It is challenging to grapple with such a huge subject whilst trying to keep the content both brief and fairly simple. For this reason various areas of this subject are not touched on.

A modern reading of these verses usually leads to a reactive conclusion that this is talking about an atheist, which in contemporary terms means somebody who believes that God does not exist (conventionally lack of belief in the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.) This is not so.

In Psalm 14 the reference is to a Jewish person (an Israelite) who lives and acts as though his God (Yahweh) could be ignored. In Psalm 53 the reference is to foreigners who were seeking to invade Israel and destroy the Jewish people, that they were foolish for thinking that the Yahweh could be ignored.

The actual Greek word atheist (atheistos) meant a person ‘who denied the traditional religion of the Athenian establishment.’ An offence punishable by death in Greek society. It did not mean somebody who denied the possibility or reality of supernatural beings.

Then remarkable rise and now subsequent decline of atheism is our own times began with two pivotal events, separated by precisely two hundred years: the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and that of the Berlin wall in 1989.

During these two hundred years atheism as we now understand it ( a person who denies the existence of the Judeo-Christian God or any other god) moved from the fringes of society to become the dominant cultural voice in France. The fall of the Bastille became the symbol of a godless world. Ironically, the fall of the Berlin wall symbolised how unbearable such a world and society had become to those who lived in one.

During these two centuries atheism captured the imagination of an era. Although it still permeates the values of many secular societies, atheism is now very much on the recline. A lot of this is due to the Postmodern respect for diversity as well as the embarrassing intolerance atheism itself has demonstrated towards those who disagree. There is a more fundamental reason why atheism is in decline and we shall explore this shortly.

Atheism took root at two levels, the popular and the intellectual. Three intellectual heavyweights were Ludwig Feuerbach, who suggested God was a human invention, Karl Marx who suggested God was an Opiate of the masses, and Sigmund Freud who suggested God was a mental and emotional illusion.

One of the misconceptions of atheism is that Science is at war with religion. That science proves things whereas religion depends on authoritarian dogmas and has been the implacable opponent of scientific progress.

There are famous examples where the Church did oppose new scientific ideas, but they are the exception to the rule. It was in Christendom that science flourished and the Christian nations became the world leaders in progress and discovery as encouraged by the Church.

There is also the urban myth that religion is the cause of all wars. The greatest wars and persecutions this world has ever seen, the 20th century wars, were started by atheists. The Christian Church, especially the Free Church tradition of the 20th Century gave rise to the movement now know as Pacifism. Historically the Church guided (not created) violent societies by providing ‘Just war’ and Chivalric values. (This writer subscribes to the Just war principles not totalitarian Pacifism.) Historically atheism has proved to be far more intolerant and violent than any of the worlds major religions.

During the Victorian period the Church lost ground because many Victorian poets and novelists created popular imaginations of reality built on secular rather than religious foundations. The Christian Church was combatting the growing influence of biblical criticism and the rise of Darwinism. The Church lost ground not because it could not appeal to human reason, provide a rational and logical world-view, or that it failed to engage with the major social issues of the day, (the Victorian Church birthed many of the charities and institutions, such as an education and school for everyone, help for the poor etc we value today) but because it failed to capture the popular imagination.

In former atheist Russia the Orthodox Church is growing at a phenomenal rate. In China, South Korea, many Africans nations the growth of the Christian Church is truly exceptional. In the UK we have seen the decline of interest in the churches but a rise in the interest of spirituality. Western Culture is being immersed by a new interest in the spiritual. Sections of bookstores now burgeon with ‘Body, Mind and Spirit’ sections.

God is not an empirical hypothesis that can be studied by scientific method. The natural sciences are not capable of adjudicating either positively or negatively the existence of God. The intellectual argument about whether God does or does not exist has really ground to a halt and no definitive solution either way has been or will be found.

The reason that the Christian Church will always be around, is that the experience as well as the knowledge of God is central to the Christian faith. Our hearts are restless until they rest in God. When God is experienced He is known. Only then can He be studied in the community of faith as people start to fid answers for the experiences they are having. The reason I as a Christian Minister remain confident about the future of the Church (whatever shape it may take) is because I know that in the market place of spirituality, the Christian Church has 2,000 years of heritage, experience and resources to draw from. When a person is seeking to find a deeper meaning to life beyond the mere material and physical, the Church has tried and tested methods that people have used for centuries to enable people to experience the transcendence of God and find who God is in the person of Jesus Christ.

Atheism rose like the tide, but like the tide is now also receding. In the pluralistic culture we are now living in, the Christian faith and experience is more than able to compete and provide food for the spiritually hungry. However some churches still need to look back at the ancient paths that have been trodden before, and embrace the totality of our Christian heritage, and move away from the addiction to narrowly defined parts of it, but that in itself would require another article.