Dear Christis,

I am 22 years old, I come from France where I studied English at the university, next term I’ll probably join a Cinema school in Paris. I want to be a director. I came to York last June to visit my girlfriend, who achieved a 3rd year in history studies there. That’s how I found your magazine.

I have been baptised at the age of eleven. I used to be a Christian until the age of 14 or so. I went to Sunday school, I have read some of the Bible — still do from time to time. The reasons why I do not believe in God now don’t matter here. I’ m a non-Christian, and it suits me. I’m happy.

I started my reading of issue 79 by James Topliss’ letter and I was horrified. I read the following pages, and, to my great astonishment, most of what I read was also shocking, insulting, offensive, even — if I may say so — stupid.

 Mr Topliss states that “The Bible, which as an organisation we believe is the infallible word of God, clearly teaches that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian”. He argues that “the Christian is in the Kingdom of light whereas the non-Christian is in the Kingdom of darkness”. In the same way, he marks the difference between “righteousness” and “wickedness”. He speaks of Christian “maturity” and non-Christian un-understanding …

 Reading such a narrow-minded and contemptuous point of view from someone who is supposed to believe in the love and care, and respect, too, of his neighbour really gets me on my nerves. As a non-Christian, I do not feel inferior. I do not feel I’m in the “kingdom of darkness”. I do not think I’m unable to understand faith, nor do I think I can’t understand Christians, or Buddhists, whatever. I do not feel superior either.

Mr Topliss’ views, in my opinion, would be easy to consider as Facist ones. In defending a certain idea of Christianity, he denies the very idea faith takes its roots upon: tolerance.

I could have written a response in the same tune as Mr Topliss used, saying that I can’t understand how people want to place their life in the hand of a divinity who prevents them from really opening their eyes; I could have said that we do not need to have faith or to believe in God to be happy and tolerant, say, my girlfriend believes in God and as far as I know, we love each other and get on very well together etc.; I could have said comparing non-Christians to drunkards is an irrelevant, idiot and offensive argument, I could have said … you have to be nuts to be a Christian.

But I won’t. I do not condemn Christianity and faith. What I can understand isn’t God, but bigotry and extremism. I advise Mr Topliss to read a bit of philosophy: Descartes, Senecus, Epicurus, Pascal (“He who does not believe in God is condemned to pace around in his room … ”) and especially Aristotle (Nicomacs’ Ethics, or Ethics to Nicomacs, I don’t know the exact title in English). He’ll understand that non-Christians can easily find “the light“, too. Faith, 2) I think Believers could be compared to lovers and 3) love is blind … :-)

I do not believe in God, I believe in the others. Learning from them and teaching them. Take and give.

I do not follow Bible’s principles — I follow philosophy, and, to a certain extent, psychology, politics, history. How and why our world appeared doesn’t matter to me (we’ll never know the answer). Understanding how it works seems to me the great challenge. So I turn to the others. I learn about them. And thus learn about me.

I’m happy.

Take Care,

Jeremy Noe

Dear Christis,

Having read the last Christis magazine (Issue 79), I write to express not only my views, but the views of many friends — both Christian and non-Christian — regarding a number of points made by the CU President.

As I understand, Christians believe that Jesus came into the world to associate with ‘outcasts’ of society, such as tax collectors, prostitutes and gentiles, accepting them fully into his world. Therefore, from my point of view, for a Christian to say that the Christian is in the ’Kingdom of Light“ and the non-Christian is in the ’Kingdom of Darkness“ is totally inappropriate. Far worse than this, however, the CU President asks, ’for what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?“ Surely, this suggests that non-Christians are ‘wicked’, and if this is so, I ask what right does somebody have to pass judgement in this way, especially somebody as influential as the CU President? Christians have always maintained that they do not, and would not, judge, for this is in “God’s hands only”. By making such a statement, this vision of a Christian’s beliefs has been totally contradicted. Although I am truly respectful of the views of others, I believe that the letter paints an extremely bad picture of Christianity, and as a non-believer, I find the views expressed by the CU President both offensive and narrow-minded. Surely, if Christians follow the beliefs that they claim they have, we should look to them as being the most open-minded of us all.

I hold a high set of moral standards and values, and have my own faiths, although these are not in Christ. I have many Christian friends, all with whom I feel I have much in common (contrary to the statement in the article, “what does a believer have in common with a non-believer?”). Although I agree that a serious relationship between a strong Christian and a non-believer would prove difficult, I do not agree that it is acceptable to be judged as righteous or wicked, based on your views as to whether all things good and beautiful were the creation of God or not (which is what the article implies), especially by a representative of the Christian Union.

Yours sincerely,

Gemma Law

Dear Christis,

Just wanted to say how much I enjoy reading your online magazine and to wish you and all your group well.

Warm regards,

Arun Arora
Bishop’s Director of Communications, Birmingham