Dear Stephen…

When Stephen Fry said in a TV interview that he thought God was a stupid maniac for creating a world of suffering and injustice, there wasn’t a shortage of online comment agreeing and disagreeing strongly with him.

One response came from Justin Brierley, who hosts Unbelievable? – a weekly debate show on Premier Radio where believers and unbelievers argue the pros and cons of Christian belief. Justin Brierley took to the streets of London with a film camera to record a ‘Dear Stephen’ video letter to Stephen Fry.

‘I’m a Christian,’ says Brierley, ‘and my first reaction was to want to tell you, I’ll give you five bulletproof reasons for why that’s not the way God is. But then I realised you’re not giving an argument against God, but more an expression of your anger that the world is the way it is if a God is in charge of it. So rather than give you a philosophical rebuttal, I’ll tell you a story.

The story is Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant. Says Brierley: ‘I have something in common with Oscar Wilde and that is that he believed in the same God that I believe in.’