Abstract
My weekly job involves talking to Christians about why they believe and to atheists about why they don’t. The venue is a London radio studio in London, where I host the programme, Unbelievable?, on Premier Christian Radio. For over ten years, the show has provided a meeting place for believers and sceptics to thrash out their differences about God, life, and the universe.
Often the discussions range from philosophical arguments for the existence of a creator, to academic disputes about scripture, to the science versus faith debate. Yet, these subjects tend to keep God at arm’s length—an object to be studied rather than a person to be known.
Controversially, I once broke that mould and dared atheists to take part in an ‘Atheist Prayer Experiment’. It was predicated on the idea that atheists might as well try praying to God since they’ve got nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain. Over the course of 40 days (it felt like an appropriately biblical number) participants would be required to pray for a couple of minutes every day for God to reveal himself to them, and record anything that happened. In the end over 70 people agreed to take part.
Of course, some people treated it as a joke, and many dropped out along the way. But others took it very seriously and managed to complete the 40 days.
Most of the participants reported no response; the experiment served to confirm their atheism. Others said that some unusual things did happen. Some enjoyed a sense of peace and clarity during their prayer time. A few people reported an unusual number of coincidences or significant life events. One person said that the experiment had left them ‘open’ to the idea of God. Another person who had been struggling with depression unexpectedly heard a voice in her head while she prayed, saying ‘Be thankful.’
The average Christian might be tempted to interpret these experiences as signs of God’s activity and presence. Yet these phenomena were generally explained away by participants as the natural effect of taking time to meditate and reflect.
Interestingly, two people who had signed up to take part did end up changing their minds about their atheism, and said they now believed in God. For Kendra, being given an excuse to pray seemed to suddenly open the floodgates. She wrote: ‘I just couldn’t deny my belief any longer.’ The other was Kelly, who was heavily pregnant. After giving birth to a healthy baby girl she witnessed a magnificent rainbow in the sky. For her, this signified that her prayers had been answered, and she believed in God from then on.
Ironically, both Kendra and Kelly came to their belief in God before the project officially started. Our two positive results both fell outside the official 40-day window. I personally took it as a sign of God’s sense of humour about being co-opted into an experiment. It was also a reminder that people have very different expectations of what counts as evidence; whether it inclines you towards belief or not probably depends on your starting point.
After ten years of hosting Unbelievable? I’ve come to realise that the head and heart must meet when Christian conversion takes place. All the evidence in the world won’t bring someone to faith if, deep down, they really don’t want God to be there. Which is why, when interacting with those who don’t profess faith, it’s important to know when to use reason, evidence, and argumentation, and when simply to pray.
Author of Unbelievable? (2017)