This is a great time to be an atheist. The polls show that “nonreligion” is the fastest growing religious identification in the United States. In Europe, after centuries of religious strife, most of the people are secular and the ornate churches are empty. That seems to be happening on this continent, too. The corner is slowly being turned. College students, as a group, are the least religious demographic in the nation. Hundreds of secular freethinking campus organizations are sprouting up as evidence of this impending—and I say welcome—change. The phenomenal success of atheist books such as Sam Harris’
The End of Faith,
Daniel Dennett’s
Breaking the Spell,
Christopher Hitchens’
God is Not Great,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s
Infidel
and Richard Dawkins’ international blockbuster,
The God Delusion,
shows that there is a hunger for reason, science and true human morality.
I am convinced there is also restlessness among the clergy and in the pews. (See the many former ministers and priests I talk about in Chapter 18.) My story is one example of what can happen when the superstitions of the past are put under the bright light of reason. I hope
Godless
will be helpful to atheists and agnostics who are looking for ways to talk with religious friends and relatives, but my real desire is that a Christian reader will finish this book and join us.
—Dan Barker
Freedom From Religion Foundation
ffrf.org
A NOTE ON WORD USAGE
The style of this book is not to capitalize “bible” unless it is a specific bible, such as the King James Bible, or when it appears capitalized in a quote by a believer.
PART 1
Rejecting God
Chapter One
The Call
When I was 15 I received a “call to the ministry.” It happened one evening in late 1964 during a week of revival meetings at Anaheim Christian Center in Anaheim, California. This was during the start of the Charismatic Movement—a slightly more respectable and less frenetic Pentecostalism within mainline churches that today sports hundreds of independent churches and loose associations of congregations around the world, but at that time appeared as a wild, exciting, uncrystallized phenomenon that woke up a lot of dull congregations. My parents, after years of mostly fundamentalist Christianity, had gotten involved with the Charismatic Movement because they were attracted to the “living Gospel,” where the presence of God seemed more real, immediate and powerful than in traditional worship services.
The meetings at that “spirit-filled” church were intense, bursting with rousing music and emotional sermons. Believers did not sit passively praying in pews. Weeping worshippers waved their arms to heaven. Some fell prostrate to the floor, in submission to the Creator. People stood to speak in tongues, and others translated the “heavenly language” into English. Some practiced faith healing, prophecy, discernment (diagnosis of problems, such as “evil spirits”) and other “gifts of the spirit” that accompany being “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” It was a night that changed my life.
I had already been “saved.” My parents were Christian, but belonging to a Christian family does not make you a Christian any more than having a baker for a father makes you a loaf of bread. Each person has to make his or her own decision. According to the teachings of the New Testament, I had confessed to God that I was a sinner deserving eternal torment and I had accepted the death of Jesus on the cross as payment for my sin. I humbly asked Christ to come into my heart and make me a new creature, and I became “born again,” by faith. I had been baptized and I knew I was going to heaven, but I didn’t know what to do with the rest of my life—what little might remain before Jesus returned—until that evening in Anaheim.
Sitting in that meeting, I felt an intense desire to sing, pray and worship and I experienced strong inner sensations that I could only describe as “spiritual.” I was convinced I was communicating with God and that He was talking to me through His Spirit. I had never had these feelings in any other context, and since the “spirit-filled” environment triggered them, I knew that I had confirmation of the reality of God. Today, I would say “assumed,” but back then I “knew.” It felt real, and good. I had been taught, and I believed, that spiritual sensations are not necessary to the Christian life because it is faith alone that saves you, but it was affirming to feel something that wonderful, supplementing my faith. God was not just an idea, He was a reality. I had a personal relationship with Jesus, and he had something to say to me as one of his close friends and servants.
I listened to a sermon about how the end of the world was near, and about how Jesus was returning “any moment” to claim his followers and judge the earth. I heard preachments from the bible about Jesus’ mandate to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Millions of people still needed to be saved, and the time was short. I knew God was talking directly to me, and I knew right then how to live the rest of my life. I accepted the call. I would spend my life bringing lost people into the kingdom of heaven.
I couldn’t understand or articulate it at the time, but as a teenage boy I was probably starting to wonder about my future and a career. Whether it was “spiritual” or “psychological,” it must have made sense to settle the question of what I wanted to do with my life, making an end run around the important but difficult struggle that so many young people experience. Accepting the “call” to become a minister made everything clear. I wanted the rest of the world to share in the gospel, to be saved, to know Jesus personally, to have meaning in life, to go to heaven, and to create a better world in the short time we had left. It felt right. Satisfying.
Beginning that night in Anaheim, my life had a purpose.
My Dad had done the same thing 15 years earlier. He had been a “worldly” professional musician in the 1940s. He played all over California for the USO during World War II. He was a member of the Teenagers, a band that accompanied Hoagy Carmichael on his weekly
Something New
radio show. You can see Dad playing a trombone solo in the 1948 Irving Berlin movie
Easter Parade
when Judy Garland sings her first song, her hand resting on Dad’s shoulder. But after he got married (he met Mom in a dance band) and started having children, he became a religious conservative, renounced his dance-band life, threw away his worldly albums and enrolled in Pacific Bible College in order to become a preacher. But he was unable to continue due to the financial pressures of raising three little boys, so he dropped out and got a job, eventually becoming an Anaheim police officer. I didn’t think I was fulfilling my Dad’s dreams—I was certain that God was calling
me,
personally—but looking back on it, I’m sure there must have been some influence from my parents. Mom taught Sunday School and Dad did some lay preaching over the years, so a life of ministry was not an unusual choice. Both of my younger brothers were heavily involved in Christian ministries, though neither of them became ordained or worked as full-time ministers.
For a couple of years, starting when I was 13, my family formed a musical group that would perform in various churches in southern California. My Dad played trombone and preached. My mother was a beautiful singer and always brought the congregation to tears with her rendition of “His Eye Is On the Sparrow.” My brother Tom played trombone and my brother Darrell played trumpet, while I played piano. We sang those simple yet powerful gospel harmonies that “stir the soul.” I suppose it was no surprise that I felt the “call” to continue a life of ministry.
I remember thinking that night in Anaheim, when I was called to be a preacher, that I didn’t need to wait to graduate from a seminary or became ordained. I was “born again” and “filled with the spirit.” I had the bible, the word of God, to speak for itself. What else did I need? Since God is powerful, there was no reason he couldn’t start using a 15-year-old preacher right away. “Out of the mouth of babes” and all that. Besides, Jesus was coming soon! I didn’t think the world would last long enough for me to go to college or get married or raise a family.
I started carrying my bible to school and talking to friends about Jesus. I joined up with evangelistic youth teams that took weekend missionary trips to poor villages in Mexico, just below the California border, where I preached my first sermon at the age of 15 alongside the dusty bank of an irrigation canal in the tiny village of Ejido Morelia. During the summer, I went on week-long and month-long trips into Mexico and the Southwest, with such groups as YUGO (which means “yoke” in Spanish but stands for Youth Unlimited Gospel Outreach) and the Frank Gonzales Evangelistic Association. Anticipating that I might become a missionary to Mexico, I devoted myself to mastering Spanish.
I’ll never forget my first soul-winning experience. One Friday evening in June, near my 16th birthday, while I was wondering how I was going to spend the summer vacation of 1965, I received a phone call from someone at YUGO asking if I would fill a vacated leadership spot on a traveling gospel team. My parents said, “Go for it!”
Early the next morning, traveling from Los Angeles to Texas with 10 other young people in an eight-door stretch car that kept breaking down, I discovered that I had been appointed captain of one of the outreach groups. My responsibilities were to include supervising a team of three girls (all older than me), two weeks of preaching in two San Antonio Hispanic churches, and directing a Vacation Bible School for children. I was also told that I would be training local teenagers in the techniques of soul winning. I had never done any of these things before, but it was assumed I was capable since they had heard I was an “on fire” young Christian. My faith was so strong that I was willing to do anything for Jesus, trusting that he would give me the strength and the words.
I’m sure my nightly sermons were not great, but no one complained. I let the girls handle the day activities for children while I prepared for the soul-winning workshop on Saturday—which worried me considerably, since I had never before won anyone to Christ.
When the day arrived, we “California evangelists” gathered the inexperienced local teenagers from the churches for some preliminary training. I taught them how to share the basic plan of salvation and how to get a person to the point of conversion. When it was time to go out into a park and put it into practice, the kids expressed some hesitation, but I assured them that nothing was too hard for God. And besides, they were going to learn some lessons about faith and obedience. They didn’t know it was my first time as well!
As I moved out into the park, entourage trailing, I remember thinking: “What am I doing? What if I fail? I want to go home!” Yet at the same time I was thinking: “This is exciting! This is God’s work—and I’m part of it!”
I spotted a young man, perhaps 17 years old, slowly pedaling a bicycle. “Hi!” I said. “I’m from California and I came here to talk to you about Jesus.” He stopped and gave us a cautious look.
“Are you a Christian?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “I’m a Catholic.”
He stayed on his bike, spinning the pedal with his foot.
“Great! Then you know about the plan of salvation?”
“No. I’m a Catholic,” he repeated.
“Then let me ask you a question. If you died right now, would you go to heaven or hell?”
He hesitated, glancing around the park. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I hope I would go to heaven.”
“Well, if you don’t know if you’re saved, then you’re definitely not saved,” I said. “The bible says you can know for certain that you have been redeemed.” I continued with the plan of salvation, explaining that we are all sinners worthy of eternal damnation, which he already knew. I described the need to confess sin, repent and accept Jesus into his heart and his life, letting the blood of the cross wash away all guilt and shame. Listening politely and shyly, as did the rest of the team, he indicated he understood all I was saying.
“Then, would you like to be born again?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said.
“You would?” I asked, trying to swallow my astonishment. It couldn’t be this easy. “What do I do now?” I thought. “Well, then, uh…let’s pray,” I said.
“Here?” he asked. “In the park?”
“Sure. This park is part of God’s sanctuary of creation. He can talk to your heart right here, right now.”
We bowed our heads and I prompted the fellow to repeat the “Sinner’s Prayer” after me. Actually, I had to make it up, digging the words from my memory of past revival meetings. He prayed with me, out loud. When we were finished I said, “Now, do you know you are saved?”