Richard Dawkins and the "A"- Word

This Monday's Guardian had a wonderfully funny article on Richard Dawkins' attempts to galvanise America's atheists: "Daniel in the lion's den!" My first feedback on the Distinctly Welcoming book included the comment that I had neglected to mention the faith of "secular humanism". It's a fair point. As theologian Walter Brueggemann says, "We are all created in the image of God. There is no more important theological investigation than to find out in whose image we are making ourselves". We tend to use the shorthand, "all faiths and none" and I guess, for the purposes of the book, it's helpful to focus in on the issues of historical world faiths that we are encountering. But the reality is, we all worship someone/somethings. Richard Dawkins seems to worship scientific rationalism with a religious fervour. I wonder  that, in some perverse way, Dawkins is a gift to the church in revealing the faith positions that underpin all our life decisions ("Praise God for Richard Dawkins!"). There remains the challenge of working out how the Christian faith is represented in the public sphere with humility and grace and in ways that broader society can understand.