-for-a-moment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Setting polemics aside for a moment - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Theological debates go back to the origins of the Church. 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