"God has become an option again"

From an interview in the Spectator with the Rev. Keith Ward, a liberal British theologian:

‘Listen,’ he says kindly, ‘I think the sciences point very much to a religious basis. I’ve never met a world-class physicist who doesn’t think there’s more to the universe than just atoms bumping together, something mind-like at work, some intelligence. Even Einstein believed that. In the last 20 years, there has been an intellectual revolution in thinking in Britain. God has become an option again but it’s just that it hasn’t quite filtered down to everybody else yet.’

It’s like a reverse enlightenment, I think. The intellectuals are coming round to religion, leaving the masses under the dark cloud of reflex rationalism and neo-Darwinism.

* * *

‘Look,’ says Ward, more serious now. ‘I think people should choose their religion on the basis of their culture. Take me, for example. The most important thing about me is not that I’m a Christian but that I’m a Western liberal, strictly a British liberal, OK? That is what I am, and I can only speak from that position. So for me, six-day creationism and the Indian religions are all ruled out because I accept the scientific world view and reincarnation isn’t part of that. For other people, the choices will be different depending on their cultural framework.’

* * *

‘I think my view [as a Christian] is right but the evidence for Christianity isn’t compelling and I think there can be different views. Of course I think everybody should agree with me about Christianity, but only in the sense that I think people ought to think that there is no highest prime number: because it’s true. I’m very insistent that people have a right to change their religion, not to have a religion at all or to have one of their choice.’

Here's the link to the article again in case you want to read it all. (Hat tip to TitusOneNine.)