Here’s a logical, biblical and pastoral response to Kemi Badenoch’s crisis of faith

In the face of evil and suffering, is belief in God still morally justifiable? No, says Kemi Badenoch who last week admitted losing her Christian faith following the revelations of Josef Fritzl’s crimes. In this response, Andrew Ollerton says that rejecting God because of evil is to saw off the very branch we are sitting on

The atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said if a person put their ear to the heart chamber of the world and heard the roar of existence, the ‘innumerable shouts of pleasure and woe’, it would be enough to destroy them.

In a recent BBC interview, the leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, revealed that her belief in God was destroyed when she put her ear to the monstrous crimes of Josef Fritzl.

In 2008, Austrian police discovered that Fritzl had imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in a cellar and repeatedly raped her over a 24-year period. She gave birth to seven children while in captivity. For Kemi Badenoch, the idea of a God who ignores the cries of victims like Elisabeth, while answering other relatively trivial prayers, is completely untenable.

No doubt we all share Kemi Badenoch’s moral outrage at this horrific crime. But must we also share her atheist conclusions? In the dark of evil and suffering, is belief in God morally justifiable? Let me share some logical, biblical and pastoral reasons why I believe it is.