Atheism and atheists and are hot topics these days. Most of us have seen them displayed at Barnes and Noble, caught a morning-show interview with them or heard them referenced at a restaurant or coffee shop between people grateful to have discovered champions for their skepticism.

Richard Dawson’s "The God Delusion" has sold 8.5 million copies, spending a year on the New York Times Best Seller List. Christopher Hitchens’ "God Is Not Great" became a number-one New York Times Best Seller. Bill Maher’s film "Religulous" was the highest-grossing documentary of 2008.

New Atheism is hot right now … and lucrative. It also has encouraged a common-ground ecumenical response. Muslims, Christians and Jews are standing together.

In the litany of interfaith responses, Rabbi David Wolpe’s stands out. He’s known as a beloved but controversial leader in the Jewish community. Named Newsweek’s "#1 Pulpit Rabbi in America," he’s spiced up his temple by holding Friday night "rock ’n’ roll" services, inviting Will and Grace producer David Kohan to preach and questioning the historicity of the exodus … at the Passover service!

Wolpe’s book "Why Faith Matters" is his response to the new atheism movement. He feels their discussion of religion has completely missed the positive benefits of religion. He cites the power of religion’s gifts to society: interdependent community, a sense of social responsibility, a commitment to charity, believing in something larger than oneself, promoting healthy personal boundaries and submitting to a "higher power."

We could call this the defense of virtue. In essence, these are God’s ways of demonstrating himself through his followers. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we have the potential to be a strong argument for God.

Of course, Wolpe’s ideas are not the first time a beloved and controversial Jewish rabbi has lent his insights to Christians.

The virtue defense crystallized for Wolpe early in his ministry career. In a story of inadequacy relatable to many clergy, myself included, he tells of being called to the hospital bedside of an elderly woman to offer final prayers for the dying. He took her comatose hand but felt like a fraud. Who was he to shepherd a soul to the edge of the next world? Dutifully, he proceeded to pray familiar words anyway, letting their power carry him.

Talking to his wife about it afterward, Wolpe confessed his feelings of inadequacy. "You’re right," she said. "You’re unworthy. Anyone would be unworthy doing such a thing. That’s okay, though. It’s not you doing it. It’s being done through you."

Wolpe writes, "That was a pivotal moment for me. Suddenly it became clear to me that we bring light into this world not as a source but as a prism — it comes through us. As electricity requires a conduit, so spirit moves through human beings to touch others in crucial moments. As soon as I stepped out of my own way, the prayer felt real. I could believe in the blessing when I realized that it did not depend on me."

Novelist Edith Wharton put the same idea this way: "There are two ways of spreading light, to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

Our text this morning from Galatians 5 raises the light or prism, candle or mirror question. "But there’s no light reference here," you say. I think there is.

The negative fruits of the flesh or the positive fruits of the Spirit are set up in a larger context in which Paul is dealing with the influence of Judaizers in Galatia who insist on adding law to grace. Reminding the Galatians of their freedom from the law, he asks them to use the holiness encouraged by the law for each other. In living by the Spirit, they are to be slaves to one another, embodying the grand intent of the law, which is neighbor-loving.

The "fruit" or the result of living in the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and so on, and these latter qualities are the very things that mirror the light of God into the lives of others. We could rename these qualities the flames of the Spirit. Not the fruit of the Spirit, but the flames of the Spirit.

We can’t be the candle. Christ is the candle. We can be — we must be — the mirrors.

Most light metaphors fall into two categories. One, Christ is likened to light — "the people living in darkness have seen a great light." And, two, his followers are light — "You are the light of the world." The metaphor of a candle and a mirror encompasses both.

Christ has set us free, and ultimately he is the light of the world that we all reflect. But when God changes us — when we are led by the Spirit and produce fruit — then we reflect that light in the same way that a mirror does candlelight.

This text clearly recognizes that God’s Spirit is the one doing work in us. There’s no doubt who the light source is. God’s Spirit is the candle.

That means the response of the Christian is to polish up the mirror. Clean up the smudges and the water spots. Make it a bright reflector of God.

But can we be mirrors in darkness? What would be the best response to "new atheism" readers who will never read books such as Wolpe’s? The most powerful defense for Christianity is the changed lives of its adherents and the way they love their neighbors through their transformation.

We’re God’s first option on evangelism. It’s a consistent biblical theme:

• Genesis 12: All nations will be blessed by Abraham’s family obeying God.

• Matthew 5:16: Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and praise your God.

• 1 Peter 2:12: Live lives that silence the false accusations of pagans.

Plato was once told that a man in the city had been spreading slanderous charges against him. Plato’s answer: "I will live in such a way that no one will believe what he says."

What if we took his example, the scriptural example, and Wolpe’s virtue defense seriously and committed ourselves to winning the hearts of God’s skeptics by living better lives right in front of them?

Wolpe tells of a season where he lost his faith, bolstered by the writings of an "old atheist," Bertrand Russell. A graphic Holocaust documentary introduced him to "evil and a world without God’s protection." Russell became a logical, witty guide to a world that was merely the product of blind forces.

Wolpe was enamored with the philosopher until he began reading biographical works that showed how depraved his life was: four broken marriages, alienated from his children, unabashed about his infidelity.

Despite Russell’s brilliant mind, the fruit of his philosophy made a far more compelling argument. Claiming "it was better to be Russell’s reader than his wife or child," Wolpe stumbled back into faith through the defense of virtue.

Haven’t we all met the Christian who’s so compelling to us that his or her presence inspires our faith? And haven’t we also met that sister or brother whose words, actions or attitudes cause us to literally doubt our faith?

Preaching professor Tom Long tells a true story that comes out of the little Georgia country church where he grew up. The older folks of that congregation loved to tell the story again and again. They laughed over it and shook their heads, and maybe they embellished a detail or two in the retelling.

The tale took place on a certain Sunday night in October of 1938. This was back in the days of Sunday-evening prayer services. The preacher was right in the middle of his sermon when a man named Sam — a member of the congregation and well known to everyone — burst through the church doors, trembling with fear. It took him a moment to catch his breath, but then he blurted out, "It’s the Martians! They’re attacking the earth in spaceships! Some of ’em have landed in New Jersey!"

Now, Sam was not a man given to flights of fancy; nor was he fond of practical jokes. He was a straight-arrow sort of guy. From the look in his eye, and his earnest tone of voice, it was clear he believed every word he said.

The poor preacher didn’t know what to do. He had never imagined, in his wildest dreams, that his sermon might one day be interrupted by news of an interplanetary invasion. The preacher just stared at Sam, open-mouthed. The congregation stared, too.

"It’s true!" said Sam. "I swear it. I heard it on the radio."

What Sam had heard, of course, was Orson Welles’ now-infamous Mercury Theater of the Air radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. It was a fictional story, meant to sound like a real radio broadcast. It fooled an awful lot of people. The announcer said at the beginning it was only a story, but if you tuned in a few minutes late, you missed the context and were very likely to think it was a real, "we interrupt this program," sort of news bulletin.

After a few moments of awkward silence in the church, one of the oldest members of the congregation got up to speak. He was a farmer, a plain-spoken "man of few words."

"I ’spect what Sam says ain’t completely true. But, if it is, I know this. We’re in the right place here in church. I say we go on with the meetin’." And so, they did.

As Tom Long puts it, "The old farmer sized it all up, measured it against his rough-hewn view of providence and decided it was better to be in church praising God than running around the cow pasture shooting buckshot into the night sky."

There’s no problem with the Candle. It’s the mirror that needs polishing. We aren’t the source of light, but the prism. Not the candle, but the mirror.

The church, whether you want to consider it the candle or the mirror, should be where some light can be shed on the uncertainties of our days. Few things are more infectious than a godly lifestyle. The people you rub shoulders with every day need that kind of challenge. Not prudish. Not preachy. Just cracker jack clean living. Just honest to goodness integrity.

That was the example of living that Jesus gave us. He was brutally honest with people, and not afraid to point out their shortcomings and sin. He did preach to people, but he only said what needed to be said. He rubbed shoulders with the outcasts of society because unlike the religious leaders of his day, those were the people who were open to what he had to say.

Jesus showed his love for us through his death on the cross. He showed us how much he loved us by being born in a manger, living with no material possessions, and remaining focused on bringing us from eternal death to eternal life. Nothing kept him from his mission.

When Jesus died, he died for the sins of the whole world, the sins committed past, present and future. Paul understood in his letter to the Galatians that our human nature is constantly fighting our desire to live a godly life.

We do not segment our lives, giving some time to God, some to our business or schooling, while keeping parts to ourselves. The idea is to live all of our lives in the presence of God, under the authority of God and for the honor and glory of God. That is what the Christian life is all about.

As long as there are neighbors and family members who don’t know Jesus, and as long as a new crop of atheists find God-bashing a fashionable and profitable thing to do, let’s just reflect Christ. Let us be the virtuous defense. Since Christ has saved us from preoccupation with this world, let us live lives that reflect him. Amen.