http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644941-rdfrs-uk-ipsos-mori-poll-1-how-reli...
Some churches have a clear policy on what you have to believe, but they're mostly pretty cult-y. Even Catholicism, which was in the past beset by the Inquisition, is a pretty broad church these days, and many people who see themselves as perfectly mainstream Catholics would be at odds with some of its doctrine (contraception, notably). And the churches that have strong views on what you must believe don't really like you reading the bible too widely, and have a preference for one set translation and those strange "red letter" bibles with Jesus's purported words picked out. But in general, membership of a mainstream protestant church --- Methodism, Anglicanism, Catholicism --- doesn't have a entry exam, and even if you take things like confirmation seriously it doesn't have any sort of ongoing scriptural correctness requirement. So it's odd that, in an age where a belief in God is pretty much all you need, to Have Richard Dawkins resurrecting the Spanish Inquisition, with a formal definition of "being Christian" that I don't think any Christian denomination would actually recognise. "Indeed, many Christian practices, including regular reading of the Bible and prayer outside church services, appear to be unsupported amongst respondents self-identifying as Christian". Recognised by whom, exactly? Is he saying that literacy and a bible in your native tongue is a sine qua non for being a Christian? That's going to come as news to about the first 1500 years of Christianity. "One in six (15%) admits to having never read the Bible outside a church service, with a further one in three (36%) not having done so in the previous three years;" (admits is an interesting verb, wouldn't you say?). So what? He then goes on to various issues about physical resurrection and the power of prayer which have been the subject of learned debate within churches for millennia, but for which he knows the right answer that Christians should hold. If a theologian mis-represented evolution like this, Dawkins would be apoplectic, but he now knows Christianity better than the Christians.And to compound his stupidity, his must stupid claim is that few Christians know the name of the first book of the new Testament. Leaving aside, again, the theological irrelevance of that --- the ordering of the New Testament was a political fix at the Council of Trent, if memory services --- he was then on Today this morning asked what the full title was of Origin of Species. He didn't know. As a life-long atheist (which is more than Dawkins can claim), can I just say that he doesn't speak for me, and I'd like him to shut up, please? ian
ETA: Listen here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9696000/9696135.stm