THE leader of Anglicans in Scotland has admitted that at times he does not believe in God and described atheism as a "truer faith than much that passes for belief", writes Victoria Combe.
In his Christmas sermon at St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, the Most Rev Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh with the Episcopal Church in Scotland, admitted to feelings of "absolute atheism" where he became convinced that there was no God, and no afterlife.
"Real atheism is as much an intuition as faith itself and is like it in many ways. It has some good arguments to support it," he told the congregation. His sermon contradicted a broadcast on Granada's Talk TV by Anne Atkins, The Daily Telegraph's agony aunt and a vicar's wife, who said atheism was "the worst sin there is".
She was attacking vicars who are atheists and yet continue to be paid by the Church of England, with which the Episcopal Church is affiliated as a fellow member of the Anglican Church worldwide.
But Bishop Holloway said he endured dark nights of the soul as part of his "intuition of faith".
"This great intuition is more difficult to talk about sensibly: it is an experience of presence, of meaning, but words alone cannot convey any sense of it." In an interview with The Church Times, the bishop said Mrs Atkins held a "hyper-certainty about the rightness of her views".
He said: "Faith and doubt co-exist; you can't have one without the other. Certainty is the opposite of faith."
The bishop has a taste for taboo subjects. He caused outrage last year when he said in a seminar that adultery was not sinful.
His comments led to him being denounced as "the voice of the Antichrist" at a conference at Downside Abbey.
