Oxford atheist ridiculed by Anglican theologian?

A short article on a debate between Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath.

It doesn't seem to me that McGrath ridiculed Dawkins, and I would have been surprised if he had. McGrath's book, Dawkins' God, is incredibly generous towards Dawkins, though I haven't read his latest, The Dawkins Delusion.

My response to The God Delusion was to want to throw it across the room (although I refrained, since the book cost me $31.50 and I like to keep my books in pristine condition!), and to write a review outlining all the places where Dawkins shows himself to be incredibly ignorant of Christianity and deliberately distorting the arguments to make his points. I was going to title this review "Liar, Lunatic or 'Honestly Mistaken'? The Dawkins Delusion," in honour of Dawkins' response to C.S. Lewis' classic Liar, Lunatic or Lord illustration in which Dawkins suggests that Jesus might have been 'honestly mistaken' about being God. (By the by, I think Dawkins misunderstood the argument Lewis was making - he wasn't arguing that Jesus had to be either liar, lunatic or Lord, and that there weren't any other possibilities; rather, Lewis was arguing that it is not possible to claim that Jesus was just a good teacher.)

Anyway, it's probably a good thing that I haven't had time to write this article. It's also fortunate that the Christian community has people like Greg Clarke to provide much more loving responses. Previously, Greg has occupied himself with presenting talks and seminars about The Da Vinci Code all over the country. Perhaps the distinguishing feature of his response to Dan Brown was that he wasn't concerned primarily with pointing out all the errors that Brown makes, but with trying to understand why people are so receptive to conspiracy theories about the church. With Dawkins, Greg is extremely diligent to avoid responding in kind, and in attempting to appreciate what legitimate concerns Dawkins might have with religion.

You can find a lecture Greg gave at CASE a couple of weeks ago here. I am sure he will be in demand for this kind of talk, as he was for The Da Vinci Code, and he is speaking at my church (Narwee Baptist Church) on May 20.