A Killer Question Asked At Oxford.

After alighting from the train at Oxford Station and exiting onto the street outside, had someone approached to ask me whether I arrived onboard an interstellar spaceship, I would have considered this to be quite a valid question. Because indeed, from the moment of arrival, I sensed this historic, academic-centred city was on a different planet from the one I lived on. For the first time in my life, I was about to enter the Sutro Room, located upstairs in the heart of Trinity College, one of many institutions of the University of Oxford.

This is a result of an advert posted on Facebook by the Oxford Forum for an hour-long debate between a Christian and an Atheist on the question of whether morality without religion is bankrupt. The Christian representative taking part was Professor Keith Ward, someone who looks to be around my age or older. Ward would be discussing his views with the Atheist Alexander O'Connor, a minor celebrity under the username of Cosmic Skeptic, whose 125 YouTube videos have attracted 25,299,347 views by February 7th, 2020, along with 308,000 subscribers, after just seven years of self-broadcasting on the Internet.

O'Connor's typical YouTube video prompt.

After giving a positive response to the advert, I felt a surge of excitement over the prospect of seeing O'Connor in the flesh, after watching so many of his videos. I suppose this is a hint of celebrity-worship, despite that not ever appearing on television (as far as I'm aware) or on film, I rate him as a minor celebrity. But to be known by almost 25,300,000 people around the world is indeed something. But furthermore, what I really wanted was to speak to him personally, to testify to him that this Jesus of Nazareth is the risen Christ.

I arrived at Oxford early, purposely to allow for any train delay hampering the journey. Therefore, about forty minutes before the debate was due to begin, I approached the superintendent's office just inside the college gate for confirmation of the meeting. After some searching, his computer revealed that there is a meeting at the Sutro Room right at this moment. Commencing at 3.00pm and due to finish at 6.00pm, the superintendent was rather nonplussed. He had the keys to the venue right there with him and therefore cannot be anyone present in that chamber. Therefore, under his suggestion, I took a stroll down Broad Street and looked around the magnificent public library which was nearby.

Perhaps I was asking too much. I had no idea what this Sutro Room looked like. I imagined it to be a theatre-like auditorium seating hundreds of people. I imagined the debate being watched by all of us from a distance before the two debaters vanish backstage, their celebrity-status snobbery keeping them from talking to us as "ordinary" individuals. 

Trinity College, where our beloved Englishman, Etonian and ardent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg resided as a student, was about to become familiar. As I returned to the entrance from the library, some students were lingering just inside. The superintendent, remembering me, suggested to one of the students to lead me to the venue. We chatted happily until we arrived at the far side of the building from the entrance and led me through a door and up a flight of stairs. I was surprised by the small size of the panelled room, no bigger than a school classroom. About 25 chairs were already arranged, theatre-style, and my emotions were overwhelmed in being in the very heart of Oxford University yet at the same time, also with the small size of the room, giving a far closer intimacy with the debaters.

I was the first guest to arrive, about fifteen minutes before the start. Only two or three other people were already there, setting everything up, including O'Connor himself and one who will be monitoring the debate. I had the privilege to introduce myself and expressed my commitment to Christ.

By seeing him in the flesh, I was taken back by his youthful good looks and his slim, athletic build for a man in his early twenties, as well as his high intelligence, knowledge and intellectual abilities. But what surprised me most was his height. He was taller than me by several centimetres, something not so noticeable in his videos. I also found him to be very likeable.

The room was filled almost entirely with male students, with a few females. The small room was packed with, I would estimate, to be between fifty to sixty people, with some spilling out through the open door. Undergrads, postgrads, all casually dressed, including the two debaters. It was almost difficult to believe that if 41.1% of Trinity College students come from state schools (grammar schools, I assume) then the remaining 58.9% are from public schools such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester. Yet as I looked around the crowd, most of them sitting and standing behind me, it was impossible to tell whether this audience is representative of the overall statistic.

Prof Keith Ward opened the debate. His reasoning that morality without religion is bankrupt. He then went on about Theism is the setting for moral values such as love and compassion and knowledge of the love of such a Being would stimulate love and respect for others. He then quoted Emmanuel Kant, who said that morality was impossible without belief in God. He also discussed that opponents of gays and their lifestyles were not necessarily religious. Many secularists also oppose homosexuality. Prof Ward then goes on to say that humanism is anti-religious, and atheism lacks the resource to make morality workable.

The debate, with Keith Ward, left, and Alex O'Connor, right.

O'Connor's side of the argument is in question form: Is morality without religion bankrupt? His answer is No, morality can still exist and work well without the need for religion (as advocated by the likes of both Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens). He then takes aim for the Bible being insulting to modern morality, especially in the Old Testament. If there is a God, then he must be looking in horror at deeds done under religion. The religious attitude towards gays is one striking example, the put-down of such people by the religious, making them feel rejected, isolated, subject to violence and suicidal. O'Connor also insists that it's quite possible to believe in Evolution and practice religion too, although how the two can exist harmoniously side-by-side, he even admits, remains a mystery. In all, if God is the source of all good, then good must also exist outside of God. To which Prof Keith Ward explained that God is eternal, and if so, good is also eternal.

As the debate progressed, I feel like bursting! My heartbeat felt rapid as emotions rose. Throughout the entire debate not once was the name of Jesus Christ mentioned. I wanted to shout about the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that no man can be justified by God through his own morality, but I also knew that if I had disturbed the gentle flow of the debate, there would be no uproar as in Paul the apostle's time. Oh no, of course not! This is not the 1st Century Middle East. This is modern England, and furthermore, Oxford, the home of English gentry. Had I caused a disturbance, one or two students would be asked by the coordinator to quietly escort me out. 

It was after the conference was over, and the chance to partake in the ten-minute question time was denied from me by the monitor. It was after declaring the meeting closed that I had that moment alone with Alex O'Connor, and after posing for photos, I then proceeded what was in my mind:

Alex, I said, It's a real privilege to talk to you like this. I have watched many of your videos and I'm impressed. I'm aware that you believe in Evolution, and therefore, I'm aware that if death preceded Adam and Eve, if they ever existed at all, then Jesus could never have atoned for us and my faith would be in vain, for the crucifixion was precisely for Adam's fall. Then again, I'm aware you are studying all this.

Well then -

Do you believe that Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, by using Darwin's theory, used the theory of Natural Selection to coin up eugenics, and this was taken by the German Nazis to use for the Holocaust, the slaying of six million Jews? In other words, by denying all religion, Hitler was amoral?

It was difficult to hear O'Connor's answer due to the surrounding babble, but I did hear of his denial that the holocaust had anything to do with Hitler's sense of morality. Rather, he might have hinted at having a religious conviction. I then shook his hand and departed, to head back to the station. Indeed, I was by no means the first to leave, much of the room was already empty by the time I left.

Any historian would be aware that Adolf Hitler was born a Roman Catholic and his mother was a practising catholic. But from adolescence onwards, he not only renounced his religion but hated it. Later, when he came into power, Adolf Hitler began to assemble heads of the Nazi Party into his Cabinet. These included Dr Josef Mengele - Darwin's "Angel of Death", Martin Bormann, Heinrich Himmler - Darwinist and mass murderer, Dr Joseph Goebbles who was the Darwinist father of the Holocaust, Hermann Goring, Reinhard Heydrich - a fervent anti-Christian Holocaust mastermind, Dr Alfred Rosenberg - "the scribe of the new gospel" of Darwinism, and Julius Streicher - an anti-Catholic Darwinist and Hitler's mentor.*

These men were all former Roman Catholics who renounced their religious faith mainly during their university years. There all agreed as one man, that Natural Selection needs a helping hand on the social side, just as Charles Darwin's book is properly titled:

On the Origin Of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (emphasis mine).

Going by his title, Darwin hinted at one race of humans being in favour over other races. It was his cousin, Francis Galton, who seized the opportunity to apply this to eugenics, or social evolution, in the name of Science. It wasn't long before the German Nazis had gotten round to using Galton's thesis in the Holocaust to eradicate all "weaker, inferior Jewish and Slavonic races, along with cretins, homosexuals and the physically deformed" in order for the "strong, superior German Ayran race" to breed and thrive. This ethic was diametrically opposed to Christianity and both Galton and the Nazis knew it. Darwin himself also knew that his theories strongly opposes the Christian faith, hence a delay in the publication of his book for a number of years.

Alex O'Connor aka CosmicSkeptic is a likeable student of theology at the University of Oxford. He has shown great intelligence and knowledgeable intellect for a man of his age. But I'm sad to say that he is catastrophically wrong in insisting that morality isn't bankrupt without religion, especially the Christian faith. History has proved otherwise.

So far, his videos have more than 25 million views and have attracted 308,000 subscribers! That's one size of an audience which calls for a blog such as this. He is also a public speaker, delivering talks to audiences filling large lecture rooms alongside any other established professor or lecturer.

How I long to spend some private time with Alex O'Connor, especially over coffee at a Starbucks or Costa Coffee. To tell him that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting people's sins against them (2 Corinthians 5:19.) the wonderful truth of Imputed Righteousness for every believer, that is, for God the Father to see you in the same way as he sees his Son. A biblical doctrine which the Catholic Church has failed to teach for sixteen long centuries and a doctrine anathematised at the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563. Thus salvation by works of Pennance had replaced salvation by grace through faith alone and portrays a false, truculent God who looks at every sin committed instead of each believer being a citizen of Heaven.

No wonder O'Connor hates God, just as I once hated him myself when I was a teenage Catholic. As did Hitler and all his motley Nazi crew. But now, I have a heart for the Catholic Church, as I have a heart for O'Connor and his ilk. Longing for all to be reconciled to God through faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If Alex O'Connor was to agree for me to meet with him at Oxford, I'll be more than happy to board a train to arrive at a pre-arranged venue. It would be a privilege.

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*Jerry Bergman, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, 2012, Joshua Press.