Christian Atheism

Archive for November, 2009

We all know Thomas Jefferson to be one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, co-author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the US. He was a man with many talents and many views. Jefferson was a scholar theology, biblical studies and Christian belief. He probably was a Deist and his religious views differed much from his contemporaries.

Thomas Jefferson thought the moral philosophies of Jesus were the best in the world and he decided to write his vision of the “Christian System”. From this came the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, also known as the “Jefferson Bible”. This book can be found here or, if you prefer to read it online, here.

In his book Jefferson merges together the four canonical gospels in chronological order to describe the life of Jesus Christ. Jefferson’s biggest edit, however, is the removal of any reference to the supernatural found in the gospels and he focuses on the teachings of Jesus. Jefferson wanted the New Testament to be free of the “the corruptions of reason among the ancients”, by which he implied the deliberate additions of supernatural events to Jesus’ life by Evangelists. The story removes the doctrine and becomes a very interesting read for free-thinkers.

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Recently I gave my views on what Christian Atheism actually entitles. Now I would like to discuss what its moral philosophies mean to our society today.

In the US we live in what I see as a period of Christian atheism or agnosticism. In the previous article I described Christian atheists to be Christians who reject the existence of God. Some folks are indeed active, or theoretical, atheists and they can be quite outspoken about their views. However, many of us practice a form of passive atheism, also called apatheism.

Many Christian families have few specific views and opinions on their religion. They do adhere to many of the traditions and moral principles of Christianity such as celebrating Christmas and going to church. My own family participates in similar things and I realize we do this for the same traditional reasons many Americans do and I like it this way.

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For the more metaphysical among us a good read would be The Gospel of Christian Atheism by Thomas J.J. Altizer. This book gave me an interesting and very different perspective on atheism when I was still a college student. You can see it here if you’re interested.

In the sixties, this somewhat unconventional theologian pioneered a new view on the ‘death of God’ concept first proposed by the famous philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Whereas Nietzsche tried to exemplify a figurative “God” of being “killed” as a metaphor for religion gradually losing to naturalism, Altizer takes the concept to a more literal dogma.

According to Altizer, the God of Christianity committed an act of self-destruction by incarnating himself as Jesus Christ, who we subsequently crucified. This idea is at odds with my own views, but he does proclaim the importance of Jesus as a central figure or a Messiah to humanity.

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Christian Atheism is a belief in the word and existence of Jesus without the acceptance of the Christian God. Christian atheists (or Atheist Christians) are hard to define. Like in traditional religion, such as the different denominations of the Christian belief, much diversity exists among views. However, a recurring conviction among Christian atheists is:

The acceptance of the teachings of Jesus in the absence of a belief in God.

We can therefore call Christian atheism a brand of atheism, which lies closer to theism in a more traditional and moral sense than spiritual sense (although there are plenty of Christian atheists who lean more towards agnosticism).

Many Christian atheists hold a contemporary vision of a modern society without God, but include the importance of Judeo-Christian values and the moral philosophies of Jesus. Others (e.g. Megan and me) try to actively bring the teachings of Jesus and those from the Bible into our daily lives. Christian atheists generally support a secular society and don’t often adhere to a particular Christian denomination such as Catholicism. I personally prefer to study the word of Jesus from as many different sources as I can find and try to make up my own mind about which ones I believe are closest to original Christian philosophy.

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An introduction to Megan:

I was born and bred in San Jose and have lived all my life on the West Coast. Although my father is Jewish, I grew up in a Catholic family and had a very moderate Catholic education. We did not go to church much and prayer was not an everyday thing. We did, however, have a traditional ‘moment of silence’ before dinner as always insisted by my mother, although this was mostly spent on inspecting our food. Nonetheless, we did enjoy a stable and loving upbringing and the Christian belief did help me when the times were tough.

In my college years I lost what little religious belief I had and focused on atheism. I was a regular contributor to atheist forums and blogs and munched through many atheists books. I enjoyed the discussions on moral philosophies of atheism and secularism I had with my sorority.

It was only after I met Bruce when we started talking about the values of Christian Atheism. When our first child was born, we, as uncertain parents, had trouble deciding what values we should teach her. We decided to bring Sandra up on the same, solid moral values we were taught ourselves, with the absence of an omnipotent entity. Our family are happy and we would like to share this with others.

I would be excited to talk with you about our experiences and I hope you will contribute no matter what denomination or life philosophy.

A brief introduction to Bruce:

I grew up in a Presbyterian family and my parents educated my 3 brothers and 2 sisters with a strict moral code based on the Bible and the Christian belief. I’ll be honest in saying that my parents weren’t very deep about their religion. We were told to believe first, do not ask questions later. These, among other moral philosophies were taught not only by my parents, but also by other members in our community and congregation. My parents are very loving people and I owe the world to them for being raised with a proper set of values which I try every day to pass on to my family.

My conversion to Christian atheism was, looking back, a long time coming. Despite my fundamental upbringing, I realized from an early age that I was repeatedly questioning the contradictions of my faith. When I moved to California (where I met Megan), this doubt ballooned to a larger dispute of the tenets of religion and a higher power. I started reading atheist books and joining discussions on atheist forums. The whole atheism vs Christianity debate I found enthralling. When I started dating Megan I found a person who had a very similar mind.

Both of us, however, had a religious background and felt that this certainly had given us a moral baggage we would like to continue carrying and pass on to our children. I believe that the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, not as the son of God, but as a philosopher are valuable instructions for a happy and fulfilling life. I think much of Christian philosophy stems not from a single religious belief system, but from more intrinsic humanistic needs. Christian atheism has given us a way to still learn and follow that of the Christian faith which is good and to what I believe Jesus intended on teaching.