On being a Christian atheist

[ljwrites]

I am a Christian atheist.

Let me state up front what I don't mean by that; I don't mean I believe in the obscure branch of Christian theology which states that God is dead and we must love each other and save each other in that absence. While I admire the poignancy of it, it doesn't gel for me even as metaphor because I don't believe God is dead but rather that he never existed, at least in any physical sense outside the sensemaking that we do through story.

I also don't use "atheist" as a pejorative here, as a Christian pastor does in his book The Christian Atheist criticizing Christians for living as though God does not exist. I don't think it's morally or intellectually inferior or superior not to believe in God.(1) By atheism I mean, simply, the lack of belief in God as a supernatural being. I don't assign any moral or other value judgment to it.

Fortunately, Christian atheism seems a lot more visible than it was back when I was first searching for the term back in 2013. The above two senses were the only ones I could find at the time, but now I am able to find entire articles on cultural Christianity(2) and more expanded information on Christian atheism itself, not to mention modern Christian atheists openly expressing their convictions.

How does Christian atheism work, though? Christianity, unlike Judaism or Buddhism, is not a tradition that is friendly toward atheism. Calling oneself a Christian requires a belief in certain tenets of faith including, at minimum, a belief in an all-powerful and perfect God.

I imagine it works differently for everyone, but for me one big conceptual step was separating Christianity as a culture and Christianity as a religion. I am no longer religious but I am still part of a culture shaped by Christianity, from Korea's long history of Christianity to my own family's faith going back generations. It never felt right that I would have to leave behind such a big part of my heritage, which is very much grounded on Earth and on real people, solely because I no longer believed in the supernatural.

Recognizing Christianity as a culture as well as a religion is also important, I believe, because Christianity in many contexts is afforded the privilege of being the invisible default, much like whiteness, maleness, or heterosexuality. Cultural Christianity much like religious Christianity has a number of issues that need to be discussed and unlearned, such as its casual social domination, cheap grace, misogyny, and lionization of suffering.

None of this discussion and unlearning can happen while we deny the existence of cultural Christianity, especially as Christians in the West are increasingly secularized and lose even the visibility afforded to them through religious Christianity. Too many culturally Christian atheists deny their ties to Christianity and make cultural Christianity even more invisible, obfuscating criticism and debate.

Another big part of being a Christian atheist for me is the reclamation of Christian theology for a Godless worldview focused on this world and on fellow living beings. I do not believe in heaven or hell as (meta)physical places in the afterlife, any more than I believe in an afterlife itself. However, I do believe we can choose to live in heaven by choosing love and truth, and in hell by serving hatred and lies.

I don't believe in original sin as something to be ashamed of or equivalent to being a crime; rather I believe that sin is shame, the fear that we do not deserve love just as we are. By truly understanding that we are worth everything including the life of God himself we lay down that burden of shame, the conviction in our own fundamental unlovability, and know the myth of deserving love for the lie that it is. That is how we become truly free to love each other and create communities of compassion and courage.

That is what being a Christian atheist means for me, a hodge-podge as it were of history, culture, and religion. It is both my heritage and my idea of a good life, and it works for me--for now.

Notes
1. No I don't believe atheists are smarter or better, don't @ me. I believe this also clears up the question of whether I am one of those anti-theist New Atheists; I hate that movement and have so many objections to it on intellectual and moral grounds.
2. Also may I say how happy I am that literally a picture of Richard Dawkins comes up when you look up cultural Christianity? Sure he's a garbage human being, but his openly identifying as culturally Christian makes it harder for other Islamophobic and otherwise bigoted atheists to distance themselves from their cultural dominance because they have "nothing to do with Christianity" durr hurr.

Comments

[redrikki]

That is such a good point about cultural Christianity being effectively invisible. I don't know how it is in Korea, but it's everywhere in the States with days off for Christian holidays and the automatic assumption that being alone at Christmas is a tragedy, even for non-Christians. It's like fish not noticing they're in water and they're shocked and occasionally angry when you point it out to them.

[ljwrites]

Ugh yes, it seems so oppressive in the U.S. Christmas is a big deal even here, as we have a lot of U.S. influence, but I guess one thing that's better is that we have more diverse holidays outside of Christianity--the birth of Buddha is a holiday, and the biggest holidays are traditional ones that predate Christianity. We have not even begun the conversation on holidays practiced by more recent immigrants, like we have quite a few Muslim workers but I have never heard of them getting breaks for prayer or being able to take time off to celebrate Muslim holidays. The recent Yemeni refugees were explicitly told that they could not expect any religious accommodations if they wanted to work. Jewish people are even less visible, and again there's no talk of accommodating for their dietary or religious needs at all.

[lb_lee]

You know, it's funny. I don't consider myself an atheist, even though I've never had what folks would call a close relationship with God. (Seeing what's happened to Ro, I can't say I'm sorry about that.) But cultural Christianity was a huge part of my upbringing, and part of why despite all my questions and concerns, I've never really managed to leave, even though I haven't been a regular churchgoer in years.

Where I grew up, my church was a social institution. We didn't talk about theology so much; we were mostly focused on keeping everything together--managing childcare for members, fixing their stuff, pooling money to help each other out, having potlucks and bingo nights and choirs. It was a social safety net that tried to make up for where public institutions had failed, and it was a huge boon to my mother and me. I'm not sure she would've been able to keep me if not for the church.

It's that memory and knowledge of what a church can be that's led me to stay, despite all the problems Christianity has. So you've given me words for an experience I didn't have! Even if I'm still not an atheist. (I still think God exists, just as sort of the joy and life force of the universe, not like a human person at all.)

--Mac

[ljwrites]

Wow, that sounds wonderful! I think that kind of community is even more central to the religious experience than any specific theology. We had a pretty close-knit community in our church, too, but I drifted away as I increasingly did not see eye-to-eye with them. :/ I'm so glad the concepts are helpful to you!

[lb_lee]

I mean, I left my church long before I found out I was bi or started wearing dresses. Maybe it's just as well; I can keep my cherished memories without having the sadness of how they might've reacted.

--Mac

[mdlbear]

Interesting, and encouraging, to see this. It clarifies a few things in my belief structure.
I sometimes describe myself as a culturally-Jewish atheist. (Other times I leave off one piece or the other; it depends on the context.) There's a somewhat different term: non-observant, that also describes me -- it means I don't follow any of the rules and don't go to Temple unless somebody I know invites me to something. I know both observant atheists and non-observant theists (and a few people who could be either depending on the phase of the moon -- literally, since Jewish festivals are on a lunar calendar).

[ljwrites]

I can say for certain that I am hugely indebted to Jewish thinking about the relationship between culture and religion in processing my own experiences, and if I were to take a guess I would say the recent greater visibility of cultural Christianity draws inspiration from that, too. It wasn't until I had Jewish friends and learned a little about Judaism that I became aware that religion, culture, and faith did not necessarily have to go together, and that gave me a framework to reconcile my lack of faith with my cultural influences.

[jesse_the_k]

Intriguing! As a non-practicing aka cultural Jew, it surprises me that the notion of "cultural Christian" isn't more common.

I'm intrigued by "cheap grace" -- what is that? (Do they sell it at Costco?)

Nazi mention

[ljwrites]

I don't know why Christians don't listen more to Jewish people, we took our whole religion from y'all after all XD Cultural Christianity has become a little more visible in the past few years, and it's both saddening and telling that people like Richard Dawkins and the founders of the U.S. are the faces of it. I think resistance to the concept will remain because of the privilege inherent in being the invisible default.

You don't wanna buy cheap grace, it's sold by Nazis! D: No really, the antifascist theologian Pastor Bonhoeffer came up with the concept in his book The Cost of Discipleship to counter Nazism's inroads into the German Lutheran church. Cheap grace is a distortion of the Christian concept of free grace where basically you don't have to follow the teachings of Jesus and anything goes, because simply saying you're saved and forgiven is enough to make you spiritually cool and earn you a ticket to the eternal rave with Big Daddy in the sky. I think Bonhoeffer put it in a more refined way but my explanation is more accessible so who's the better theologian now, Bon? >:(

Re: Nazi mention

[lb_lee]

*clicks the link*

cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance

*shrieks, closes tab, hides under table* OH GOD IT IS MY FAMILY

[loopy777]

I don't believe in original sin as something to be ashamed of or equivalent to being a crime; rather I believe that sin is shame, the fear that we do not deserve love just as we are. By truly understanding that we are worth everything including the life of God himself we lay down that burden of shame, the conviction in our own fundamental unlovability, and know the myth of deserving love for the lie that it is. That is how we become truly free to love each other and create communities of compassion and courage.

While I appreciate the overall sentiment here, I'm not sure I understand the point about sin being shame. I think you're conflating sin in general with the legacy/consequences of Original Sin, but the Original Sin was the actions of Adam and Eve (which I know are up for a lot theological and philosophical debate), and sin itself is an action. It's funny you mentioned Terry Pratchett the other day, because I think he summed up the basic concept behind sin better than anything else I've ever seen, via one of his best characters: "And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is."

The reason sin is against the religion is because God wants us to love Him and love each other. Granted, there's also the whole Obey God thing in play, but I like to examine the root behind a given sin being a sin: why did God tell us not to do that? (Which is where I get skeptical of a lot of the Catholic Church's rules around sexuality. I'm not convinced that Jesus had a strong opinion about birth control within marriage.) To me, there's no real reason to attach shame to sin, other than the usual reason of feeling bad for hurting people, which I don't think is unreasonable, but that shame is still something that one should eventually get over. (Which gets into the Reconciliation process, the form of which is one of those things I think the Catholic Church really needs to have a long think about, but that's another discussion.)

I may be misinterpreting what you're saying, but I couldn't really find another meaning.

Overall, I admit that as a religious type (an a very unusual type of religious, I think), I find the concept of a culture derived from a religion that becomes separate from the religion itself is rather odd. However, I'm mystified in general by Identity as something external, or built on external elements or labels. Shared culture does nothing for me, and I sometimes wish less people liked to do the things I like to do; that might be the engineer in me. But lots of people seem to take really comfort from it, so I'm not inclined to condemn it, and I'm happy that people at least take a sense of morality from those religions. I'm a big fan of humanism, whether or not it's attached to a religion.

Hm, there's a label I might be able to take on: Engineer Christian. We tend to ask lots of annoying questions, but then we go on to try to improve things using the answers we got. And sometimes things explode if they aren't built to our specs.

[ljwrites]

I mean there's the whole "no God" part of my beliefs that I imagine is a slightly bigger problem, religion-wise, than the interpretation of sin :P But to actually argue the point, I think sin is used in at least two different senses in the Bible, as the human condition persisting since Original Sin and as wrongful actions/crimes, what you mentioned as treating people like things. In the former sense, we're told we're all born in sin and everyone is just as sinful as everyone else, like a seven-year-old who was murdered without being "saved" is just as sinful as the person who murdered him? I can't accept that.

My solution is to interpret sin-as-condition not as a crime but as a condition that separates us from God, because it is ludicrous and counterfactual to argue that all humans are equal in their acts. We can all, regardless of our actions, be equal in the condition that separates us from God, however; and since God is love the condition must be one that keeps us from love. Sins-as-crimes are simply an offshoot of sin-as-condition, the actions that some (but not all) of humanity take as a response to the pain caused by separation from the unconditional, all-encompassing love of God.

And the thing is, Original Sin itself cannot be construed as the crime of treating people as things. Who did Adam and Eve treat as things by disobeying God? Each other? It doesn't fit. What disobedience did introduce to humanity, however, was shame: The shame of nakedness, the fear, for the first time, that they were not fit to be seen by God. For the first time a condition was introduced for their being in God's company, and that was what separated them from God where they never had been before, not some crime or inequity.

I would also argue that it was the sneaking beginnings of shame that led Eve to eat the fruit in the first place: The Serpent reminded her of how ignorant she was, and she thought that if she knew more she would become more like God and be fitter for his love. Hence, sin-as-condition is the idea that we are not fit for love exactly as we are; we have to be better/smarter/clothed/more beautiful/etc. etc. in order to walk in the presence of God, who is love.

Re the religion/culture divide, as I said in the original post the idea is not much accepted in Christianity but is more common in other cultures/religions such as Judaism. Christians in the West generally had the privilege of having culture and religion together, but it is my understanding that with Jewish people's history of cultural and religious diversity, forced conversions, and an understandable "fuck you" attitude toward the divine the relationship between culture and religion has been more complex. I find this framework works well for me, too, because Korea has not been religiously monolithic for 1,000+ years (if ever) and I see different cultures and religions and culture shaped by religion etc. running around every day.

[loopy777]

Ah, I see the confusion. I'm Roman Catholic, and we haven't done that 'Original Sin means you can't go to Heaven' thing for a while. So, no, according to my faith, a seven-year-old who was never baptized and thus hasn't had Original Sin taken away is not the same as an unrepentant murderer. I admit that the mechanics around that, though, are very shaky, up to the point where there's a legitimate debate to be had about whether Jesus making himself a sacrifice on the cross is literal in that he's a real blood sacrifice to atone for a real sin, or whether it's more about making himself an example that uses the metaphor of sacrifice and sin.

As for the "things" simplification, I would argue that Adam and Eve were treating God as a Thing in that case. But that could be a massive conversation/debate unto itself that would probably get very snaky, in more than one way. XD

I actually think Christians are starting to get to the same point of the kind of atheist Jewish culture you reference, with things like weddings that people want to have in churches despite never going to church or even having faith/belief. I have a half-sister who had her second wedding in a church for a religion she's never been simply because she wanted a church and the Catholics wouldn't recognize her divorce. Even the concept of a wedding itself separated from spirituality is odd to me; why is there a distinct legal status for a romantic pairing that can't be applied to any other kind of pairing? Why can't any two - or more - people be One in The Law? A lot of culture really needs to be reverse-engineered and questioned, IMO.

[ljwrites]

Looks like there's an upside to the whole "Catholics don't read the Bible >:(" (at least not in a literal sense) thing that kind of tore Europe apart back in the day XD I like the flexibility in that line of thought! Admittedly it's my Protestant and Calvinist background that has to get the text to Make Sense and be internally consistent--which is sort of a joke when you have a collection of fragmented texts, chosen for arbitrary and political reasons, that span millennia.

Heh, major customs die hard. People frequently want their pairings to be blessed and celebrated by family and close friends, and even for a lot of people without faith the template for that is a place of worship of some kind. People's conceptions aren't that rationally engineered, though I agree going back to the basics and questioning assumptions is necessary when there is injustice going on, i.e. with the former prohibition on same-sex marriage.

[suncani]

Definitely thought provoking. I would previously say I'm agnostic, as I don't rule out the idea of a higher power but don't see it within a Christian framework. But yeah, cultural concepts of Christianity are definitely embued here (UK) with holidays and ways of behaving. We probably don't even go as far as Americans to say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I remember learning the Lord's Prayer at primary school and being strongly encouraged to pray in Friday assemblies.

At the same time Christianity in its overt forms was never that present in my direct family life. Neither of my parents were religious at all, I was probably in my early 20's when I went to a (Western) Christian service. I did get taken to an Orthodox service when I was 8 or so because that was nomally what my granpa was, but it was all in Serbian and I had no clue what was going on.

[ljwrites]

I tell people I'm agnostic in theory but atheist in practice. I don't rule out the possibility either, but ultimately I don't believe it and don't believe it even matters. And whoa, I guess Britain isn't very big on separation of church and state? Assuming it was a publicly run school, of course. (I understand "public school" means different things in the U.S. and U.K...)

My husband is also nominally Eastern Orthodox, Greek in his case! He used to have a home shrine before the depredations of our barbarous toddler led us to put it away, and still says prayers at meals. I keep telling him he can reestablish a relationship with the church and baptize our kid if he wants, but the nearest church is too far away and his heart isn't really in it. XD

[suncani]

Yeah UK really doesn't understand the concept of separation of church and state AT all. We have bishops sitting in the House of Lords and most primary schools are nominally C of E it's only Catholic and Muslim schools that are designated "faith" schools. It's a very odd set-up for a country that tends to call itself secular.

My husband's the same, he's been baptised (Serbian Orthodox again) and we have an icon of his family's saint but he hasn't attended church since he was a kid. His mother is fairly religious though and I get the feeling that's contributed to it. Family saint days are interesting though as my family still celebrate ours despite not being religious and I think its another thing that for us at least feels cultural or at least connected to our roots.

[sinistmer]

I am finding this post way late, but this is fascinating. I'd never heard the term "Christian atheist" before. I usually identify as agnostic, but I might have to give this term some thought. While I did go through some of the rites of Christianity, I have never felt connected to the church (probably because I did not do well with my church as I became a teen) and Christianity's manifestation in Western culture. As I've gotten older, I've noticed that Christianity (at least here in the US) does get a lot of invisible, innate privilege. I sometimes wonder what we're missing as a culture by not incorporating and acknowledging more religions and belief systems. I'd also like to see more conversations that confront Christianity's misogyny and other negative values, especially in the days of #metoo.

BTW:I'm one of LB's friends, if you're trying to figure out how I found you.