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.

[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

[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).

[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?)

[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.

[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.

[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.