Recently public interest in the aggressive form of atheism represented by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and in the religious response to it, seems to have waned.
This half time break gives commentators a chance to grab a pie and sauce, to say who is likely to win and to assess the success of the respective game plans. Casual spectators can also satisfy their curiosity about whether this is a preliminary match or the Grand Final.
Most observers would acknowledge that the Atheist team has won in a few positions on the field. Their aggressive attack on religious belief has appealed particularly to people who have separated themselves from their religious roots, but still feel marginal unease or resentment. They find support for the break they have made in the polemic and in the claim that a scientific world view is sufficient.
The debating skills of the Atheist champions, too, have made some Christians more hesitant in their belief.
Both teams have scored own goals. Catholic players, especially, have been distracted by the scandal of sexual abuse and the deeply rooted clerical attitudes to power that it has disclosed. But by their heavy handed polemic the Atheist team has also alienated many people who see in it the intolerance that it decries in its religious opponents.
The game plan of the Atheist team has been to keep the ball in their forwards and to batter their way downfield, forcing the Religious team to play the game on their terms. They rely on books and lectures by their heavy hitters that draw publicity and debates against weaker opponents.
The Religious team has generally responded by trying to slow the game down and to win penalties for unduly rough play. Interestingly, Dawkins has changed tack in his handsomely produced new book, The Magic of Reality, with its avuncular chiding of religious silliness.
The bookies have set the half-time odds slightly in favour of the Religious team. They are believed to have greater institutional depth. It is feared that the atheist team, which relies strongly on a few individuals, may tire towards the end of a long game.
The status of this game is more interesting. Despite the passion with which it is being fought, the game looks more like a preliminary than a Grand Final. This means that both teams must prepare themselves to meet an even more formidable opponent with seemingly impregnable defensive skills.
This opponent is a Western culture in which all affirmations of large meanings drown in a swamp. Whether it be the sole sufficiency of science or the divinity of Christ that is affirmed, the affirmation is heard with a shrug, and is smothered in uncommitted tolerance. Against such a defence both Christianity and atheism struggle to make ground with their assertions about the nature of reality.
The game plans of both the Atheist and the Religious teams are likely to be counterproductive in the main game. Negative attacks on each other's large claims will not win over the uncommitted, but will succeed only in confirming suspicion of all large claims about the nature of reality.
Polemic against atheism and analysis of the prevailing culture will have a minor role. Religious and Atheists alike will be reassured at seeing their champions go snorting into battle laying blows. It helps team morale. Broad analysis of the deficiencies and origins of our current culture, too, help underline the Christian commitment to the truth of its affirmations.
But both polemic and dismissive analysis tend to increase scepticism among the uncommitted. To win them other strategies are needed.
The challenge will be to find a point at which people with an inherited suspicion of large affirmations of truth might be drawn to engage with deeper questions of meaning. This point must touch what matters most deeply to people. For most it will have to do with their own and others' humanity.
The best way of engaging at this level will be through reprsentatives whose admirably human and humane ways of living are clearly and attractively animated by faith. An attractive life characterised by a practical concern for the most vulnerable human beings may commend the large vision of the world that underlies it. It may also encourage discussion about the kind of culture that might best sustain a humane society.
Finally, of course, any team that hopes to win over culture will also have to avoid own goals and demonstrate a match between its rhetoric and its on-field conduct.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.