Drivers in Grand Rapids will now be greeted by a new sight as they head into the city.

A billboard from the Center For inquiry.

Not surprisingly, the billboard has already become a source of controversy in GR, as well as the handful of other cities where it has recently appeared.

So here’s my take – they’re right.

People who don’t believe in God (or gods) are perfectly capable of being as caring and loving as people of faith, and the sooner we acknowledge that the better.

Because we too often don’t acknowledge it, too often I’ve heard the argument made in churches and classes that without faith you cannot do anything truly good. So that while a Christian might help someone because of their faith, someone who doesn’t believe in God only helps because it makes them look or feel good, or because they want to receive some sort of acclaim.

You could just as easily make the opposite claim – that atheists ultimately stand to gain nothing by helping others if their beliefs are correct, or at least nothing that lasts, and yet they do it anyway.

Whereas the Christian could easily be motivated by religious convictions that have little to do with a real desire to love and care. Perhaps those motivations are eternal rewards, the soothing of guilt through good deeds, or the desire to show others how pious they are.

To put a finer point on it, it can be our religious commitments themselves that allow us to participate in injustice and apathy and exploitation, instead of love and caring.

We are involved in church, maybe even leadership, and so are able to tell ourselves a story about who we are as a person. We tell ourselves we are good, holy, righteous people, who occasionally have to get involved with unjust systems because that’s just how the world works, but it’s not who we are inside.

But maybe we are looking at this all wrong. Maybe the question isn’t whether people who do or don’t believe in God can do good, but what sort of God we are talking about.

If we’re talking about the god of moralistic therapeutic deism, the god who is detached from our lives except for when he steps in to open up a parking space or have his name used by politicians – then no, you don’t need that God to be good.

If however we are talking about the God who lays down his life on a cross, who loves and forgives his enemies even as they drive nails through his hands, if we are talking of the cruciform God we see in the man Jesus – then perhaps that God is mysteriously present in every act of love or caring, in every time injustice is opposed and grace is extended, whether we believe in him or not.