Atheist pastor wants to debate "God"

[bjorn]

timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2009/01/atheist-pastor.html

The Dutch pastor who published an “atheist” manifesto last November is calling on his Church to debate the existence of God. The Rev Klaas Hendrikse, who terms himself an “atheist believer” is urging members of the synod of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands to be open to “doubts” and “awkward questions” on the Almighty.

A bit puzzling position, still a valid subject for debate. If it takes an atheistic pastor to get such a debate going, I am all for it.

Debate is healthy you might argue, and indeed for Hendrikse the “non-existence of God” is not an “obstacle” but a “pre-condition” to his belief. This might seem a bit of a philosophical conundrum, but Hendrikse explains: "God is for me not a being, but a word for what can happen between people. Someone says to you, for example, 'I will not abandon you' and then makes those words come true. It would be perfectly alright to call that [relationship] God,” he says in this report on eni.ch - www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=2624

Still , I imagine I would hestitate to debate a person who thinks in such a confused and unhelpfull way.

[turoldus]

Liberal/Radical theology of this sort has always seemed to me more irrational and confused that any fundamentalist doctrine: reading Spong for instance almost make you long for a sermon by Rick Warren.