Is Atheism Funny Any More?

Stand Up Theologian, James Cary asks Dr. Andy Bannister: Is atheism funny anymore? In returning to his book The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist for a 10th anniversary edition, Andy reflects on how things have changed since the days of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and the “new atheism.” What can we learn from comedy landmarks like Life of Brian, Father Ted, Ricky Gervais, or the contrast between The Simpsons and Family Guy? Why are comedians so often drawn to religion, and can humour really open the door to deeper reflection? Even sceptics like David Baddiel and Douglas Murray admit to yearning for God—why do they never seem to get there? Plus, there's an intriguing story about John Newton’s doubts about his conversion.

Here's the clip of Comedian Pete Holmes.

If you like jokes and the Bible, you really should check out The Wycliffe Papers!

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Thank you.

James Cary: 0:05

Hello, welcome back to the Stand Up Theologian podcast with me, James Cary. I'm the Stand Up Theologian. I'm a BBC comedy writer and also touring the UK with a show called God, the Bible and Everything, which is quite funny, I think. I also write the Wycliffe Papers. And today I am talking to Andy Bannister and we're asking the question, is atheism funny anymore? It has changed. The vibe has changed. The zeitgeist has shifted. Andy is revisiting a book called The Atheist. It's being republished 10 years on and he's changed it and amended it and updated it. So we'll be chatting about what has shifted in the last 10 years. We'll also be talking about the life of Brian, Father Ted, David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and a story about John Newton who had doubts about his own conversion, which I didn't know. Anyway, stick around. I think you're going to like it. Here we go. So I'm with Dr. Andy Bannister, author, evangelist, and crucially, podcaster. You'll find him on Pod of the Gaps. And he is also the author of The Atheist Who Didn't Exist, republished 10 years on with a 10th anniversary edition, entirely revised and updated with masses of new content, it says here. Also, Andy promises it is funnier than the last edition, and he went to the trouble of making up a statistic to justify that fact. So this is the Stand Up Theologian podcast. So I have to ask Andy, Hello, and why does it matter to you that this book is funny?

Andy Bannister: 1:42

I'm deeply wounded, James, that you would suggest that I would make up a statistic.

James Cary: 1:49

It's a footnote that says you've made it up.

Andy Bannister: 1:52

Well, I think I said that 47% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Why is it important that it's funny? I mean, historically, where this began, 10 years ago, when the new atheism was its height, there were lots of really amazing Christian books being written, responding to the new atheism, but they were dull as ditch water and say what you like you know Dawkins Harris Hitchens the rest they wrote really well and I thought someone has to do something with a bit of verve and sparkle and then I came across a little line from C.S. Lewis actually when he was asked why he wrote fiction and Lewis said well I've realised the front doors of people's minds are guarded by watchful dragons and I thought with you know stories we can tiptoe past the watchful dragons and get the truth in the side door and I thought well I can't tell stories but I am funny or I can be funny so I thought I wonder whether using humour we can tickle the dragon under the nose and while it's rolling on the back waving its legs in the air we can run through the front door so the humour is designed

Speaker 01: 2:44

yeah

Andy Bannister: 2:45

very seriously I've found as a communicator who engages non-Christian audiences a lot if you can get people laughing you can get them thinking because the defences come down a little bit and people might go God I'm not interested actually if you can get them smiling they might go ok ok alright I'll give it a thought and the stories from the first edition of Where It Went I had so many stories of that book being used that way so the humour really really matters yeah definitely it's part of the whole package

James Cary: 3:10

so I mean because Christopher Hitchens was properly funny wasn't he I mean he was obviously immensely educated and I've read sort of biographies of him and I just think oh he read every single book he could get his hands on from the age of about nine but he was witty and funny and you could hear him win an argument with a joke where he hadn't actually won the argument and so comedy has a kind of a truth of its own doesn't it that just seems to resonate and yeah it must be very frustrating to be on the receiving end in a debate I'd imagine

Andy Bannister: 3:42

I think so and the challenge sometimes actually by the way is to just be able to dial that back appropriately I mean it's not always easy I remember doing a debate a few years ago with an atheist guy at St Andrews University in Scotland it was a debate on the resurrection and I won't mention his name because he was actually awful it was embarrassingly awful and in one of the sections of the debate he said something so ludicrous and I then responded with a one liner and the whole audience started laughing and I suddenly realised oh gosh I've gone too far because they're now laughing at him and yes I've scored a point but it's a little bit of a cheap point even though it's a good point and so that was a lesson to me just be careful with humour because humour can be used yeah it can be used to prick the pompous it can also be used in a way to hurt as well and as Christians in this space I think it's important to use it well and use it wisely but yeah the serious point is it can get people thinking people who would say I'm not interested and actually you can get past those outer defenses sometimes uh with it with it with a joke or a laugh

James Cary: 4:43

yeah yeah and i mean whilst we're on the topic of comedy and this is the stand-up theologian uh podcast yeah let's just talk a bit about um comedians and why they're drawn uh to this subject of religion and i just think i don't know much about the works of lenny bruce but obviously i think he ended up going to jail for for some jokes but sort of from the 60s onwards religion became real fair game didn't it and i wonder if do you do you any kind of high points for the expression of the new atheism as it kind of burst out in the late 90s

Andy Bannister: 5:15

well there's a couple of things aren't there I mean to go early on before the new atheism burst out I mean in terms of comedy and religion I mean there are some famous kind of landmarks aren't there you might mention things like I mean I think of things like the life of Brian yeah would be perhaps a you know a famous one now that's a very interesting one right because that also showed the tension because that's a very funny movie but the pythons were a great went to great lengths you if you recall, to say that we're not lampooning Jesus. I think one of the pythons on record is saying, one reason being, he's not lampoonable. Because you generally satirise people who are pompous and full of themselves, and you can't really lay that on Jesus. But religion, and you can lay that down. And then, of course, there was that very tragic, very depressing TV discussion to watch between the pythons and Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of... But that's Bishop of Bath and Wells but hang on a minute that's Blackadder it

James Cary: 6:10

might have been the Bishop of Manchester or something like that somewhere

Andy Bannister: 6:12

I mean I like Muggeridge but the two Christians I think were so joyless and I felt quite sorry for the Pythons so that's a point on the scale then we can come through but that was still quite innocent I think then it gets a slightly perhaps more cynical when you get into things like the Father Ted kind of era although even then I don't know what you think about that right to go but Father Ted too is lampooning the church it's lampooning they don't generally go for for for christ they go for the the trappings of religion and and maybe in one sense you know maybe actually you really when you say that you realize in some senses they are partly on the same side as jesus because jesus lampoons the pharisees i mean jesus got some pretty cracking kind of one-liners we don't think of jesus as a stand-up comedian but you know whitewashed tombs was both offensive and and funny because the legs the pharisees go to to look holy and jesus just like just tears into pieces

James Cary: 7:04

father ted i was just saying because it's so silly i I've never really bought this idea that it was about the church because it's so over the top. It may feel very different if you're Irish and you're watching it because the footprint of the Catholic Church in Ireland is just very different. And, you know, so the footprint of the Church of England within England, I think, is very different and had been for decades, if not centuries. Whereas the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church probably felt very different. So maybe it felt more dangerous in Ireland. But, you know, farther do such an idiot and so funny. And just the overall tone of it is so playful and silly. I think, in a way, Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews sort of wanted to be more satirical about the Catholic Church. But, you know, I don't think it landed. And it's interesting, Graham Linehan's own journey, how is he a demonstration of the decline of atheism as you see it? Because that's what your book is tapping into, isn't it? The fact that 10 years ago, everything felt quite different. 20 years ago, felt very different.

Speaker 01: 8:08

Yes,

James Cary: 8:08

very different. So how can we see that through the lens of Graham Linehan and maybe sort of Ricky Gervais and people like that?

Andy Bannister: 8:14

Linehan's been on quite a journey, of course, because he got embroiled in all the trans stuff and got, you know, that massive attempt to cancel him. I think one of the things that happened through that journey was people like Graham discovered that, do you know what? Some of my fellow travellers in this issue are Christians. And actually, they're pretty supportive. And so I think it's interesting watching him. He's gone from being quite, you know, quite snarky in some of his early mode to being a bit more sympathetic as by the way as Dawkins I mean yeah you know Dawkins 10 years ago comes out and goes just ridicule Christians ridicule them insult them that's what we need to do now he's like well I'm a cultural Christian I'm a cultural Christian which is which is interesting and by the way the other thing I find interesting on this journey through comedy that we've described the other characteristic you put into there are the atheist characters in comedy who are a little bit of a more complex figure my my text my exhibit a of this would be Sheldon and the Big Bang Theory right ago yeah you know if i was an atheist i'm watching that thinking if i was an atheist i'm not sure i'd be entirely happy with this because he's the nerd he's got no social skills at all yeah and yes he's very clever and he's and he's funny but i'm not sure he's a role model and so he's the guy representing us whereas you've got howard who's a lapsed jew who's actually a far more rounded character yeah even while he's sort of wrestling with faith kind of questions

James Cary: 9:33

yeah

Andy Bannister: 9:33

and so and then again also i suppose on that scale you put someone like the simpsons right where you've got got you know you've got Ned Flanders who is a okay he's a bit of a dork but he's a straight down the line guy he's not a hypocrite family yeah not a hypocrite and then the the the counterpoint is Homer who's the idiot

James Cary: 9:48

hmm the Simpsons I think is really interesting and the difference between the Simpsons and family guy is quite telling because in the Simpsons you've got Ned Flanders and what's great is Homer's hatred of him is always shown to be irrational it's not based on anything it's just I'd say Homer is always mean Yes, that's true. was basically a busted flush because even the clergy basically didn't believe it anymore which is not you know i've just been at the general synod of the church of england let me tell you there were plenty of clergy who are absolutely believing it and some of them believe what i think would be heresy but you know they they clearly believe so we've got the simpsons which is still from the 90s really isn't it and then family guy comes along there's just no religion in that at all really isn't it i mean it's just there are some kind of christianish kind of uh jokes or references but it's almost like christianity doesn't really have much of a footprint. But it feels like that's all changing, doesn't it? It

Andy Bannister: 11:11

does. And the final thing I was going to say on this thread, because you asked why do comedians keep circling back to this. There's a whole number of reasons. Firstly, because I think, you know, religion in some of its trappings is fair game. You know, I think it's, we need to say as Christians, sometimes the way that we structure things does look ridiculous. Although, by the way, you know, it's interesting which religions are fair game. You know, one particular religion never really gets satirised. No. Because obviously if you decide you're going to satirise Islam, life gets exciting and short.

James Cary: 11:38

Yes, certainly dangerous, doesn't it? It gets

Andy Bannister: 11:41

quite exciting. Yes, I always think of Life of Brian. You Romans, no sense of humour. Yes, I could think of other groups that have no sense of humour. You know, I can't imagine the Ayatollahs in Iran, you know, are people that you hang out with for a chuckle.

James Cary: 11:52

This is your chosen specialised subject and we won't get into it in this particular podcast. No, that's a tangent. Well, no, we'll come back to that in another because that is your... You are Dr. Andy Bannister and the doctor is related to Islamic studies and you've done some fairly... dangerous things talking to folks at Hyde Park Corner and I

Andy Bannister: 12:11

wouldn't say dangerous I mean exciting definitely but then the other thing I was going to say to return to your comic point is it also James I pose this partly to you as a question because you know you've been a comedy writer still am so I realised the moment I said that I was like that sounds terrible you could have

James Cary: 12:26

finished it by saying you've been a comedy writer for quite a long time now

Andy Bannister: 12:30

for quite a long time here I am

James Cary: 12:31

rewriting your dialogue on the hoof you see I'm a writer

Andy Bannister: 12:35

you've been a comedy writer for quite a long time And comedians, I think, you are playing with those existential questions. That kind of naturally comes up in comedy, meaning of life type stuff, because you're digging into the nitty gritty of life. And then I'm also struck by the fact how many comedians are actually quite broken people on the inside, because I think that they're searching for stuff and messing around in those kind of deep questions of life and not getting to any answers. I mean, I immediately think of people like Robin Williams and others who are just you know really quite tragic

James Cary: 13:09

yeah

Andy Bannister: 13:09

figures and if that's somebody once said i think at first i've heard various people say it but there's a famous saying that says you know life is either a comedy or a tragedy a tragedy is when you know it looks like when you graph it looks like a smile everything starts out going really well and then bang it all ends in chaos and it's doom and destruction and if you curve the arc of that it's a it's a it's a frown

Speaker 01: 13:26

yeah

Andy Bannister: 13:26

a tragic comedy looks like a smile because it looks like everything's going to go badly badly badly but oh no there's a great turn there's a eucatastrophe to quote tolkien and it turns out to be wonderful and i think because comedians are playing in that space you're going to stumble across spiritual questions you can't avoid it and you can try and you can try and be dismissive I think Ricky Gervais at times actually to me feels like a man who's actually terrified I think if I was having a beer with Ricky I think one of my questions would be what are you afraid of because you're very shouty and you like to think you're intelligent and actually anyone who's read widely goes you're crass quite frankly but what is it that you're afraid of it's almost like you're afraid of going to those places. So I'm going to throw really bad arguments out and just eff and blind a bit and hopefully the audience laughs at me so that we don't have to go there.

James Cary: 14:15

Yeah, no, interesting. I've never seen him live, actually. I would be interested to go and see

Andy Bannister: 14:20

him live. I'd love to see him live. I've watched his stand-up stuff and his more sort of sitcom-y office type stuff. You

James Cary: 14:28

refer in your book to David Baddiel's book, The God's

Andy Bannister: 14:32

Desire. Oh yes, David Baddiel's book.

James Cary: 14:33

The only thing I've got to add on David Baddiel is the fact that he did a very good interview with the Comedians Comedian podcast which is a secular podcast by a lovely man called Stuart Goldsmith and he just does one-on-one interviews with stand-up comedians and his one with David Baddiel was David Baddiel just can't not tell the truth he says you know if there's something that's kind of not right he'll just mention it because he can't not talk about it he loves pointing at elephants in the room so I'd imagine the God desire is fairly brutally this is what I'm thinking and I really am thinking it I'm not thinking this for money did you get any sense of that in in your dealings with that book

Andy Bannister: 15:11

yeah well a couple of things came out of that book the first thing is fascinating is i is that book i read and then at the same time as that i was also reading frank skinner's the comedian's prayer book huh so those two together comedy

James Cary: 15:22

partner yeah indeed

Andy Bannister: 15:23

they're comedy partners and and and they they both talk about each other and david's actually very honoring of frank but you know he clearly doesn't believe the same stuff but he really respects his partner and on the other side frank too talks about some of the conversations he's having david's it's really interesting that their takes and david's big idea in the god design especially i find it quite a tragic book because the big idea is he he wants there to be a god he i think he yearns for god to exist he would love god to exist but then he makes this move where he's like you know that very fact we want god to exist so badly uh you know is a is is is perhaps a piece of evidence that he doesn't exist which actually on the one hand is both absolutely tragic because i think you know he the fact he wants her to be a god but that can't come to believe that On the other hand, it's also a ludicrous argument because, again, you can't prove anything by psychology. There are lots of things I want to exist, and they do exist, and there are other things I want to exist, and they don't. And I think it's his attempt to not engage with argument I find really kind of fascinating. The big elephant in the room, I think, throughout that book is going, okay, if human beings want there to be a God, but there is no God, evolution has, in David's world, then played an incredibly bizarre and cruel trick on us because evolution is pretty thrifty if it's the only game in town because it can't afford to mess around. It's got to get its genes out there. So the amount of time and effort that human beings have spent on religion and faith and the God question when it's utterly meaningless, there's no survival value, it's just illusion. And by the way, given that 98% of human beings who've ever lived have been religious, if I had David with me, I'd say, David, that probably therefore the conclusion is all human beings are deluded. That includes you because you're part of the tribe, which actually means you're not being sceptical enough we can't trust anything we cannot trust anything and by the way look at the trans stuff to show that we can't trust anything you know we're half the you know people who should know better going on about you know forgotten science and biology so to go you'd be more consistent David if you said we are completely deluded mammals nothing matters absolutely nothing by the way including my book but I find that guys like him want to hang on to truth

James Cary: 17:29

he

Andy Bannister: 17:30

wants to say that truth matters and believing the right things matter and justice matters by the way as well to him. He has strong views on a whole range of issues. I came away going, this is a deeply dissatisfying book, but I appreciate the honesty. He tells you what he thinks, but those thoughts don't join up.

James Cary: 17:48

Yeah, it's interesting. Something you just said now triggers a couple of things. The first one is just, it's fascinating to me that you can go round a high street bookshop and the amount of Christian books available is one shelf. And half of them are Bibles and the other half are written by by the Pope, N.T. Wright, Tim Keller, and C.S. Lewis. And so that is Christianity in one shelf. The motivation for almost all human endeavor in the West, you know, the thing that makes all the other books good is in one shelf. So it's kind of weird how we've just completely moved on from that. But the second thing I was going to say is when you were saying about how David... Oh, for the second episode in a row, I'm interrupting my own podcast. And that's intentional, obviously. I just thought I would mention that we've been talking about the life of Brian just a little bit, but I talk about the life of Brian a whole lot of bit with Glenn Scrivener. That will be in the next episode. And you can get that pretty much straight away if you become a paid subscriber of this podcast. And you do that by going over to the Wycliffe papers, which I think you will find funny and enjoyable anyway. Every Thursday lunchtime, there are funny headlines but if you join and you become a loyal Lollard there's a whole load of extra benefits and bonuses and jokes and we just generally have a bit more of a chat there's a monthly zoom call as well so why don't you consider going over to the Wycliffe papers and becoming a paid subscriber to that and that's like the membership area for this podcast too and you'll get many other episodes early as well I've got loads planned and coming up and it's all quite exciting anyway there are links to that in the show notes, that's probably enough for now. But before I return you to our scheduled podcast, our conversation also put me in mind of this clip by a stand-up comedian called Pete Holmes, who has turned the tables on atheist comedy and has his own rather delightful take. Have a listen to this. Some

Speaker 02: 19:49

people think God created the universe. Some people think nothing created the universe, which is the funniest guess. And the nothing people make fun of the God people. They say God doesn't exist. I'm like, okay, maybe. But you know what definitely doesn't exist? Nothing. That's the defining characteristic of nothing, is that it doesn't exist. So what are we talking about? Either you think it's God, something you can't see, touch, taste, photograph, and science can't prove, or you think it's nothing, something you can't see, touch, taste, photograph, and science can't prove. But I think we can all agree, if nothing, if your nothing sometimes spontaneously erupts into everything, that's a pretty magical nothing, you guys. And ask, ask the nothing people, what happens when you die? They'll tell you, nothing. You go into nothing. I'm like, you mean you merge back with your creator?

James Cary: 20:50

But the second thing I was going to say is, when you were saying about how David Baddiel sort of doesn't, he just sort of can't believe. And I've heard this from another one. I think it was Douglas Murray I heard interviewed. Yes, that's right. There's an awful lot of these people on the right or the centre who were sort of moving in a particular direction but they they like the idea of christianity but they just can't quite but it's like i don't have it in me to believe because initially you just think i don't know how to break that argument because also we believe in justification by faith well what if you don't have faith that's starting with the apostle paul and going one way if we start with jesus his first two commands are repent and follow me so repent basically admit what you're doing isn't working king and two follow Jesus do what he says try that and it seems to me like people are desperate to kind of have this romantic feeling of falling in love with someone but they just can't imagine sort of being trapped on a desert island with a woman that you're just not attracted to and you just think well how awful that would be because we're the last human beings alive or whatever it is but it's like no it's not that so I think sometimes because we particularly evangelical Protestants we believe so hard in justification by faith we think it's all about faith and actually i think jesus is all about obedience that he's the king i don't i don't care whether you believe in him or not he's the king so get with get with the program i mean how could we how could we approach things from that angle especially to gen xers who are basically the worst we'll get on to them in a minute

Andy Bannister: 22:27

yeah i think so i mean there's so many things i could say there i mean i think the first thing i'd say for any you know of our own tribe listening to this going oh that's a bit edgy to go you know there's that if you want scriptural evidence that belief is not enough you know there's that line in James isn't it where you know even the demons believe in God and tremble so belief is not what God is after I think you're onto something where I think you know Christian faith is primarily a lordship claim that Jesus is lord of heaven and earth and to go that's where it starts from and no it doesn't end there but that's where it starts from and then I'm also reminded of one of my great heroes of faith historically we were chatting about church history before you hit record so John the Newton, you know, the author of Amazing Grace and, you know, amazing kind of testimony, you know, some people know that the outlines of his faith, you know, he was a slave trader and an absolute, you know, scumbag of a man, then comes to faith during a storm in the Atlantic Ocean when he thinks he's going to die and he just sort of cries out. And then when he gets back to England, you know, he begins thinking to himself, well, you know, gosh, you know, now, you know, is that all in the heat of the moment and how do I know this is true? And then he records in his journal, he said, what I decided to do was the proof would be in the living. I would live as if Christianity was true for a year and see what happens. So he puts it to the test. That's interesting.

James Cary: 23:41

This is a far more interesting story than the one we've been told.

Andy Bannister: 23:44

And I like that, almost that pragmatism of going, well, I'm going to give it a go. And to people who say, well, I can't believe. You're absolutely right. I think that's a sort of psychological angle on faith that maybe our ancestors would have gone, raised their eyebrows up. Maybe evangelicals have partly made this worse, particularly in the more charismatic tradition where we kind of feel we have to have the warm fuzzies. But to say to someone like a, you know, someone like a Douglas or or whatever Douglas why don't you try living it out for a year why don't you you know read the gospels and immerse yourselves in teaching to Jesus and go I will do my best and I will pray a little bit as I go it's okay to pray God I don't fully know what I think about you but I'm going to I'm going to just put to the test as if this is real and then see what happens after a

James Cary: 24:23

year pray the Lord's prayer every day for a year try to do what it says and see what happens

Andy Bannister: 24:32

yeah and I'd add things like you know surround yourself with people that you respect who can help you on that journey and by the way one person I think who is walking this through and she's not there yet but she's on the journey so you know Ayaan Hirsi Ali whose story I talk about in the book the kind of fifth of the four horsemen of the new atheism you know amazing you know goes from radical Islam to radical atheist and then a couple of years ago announced I'm a Christian and what was interesting was watching some of my you know fellow Christians sort of say oh I'm in a testimony it feels a bit wishy-washy you know there's not enough of the right things in there but she ended that interview in the Unheard magazine where she announced her conversion by saying you know I go to church every Sunday I've got I'm learning lots every every week and I'm like that's what I liked of her willingness to go I'm not there but I'm I'm exploring it and so yeah I think to people like the Douglas Murray's of this world and so like David Baddiel I would say mate you're already living as if it's true you're living as if life has meaning and human beings have value and you know I mean this was the C.S. Lewis point right to go I think when I read David Baddiel one of my back of my mind was C.S. Lewis during his you know if you read his by joy his autobiography you know what was it that led him out of atheism in his 30s it was realising he loved literature and he loved story he loved myth and he loved he loved the arts but he was also smart enough to go these don't make sense on atheism it just doesn't work and there's that moment right where he falls to his knees and prays and describes himself in his journal as at that moment the most reluctant convert in the whole of England because it's kind of an intellectual surrender and it then takes two years later for the Jesus bit and I maybe want one of the things that we as christians need to be doing is how do we help both our gen x friends and our gen z friends but particularly our gen x friends how do we help people maybe discover what a journey towards jesus looks like maybe it won't be that kind of hallelujah moments maybe it will be a series of sort of stumbling fumbling steps forward of going well hang on a minute you know this then this then then this and i value the fact that jesus is willing to come alongside people at the speed they're going i love that emmaus road passage in luke 24 where jesus comes alongside those disenchanted disciples who are like it's all over it's point We can't believe anymore. And he doesn't go, ta-da, I'm the Messiah, look at me. He's like, oh, tell me what's going on here. Let me listen to you and ask you some questions. And, you know, over that slow walk, it takes an afternoon's walking before they're finally realising who they're walking with.

James Cary: 26:48

Yeah,

Andy Bannister: 26:49

yeah. And maybe there's something in how we journey with Gen Xers on this.

James Cary: 26:51

Yeah. Well, yeah, we've mentioned Gen Xers a bit and I'm slightly obsessed with them. Partly because I am, but also...

Andy Bannister: 26:56

You are one, right?

James Cary: 26:57

Yeah, I am. How old are you? I was born in 1975. Yeah, well, I'm

Andy Bannister: 27:00

1972, so I'm the same era, right?

James Cary: 27:04

Same era. So I'm interested not only... as a sitcom writer, I'm super interested in personality types. So I'm interested in what characters want. And therefore, to me, the Enneagram stuff is quite interesting, even though it's got slightly murky, dodgy roots. The idea that people want certain things, they want justice, they want to be accepted, they want this or want that. I think those are really interesting. But there's an extra generational kind of thing. So Gen Xers kind of came of age in this era of the new atheism, where it felt like postmodern Christianism kind of gave way to nothing and nihilism. And so, you know, I was at university in the mid to late 90s. And what's really interesting is my kids who are now teenagers at school, occasionally they have a teacher say something that essentially bashes Christian faith, particularly from a science perspective. And they say, oh, you know, Mr. Hender said something about it. And I said, how old's Mr. Hender? Is he about my age? And he goes, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I can normally guess. how old the person is based on the skepticism.

Andy Bannister: 28:10

Interesting.

James Cary: 28:10

What if they say something else? I just go, oh, were they kind of slightly older? You know, it's like, oh yeah, yeah, no, that's kind of, they're kind of tail end of the boomers or whatever it is. So I find that super interesting, but it feels like my age group are slightly still trapped in this new atheism.

Speaker 01: 28:26

Yes.

James Cary: 28:26

And yet the culture's kind of changing. So are we a lost generation? And as you were going through the book again, you know, 10 years on, are you thinking, oh, there are certain arguments that didn't used to work and now are much more effective, particularly to people like me who might be thinking about having a midlife crisis?

Andy Bannister: 28:47

Yeah, there's a whole number of things in there, James. I mean, in terms of the book, there was a couple of things I found fascinating. I mean, the major new pieces we did was there's a new chapter exploring what happened to the new atheism because that it failed so spectacularly and became a busted flush culturally was fascinating because you know, you wouldn't have thought that at its height. No. I mean, these were the rock, it was rock and roll.

James Cary: 29:10

Yeah.

Andy Bannister: 29:10

And then to go now, you look at it to go, I mean, you know, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett are dead, so they're doing empirical research into the God question.

James Cary: 29:17

First-hand field research, yeah.

Andy Bannister: 29:19

Sam Harris has become some weird new age guru. Ironhurst C.R. Lee has become a Christian and Dawkins has become a cultural Christian. So it's like, wow. Yeah.

James Cary: 29:27

The

Andy Bannister: 29:27

band didn't just break up, they went all over

James Cary: 29:29

the place. And James Lindsay, who was sort of on the fringes of that, he's kind of gone in a particular direction as well. So he's clinging onto his atheism, but nobody really believes him anymore.

Andy Bannister: 29:37

No, there were lots of hangers-on who were sort of looking a little bit egg-on faces. But one of the things I also noticed is, as you say with Gen Xers, but the arguments the new atheists launched have continued. So I will still meet people, and not just Gen Xers, they might skew more that way, who'll come out with lines like, oh yeah, religion is the cause of most conflicts. Look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And to go, that's a new atheist argument. Or you do meet quite a lot of the scientists there God stuff in different forms it's kind of bubbled around so that was by the way it was another reason for updating the book and then I got very fascinated by of course then what's been called the surprising rebirth that actually now the culture is shifting and you've got the Douglas Murray's the Louise Perry's the Tom Holland's of this world raising massively existential questions and sort of quietly going well actually maybe I sort of believe in God again in terms of the arguments in the book revisiting it I found a few things interesting as I say I think ones that I was proved right on and I think are equally valid I think yes we've talked about the religion causing war thing you know that was a big thing for the new atheists and now if I bumped into Richard Dawkins on the pub I'd go Ukraine you know really that's news to Putin that he's doing a religious thing I know religion is always on the fringe of things because it's part of culture but to go and even by the way the Gaza issue is more of a land issue than a religious issue primarily and of course you know look at the biggest threat on the horizon geopolitically China and their ambitions for, you know, Taiwan and everything, nothing to do with religion. So that's an interesting one.

James Cary: 31:10

Yeah, but also, their argument on religious wars doesn't even work for anything after, I don't know, 1648, the end of the 30 Years' War? Well,

Andy Bannister: 31:17

even before then. I mean, you look at, I quote this thing called the Encyclopedia of Wars. It was a great resource because that was a very sort of nerdy historical book looking at thousands of wars through history. And I think its authors conclude, I think maybe 7% of wars in the entire of human history, you could, as causes. And they've got no religious acts to grind. They're simply, yeah, it's not really a cause.

James Cary: 31:35

Yeah, yeah.

Andy Bannister: 31:35

The other one that intrigued me is that there's a resounding theme through The Atheist Didn't Exist about what does it mean to be human is one of the big questions. And in fact, the title, The Atheist Didn't Exist, came from the fact you've got atheists who are not merely explaining God away, they're explaining humanity away. So you literally become, as an atheist, it's one thing to throw God out the window. When you throw humanity out the window and reduce yourself to just chemistry, you've become The Atheist Didn't Exist. And in one sense, that argument has got even greater impetus now in some ways because we have atheists AI and we're in real danger of forgetting what it means to be human we play around with our chatbots and you know people are now marrying their chatbots and falling in love with chatbots and

James Cary: 32:14

transhumanism and

Andy Bannister: 32:16

all those things where people are getting obsessed with technology and again that kind of dehumanising edge so again we have this tendency to explain ourselves out of existence a big resounding thing throughout the first edition of the book was the foolishness of soundbite arguments well that was before TikTok came along and has you know made that ever the case then I would like the fact that in the first book it came into land on the centrality of Jesus

Speaker 01: 32:39

yeah

Andy Bannister: 32:39

and I think that that's the thing that won't go away right to go this witness David Baddiel you know I kind of miss God I almost wish there was a God I wish this was true and I meet so many people actually as I travel who sort of camped on that of Jesus is interesting I find Jesus fascinating but I'm not sure where to go next

James Cary: 32:58

yeah I mean I'm just reminded of that lovely quote I can't remember where it comes from I don't believe in God but I do miss

Andy Bannister: 33:04

it I've seen a couple of versions of that yeah I think that where I saw where I saw almost as that words were nothing to be afraid of

James Cary: 33:12

there's a guy called Julian Barnes which is

Andy Bannister: 33:13

Julian Barnes that's it thank you Julian Barnes nothing but he opens with that line yeah and then I've also seen Douglas Copeland kind of use a version of that

James Cary: 33:23

yeah yeah he's very sort of wistful I mean he's sort of a classic kind of gen

Andy Bannister: 33:27

X writer well Life After God is that book right where he sort of you know the whole arc of that book is we threw God out in the 60s thinking we'd have endless sex and he'd and it wouldn't be life be wonderful and now we're all sitting around going oh hang on a minute yeah now actually it turns out we miss him

James Cary: 33:42

yeah and then it but then we thought the internet would be that in the night you know late 90s noughties the dot-com boom and everything and suddenly it looked like oh everything's online everything's going to be free flow of information no borders and all that kind of stuff and it's like well that didn't work i mean to what extent i mean maybe it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing but this quiet what's it called the quiet

Andy Bannister: 34:00

quite revival quite revival yeah

James Cary: 34:02

is that because because of fear about big tech, the state, you know, COVID, transhumanism.

Andy Bannister: 34:11

It's all those things, isn't it? By the way, for people who haven't come across that term, do Google Quiet Revival. So that was a report that came out a few weeks ago from the Bible Society in the UK. Picking up, we're doing a really deep dive into this fact that you've got, for younger people, Gen Z especially, are now arguably the least atheist generation in modern Britain. There's an astonishing stat, actually, that they pick up, or it was another survey I saw pick up, that something like 25% of young men, 18 and under, are in church once a month. And then Youth for Christ, a big Christian organisation, put a report out again a few days ago now showing that 50% of 18-year-olds and under would be willing to go to church if somebody invited them. So we're seeing a lot of those stats. I think what's driving that, James, is a number of things. Firstly, and I talk about this in the updated version of the Atheist book, firstly, the new atheism didn't replace God with anything. They took God away. It's like, don't believe in that. And we had that ludicrous... slogan that Dawkins and others put, you know, there's probably no God, stop worrying, enjoy your life. He never really connected those two things because another take is there's probably no God, so we should be absolutely wetting ourselves with terror because we're dangling over the abyss. Asteroid strike, COVID, you know, I don't know, all kinds of things could wipe us out, you know. Life is pretty brutal and short, you know, Hobbes, state of nature, all that kind of stuff. So the new atheism I think never realised that you need to replace God with something. So that was one issue and I think we've got young people who've grown up with God chased off the stage and the screaming questions what replaces him with and then we had not as a double whammy but a multiple whammy we had COVID yeah Gen Z grew up while COVID is going on education messed up being told you're going to die you've then got the environmental stuff and again not to knock the importance of that but you know Greta and crowd going out going we're all doomed we're all going to die you're a young person growing up under that I remember growing up in the 80s James lying awake at night worrying Is a nuclear bomb, is nuclear war going to start? That was the fear. Young people today have even more fears. And then, of course, you've got war in Ukraine, Gaza, and AI and stuff. So I think there's all of those big existential questions. I'm not surprised that Google recently said that one of the top ten questions people are typing into Google is, is everything going to be okay? So...

James Cary: 36:28

Yeah, Google questions tell you a lot, don't

Andy Bannister: 36:30

they? I know, Google Zeitgeist is where that comes out of, that report.

Unknown: 36:33

Yeah.

James Cary: 36:37

This is the second and final interruption in my own podcast and just be grateful I'm not advertising pillows or sheets or whatever else other people advertise on their podcasts. I'm advertising myself. I'm touring the UK in 2025 and most of 2026 with my show God, the Bible and Everything in 60 Minutes. It's a laugh out loud stand-up theology show which is not just for Christians but for everyone. I cover the main big hitting stories like Adam and Eve and Noah and David and Goliath so everyone should feel fairly comfortable and we normally have quite a fun time. So you can go to jamescarry.co.uk to find out where I'm on and if If I'm not on anywhere near you, you could change that. You could book me to come to your church or somehow local theatre. Good luck with that. And I'm open to offers. So get in touch via my website and maybe I'll come and be funny somewhere near you. Anyway, let's get back to the programme.

Unknown: 37:40

MUSIC

James Cary: 37:44

Are you seeing this in your experience on the ground?

Andy Bannister: 37:47

Yes, very much so. I'd say when we do events on universities and schools where we go now, you know, we see huge sort of spiritual interest and people coming out. So I did a little schools mission a few months ago and, you know, we did three evening events at this school and to go, two of them were almost capacity and third was standing room only. University events were seeing it much easier to invite people along. You've got to get the right questions See, Christians can sometimes get obsessed with the wrong questions. Young people today are not primarily asking, is there a God? That's not the question. But if you put an event on saying, where is hope to be found? Or why do we look for happiness in the wrong places? Or is AI going to destroy us? If you start there and then you work towards, could it be that actually God, the Christian faith, Jesus are the answers to these questions that you're asking, then you get a huge crowd. So I think, yes, they are. It's a really exciting time. actually to be someone talking about faith in the public square because things are changing and say even the old crowd even Dawkins I'm a cultural Christian now I want to say to Richard Wright that's where we're going to start we're not going to end there but to go yeah what a change oh and by the way the other piece of course as well which we alluded to earlier the Islam piece I think a lot of people are seeing the change that mass migration has brought and there's a whole series of issues there that require a discussion of their own But, you know, I think one of the things behind Dawkins has been, actually, I don't want to see a country that's run along Islamic lines because I value the fruits of Christianity in terms of democracy and free speech and exchange of ideas. And I think young people are not unaware of this stuff too, actually. So, yeah, interesting times.

James Cary: 39:34

That cuts both ways as well, because obviously the younger generation, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, whatever they'll end up getting called, they are...

Andy Bannister: 39:44

Like car number plates. They're going to be kind of

James Cary: 39:48

like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because there is now a much greater proportion of immigrants, young people who have a faith because they've been raised as Muslim. So therefore the idea that you as a Christian would be raised Christian, people are actually okay with that. So, you know, my own kids haven't found hostility towards Christian faith because other people have other faith, which they've been told, rightly not to mercilessly mock or undermine in some ways to not have any faith means that you don't have a category it's a bit annoying but um but if all over the country lots and lots of children young people i'm from a hindu family i'm a hindu i'm a i'm a muslim i'm a i'm a this or that you know if you're eastern european immigrant you might well be um catholic or orthodox so you can say that and so now english kids who were typically might have said they were christian 20 years ago they might probably wouldn't have done Now they're kind of more likely maybe to say, well, everyone else has a label. I suppose I'm a Christian, but I don't know what that is. Yeah,

Andy Bannister: 40:52

I think you're absolutely right. And I'm glad you mentioned the Catholic piece because, of course, it can be a mistake to think of immigration just being Hindus and Muslim friends, of going, actually, immigration has revitalised the church. I think I saw some stat recently that there are more people in church on a Sunday morning now than there were 40 years ago. But if you look at a typical London congregation, it's going to be very, very ethnic-like. diverse because you're going to have your sort of Latin Americans you're going to have Africans you're going to have you know Chinese Christians list goes on I think it's amazing and then as I say I think yeah once the identity stuff starts getting played and that's the other thing our culture has done it's lent into telling kids you know your identity your tribe really matters now it's overdone that in so many ways but no wonder then that you know white British kids go well hang on I need an identity too what is my identity well I guess I'm Christian I just don't know what that means and there's a huge opportunity then for the church to go well okay let's tell you what that what that means and by the way I've only ones or twos they're outliers but you know whether they're outliers of something more or just outliers I've come across a couple of people in the last year or two who's you know stories of faith these I think both of them were in their early 30s were people who had sort of set out to look at the history of their culture again well what does it mean to be English and they stumbled across one of them I think it stumbled it walked into a cathedral on holiday going to York Minster and gone what is all this about

James Cary: 42:10

yeah

Andy Bannister: 42:10

and and actually then through diving down and discovered everything and gone oh now I need to look at this that becomes interesting when culture matters more to you then I think you take a deep look

James Cary: 42:21

yeah I'm really interested in that I mean I'm making YouTube videos about church history and particularly going back to like Saxons I don't know anything you know I didn't really know who St Dunstan was even though I can probably see I can see Glastonbury from where I'm standing now Glastonbury tour he wasn't he was the abbot of Glastonbury monastery back in the 10th century and so You know, he was bringing a Benedictine revival at that point because it had already come and gone. But also, these were the guys who were taking the gospel to Vikings. Yes. You know what I mean? It's like, so these guys weren't mucking about. This is very... It's

Andy Bannister: 42:58

an understatement.

James Cary: 42:59

Yeah. These are very robust Christians who really do have a hope and a reason for the hope they have in Christ as these Viking hordes come. And they're defeated, not really in battle. They're actually defeated by the gospel.

Andy Bannister: 43:11

Well, yeah. And by the way, as an aside, which is probably a whole other... podcast i was uh i was chatting to a friend the other day who made it made a point that really made me sort of sit down and think for a moment and it's this right so you your point about the vikings yeah right you know who are today's vikings who are the equivalent and i you could make an argument to go okay it's the you know there's we've got one issue with left-wing politics but it's the right wingers to go it's the it's the andrew tate crowd all those you know they're the barbarians they're the barbarians they're easy to go they're beyond the pale yeah they're terrifying well our ancestors went there are the vikings let's go get them yeah and to go how is the church today can we get a vision for going for today's Vikings and to go yeah they're scary and they say things that we go oh my word well the previous lot were raping and pillaging and the church transformed them and I think one thing I'm really hoping that we do in this cultural moment as Christians individually and more broadly is get a bit of backbone into us and go it's a complete mess out there but it's a very exciting mess and we've got form the gospel has got form in messy cultural situations as in the first century when Paul and the first Christians rolled their sleeves out and went out there and turned the ancient world upside down and it has in this country when as you say you know our ancestors I love the Celtic monks you know from Northumbria you know going out again you know absolutely fearless taking on and preaching to the you know to tribes who would you know not sort of stab you before they look at you and to go they turn the culture upside down so to go we've got you know we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses as somebody once said

James Cary: 44:42

yeah we should totally read the book that that's written in but we should also read your book

Andy Bannister: 44:48

you should read both the book of Hebrews and the Atheist Didn't Exist

James Cary: 44:51

yes that's right so the 10th anniversary edition entirely revised updated and several percentage points funnier thanks so much Andy for joining us on the Stand Up Theologian podcast and yeah available in all bookshops now one very last question what are you writing now that'll be out next year or what's your next project

Andy Bannister: 45:12

oh now that's a very dangerous thing to say because I announced it now and then it doesn't materialise so I would say in a nutshell the thing I'm thinking about a lot right now James is AI we've touched on it in this so this year I'm trying to read 50 or 60 books on AI and read really really widely and then I want to write actually two books is the plan on AI whether that's out next year or the end or the beginning of the year cut after we shall see but that's the area

James Cary: 45:39

you could well you could save time you could get AI to at least write one of those couldn't you

Andy Bannister: 45:43

yeah the idea in a nutshell the first one I want to write something that uses AI to get people thinking about big questions because I wrote the book I wrote before this one with a colleague was the Have You Ever Wondered book and I think AI raises all kinds of questions what does it mean to be human how do we decide what's right and wrong and how do we figure that out there's all kinds of questions that bubble up from the AI discussion so the evangelist in me is we can use AI to start gospel conversations and then in the church I get a bit upset when we lag behind the culture in terms of using things well I see too many christians tending to sort of get really really terrified of ai going whereas i think we can walk a line between you know utopianism and dystopianism and i actually think there's an opportunity to figure out how we could use ai well as we used previous technologies before us and so i want to write a very practical hands-on guide for church leaders and christian communicators things to do things not to do so those are the two books that's the plan it may go entirely wrong it may turn out that actually i've underestimated it and the killer robots from venus will take over and we're not here next christmas

James Cary: 46:43

well that's a cheery note on which to end the podcast thanks so much Andy I really appreciate you being with us

Andy Bannister: 46:49

likewise it's been great to be on the show and thank you for having me and all the best with the podcast

James Cary: 46:53

thanks Andy and thank you dear listener for making it to the end of this podcast which probably meant you liked it or at least you've had your hands in the sink for half an hour and have been powerless to change to another podcast assuming it's the former and that you liked it you might want to hear the next episode about the life of Brian you could listen early that's an episode with Glenn Scrivener go on over to the Wycliffe papers and become a paid subscriber that's called a loyal Lollard and we will get you that episode early along with a boatload of other goodies and bonuses as well as the warm fuzzy glow of being a patron of the arts like Lorenzo the Magnificent and if you want to hear me be funny for an hour and even see me in a church go to jamescarey.co.uk and there's a list of the venues I'm playing with my touring show God the Bible and Everything in 60 Minutes And you could add your church to that list by getting in touch by the website and we'll sort something out. Anyway, that's it. Thanks for listening. Speak to you next time. And this is how it ends.