Mike Higton on Dawkins

Over nearly twenty years (I’m feeling old…), my friend Mike Higton has taught me, by precept and example, more about how to do theology than all but two, perhaps three, others. One of the lessons I regret never having quite learned from him, despite seeing it modeled repeatedly in his life, writing and conversation, is a truly respectful and patient listening to those with whom I disagree profoundly. On his blog, Mike has been giving just such respectful and patient listening to Richard Dawkins’s God Delusion. Does the book deserve such attention? Perhaps not, but an ethic of loving our enemies might demand that we give such a book that which it does not deserve. And Mike’s generosity is amply repaid with an endlessly fascinating series of reflections, which wander across almost every issue in Christian doctrine.

There are times in my life, I think when I am simply exhausted, when I find it very easy to envy the abilities of others. Sometimes I live better, and exercise with gratitude the particular abilities, such as they are, that God has been pleased to grant to me. Someone like Mike is very easy to envy, though…