Rev Dr Craig Millward

Minister for the Light of Life Baptist Church, Ormesby

 

“He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.”

Douglas Adams

 

In typical fashion, the much missed author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy tells it like it is. Our race has always been intrigued by the possibility that there are distinct patterns in this mysterious universe which may imply that we exist within a larger story than any of us will ever fully understand. Make a list of those films, cult TV series and best selling novels that have enthralled millions and stood the test of time and it will be clear that most of them point beyond themselves to a deeper level of ex

 

istence and meaning.

 

Most people who find themselves sliding towards the belief that there might be a god do so extremely reluctantly. The next step – putting our faith in the God we have come to believe exists – is even harder, mainly because it is terribly inconvenient. Few are as honest as Nick Hornby and Aldous Huxley:

 

“I try not to believe in God of course, but sometimes things happen in music, in songs that bring me up short, make me do a double-take. When things a

dd up to more than the sum of their parts, when the effects achieved are inexplicable, then atheists like me start to get into difficult territory… All I can say is that I can hear things that aren't there, see and feel things I can't normally see and

 

feel, and start to realize that, yes, there is such a things as an immortal soul, or at the very least, a unifying human consciousness, that our lives are short but have meaning. I’m not going to listen to stuff like this too often though – just in case.” (Nick Hornby – Author)

 

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning – and I therefore assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially a way of doing what I wanted.” (Aldous Huxley – Novelist + Essayist)

 

The reason why this kind of honesty is so rare is because so few sceptics truly understand what they are rejecting – and that is rarely their fault. Douglas Adams thought that all he was throwing out was the idea of an after-life – as if faith in God is simply an insurance policy paid for by occasional attendance at church. Yet the gospels reveal that Jesus’ main concern was to bring meaning and purpose to our present existence so that we might experience a fullness of life in the present – and then into the future.

 

Our society seems to have become disenchanted in every sense of that word – we are suspicious at the idea that the reinvention of humans as endless consumers has delivered the goods yet are also afraid to believe because doing so has become discredited. Jesus calls all who dare to be true to themselves: “Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks.”