On the Courage of Liberal Christians and Pagans

In The Importance of Living, Lin Yutang wrote: “The modern liberal Christian and the pagan are really close, differing only when they start out to talk about God.”  A few pages later he explained, “A pagan always believes in God but would not like to say so, for fear of being misunderstood….Of the beauty of this universe, the clever artistry of the myriad things of this creation, the mystery of the stars, the grandeur of heaven, and the dignity of the human soul he is equally aware.”

I agree with him.

Yutang was the child of a Christian pastor and he wrote that he had “at one time prepared for the Christian ministry.”  He described in The Importance of Living how he gradually became a pagan as his skepticism grew about the traditional claims of Christianity.  He described being a pagan as living “in this world like an orphan, without the benefit of that consoling feeling that there is always someone in heaven who cares.”  As his skepticism grew he felt a fear “that if a personal God did not exist the bottom would be knocked out of this universe.”  Eventually, however, he felt it was better to face “the truth;” it was “courageous,” he said, to stop believing the Christian “illusion.”  He wrote that “after one has accepted the worst, one is also without fear.  Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.”

I think this is why so many of us who grew up in liberal protestantism find a kind of peace in atheism, at least for a while.

It does take courage.

But I have noticed that as those who once had this courage grow older, it often becomes harder to sustain.  The crises of life and the nearness of death test the courage, and overwhelm it.  Yutang was in his early forties when he wrote that he had such courage.

As I think about these things, I remember the words of Dylan Thomas, who died before he turned forty, one of the “Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight.”  He urged, “Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Rage is more powerful than courage.