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Christian atheism embraces the teachings, narratives, symbols, practices, or communities associated withChristianity without accepting the literal existence of adeity. It often overlaps withnontheism andpost-theism.
There are different schools of thought among Christian atheists. Thomas Ogletree, Frederick Marquand Professor of Ethics and Religious Studies atYale Divinity School, lists these four common beliefs:[1][2]
Death of God theology, which had brief public prominence in the mid-1960s, refers to a range of views aiming to account for the rise of secularity and emphasizing that God has either ceased to exist or never did. According toPaul van Buren, a Death of God theologian, the wordGod itself is "either meaningless or misleading".[2] Van Buren contended that it is impossible to think about God and said, "We cannot identify anything which will count for or against the truth of our statements concerning 'God'."[2] Most Christian atheists believe that God never existed, but a few take the death of God literally.[3]
Thomas J. J. Altizer spoke of Jesus' death on the cross as a redemptive event that passed the baton to humanity. InThe Gospel of Christian Atheism, he stated, "Every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent, but only the Christian knows that God is dead, that the death of God is a final and irrevocable event and that God's death has actualized in our history a new and liberated humanity."[4]
Some death of God theologians favor separation from the institutions of theChristian Church. Altizer stated that "the radical Christian believes that theecclesiastical tradition has ceased to be Christian" and indeed that faith "can never identify itself with an ecclesiastical tradition or with a given doctrinal or ritual form."[4] Moreover, he believed orthodox Christianity failed in rejecting modern culture and contemporary theology, and that it should instead seek the sacred by embracing the radical profanity of the modern age.[5] Altizer saw God as the enemy of man because mankind could never reach its fullest potential while God existed – and to cling to God was "to evade the human situation of our century and to renounce the inevitable suffering which is its lot."[4]
Postmodern theology emphasizes that God, or the idea of God, is subject to human interpretation. It is influenced bydeconstructionists such asJacques Derrida, theGerman idealistGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,Christian existentialists includingSoren Kierkegaard andPaul Tillich, and philosopherMartin Heidegger.
John Caputo, a leading figure in postmodern theology, advocates "weak theology," which denies the existence of a supernatural, powerful God that reigns over the world in favor of a God that represents the call for people to embrace "unconditionals" such as justice, hospitality, and forgiveness. These unconditionals are never fully reachable or even conceivable. Accordingly, Caputo says, "God doesn't exist; God insists," and "the existence of our response is the only way the insistence of the call acquires existence or makes an appearance in the world." Caputo, who distances himself from death of God theology, asserts that atheism is the beginning of theology rather than the point of it, as he stresses the role oftheopoetics in which people respond to the call of "God" through things such as metaphors, narratives, songs, poems, and parables rather than propositions and arguments. Caputo accepts the postmodern label but also uses the terms "radical theology,"post-structuralism, andpost-theism. He identifies with theChristian left.[6]
In the United Kingdom,Don Cupitt pioneered Christian non-realism, which rejects a "realistic ontology, the notion that there is something out there prior to and independent of our language and theories, and against which they can be checked."[7] Cupitt came to associate withpostmodernism over time and advocates for "solar living" that says religion can offer a moral philosophy suited to our times, rooted in both cosmology and secular culture, and, like the sun, "simply is its own outpouring of self-expression."[8]
Philosopher and cultural theoristSlavoj Žižek says, "The only way to be an atheist is through Christianity." He claims traditional atheism does not go far enough:
Christianity is much more atheist than the usual atheism, which can claim there is no God and so on, but nonetheless retains a certain trust into the Big Other. This Big Other can be called natural necessity, evolution, or whatever. We humans are nonetheless reduced to a position within the harmonious whole of evolution, whatever, but the difficult thing to accept is again that there is no Big Other, no point of reference which guarantees meaning.
According to Žižek, the idea of Jesus' death on the cross addresses this tension by serving as an act of love and a "resolution of radical anxiety." Indeed, Žižek says that Jesus himself became an atheist on the cross when crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)[9]
TheologianPeter Rollins says the distinction between theology and atheism is "artificial," and he extols the "profoundly theological dimensions of atheism and the deeply atheistic dimensions of theology."[10] Rollins says that "when you take Christianity seriously," the belief in a metaphysical God "of necessity goes."[11] Rollins instead advocates pyrotheology:
Pyrotheology involves a deep critique of any religious/ideological system that promises an escape from doubt and anxiety. [...] Pyrotheology helps to transform the doubts and difficulties of daily life into a fuel that ignites a journey into the depth and density of life. Pyrotheology offers an incendiary understanding of faith that has nothing to do with the tired debates between theists and atheists. It uncovers how faith helps us resolutely confront our brokenness, joyfully embrace unknowing, and courageously face the difficulties of life.[12]
Theologians including Altizer and Colin Lyas, a philosophy lecturer atLancaster University, have written about religion's place in a scientific, empirical culture. In Altizer's words, "[n]o longer can faith and the world exist in mutual isolation [...] the radical Christian condemns all forms of faith that are disengaged with the world."[4] He adds that mankind's response to atheism should be one of "acceptance and affirmation".[4] Lyas writes, "Christian atheists are united also in the belief that any satisfactory answer to these problems must be an answer that will make life tolerable in this world, here and now and which will direct attention to the social and other problems of this life."[3]
Although Jesus is still a central feature of Christian atheism, Hamilton said that to the Christian atheist, Jesus as a historical or supernatural figure is not the foundation of faith; instead, Jesus is a "place to be, a standpoint".[5] Some Christian atheists look to Jesus as an example of what a Christian should be, but they do not see him as God, nor as theSon of God; merely as an influentialrabbi. Hamilton wrote that following Jesus means being "alongside the neighbor, being for him",[5] and that to follow Jesus means to be human, to help other humans, and to further humankind. Other Christian atheists such asThomas Altizer preserve the divinity of Jesus, arguing that through him God negates God's transcendence of being.
Of Americans who do not believe in God, 5% identified as Catholic, while 9% identified as Protestant and other Christian, according to the 2007 Pew Religious Landscape survey.[13] Of Americans who identify as unaffiliated, including atheists and agnostics, 41% were raised Protestant and 28% were raised Catholic, according to the 2014 Pew Religious Landscape survey.[14][15]
In the Netherlands, 42% of the members of theProtestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) arenontheists.[16] Non-belief among clergymen is not always seen as a problem. Some follow the tradition of "Christian non-realism", most famously expounded in the United Kingdom byDon Cupitt in the 1980s, which holds that God is a symbol or metaphor and that religious language is not matched by a transcendent reality. According to an investigation of 860 pastors in seven Dutch Protestant denominations, 1 in 6 clergy are either agnostic or atheist. In one of those denominations, theRemonstrants, the number of doubters was 42%.[17][18]
Klaas Hendrikse, a minister within the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), has stirred controversy by describing God as "a word for experience, or human experience," and suggesting that Jesus may not have existed. Hendrikse attracted attention with his 2007 bookBelieving in a God Who Does Not Exist: Manifesto of An Atheist Pastor, where he argued that belief in God's existence is not necessary to believe in God. He writes, "For me, God is not a being, but a word for what can happen between people. For example, when someone says to you, 'I will not abandon you,' and then makes those words come true, it would be perfectly acceptable to call that [relationship] God." A General Synod later found that Hendrikse's views were widely shared by clergy and church members. In 2010, a decision to allow Hendrikse to continue his ministry was made after a regional supervisory panel concluded that his statements "are not of sufficient weight to damage the foundations of the Church." The panel also stated that Hendrikse's ideas were theologically consistent with the liberal tradition that is an integral part of the church.[17]
A 2003Harris Interactive survey found that 90% of self-identifiedProtestants in the United States believe in God and about 4% believe there is no God.[19] In 2017, the WIN-Gallup International Association (WIN/GIA) poll found that Sweden, a majority Christian country, had second highest percentage (76%) of people who call themselves atheist or irreligious, after China.[20][21] A substantial portion of Quakers arenontheist Quakers. Among British Quakers, 14.5% identified as atheists and 43% felt "unable to profess belief in God" in 2013.[22]
Catholic atheists accept the culture, traditions, rituals and norms ofCatholicism, but deny the existence of God.Miguel de Unamuno's 1930 novelSan Manuel Bueno, Mártir depicts Catholic atheism. According to research in 2007, only 27% of Catholics in the Netherlands considered themselvestheist; 55% wereietsist or agnosticdeist and 17% wereagnostic oratheist. Many Dutch people still affiliate with the termCatholic and use it within certain traditions as a basis of their cultural identity, rather than as a religious identity. The vast majority of the Dutch Catholic population is now largely irreligious in practice.[16]
In his bookMere Christianity, theapologistC. S. Lewis objected to Hamilton's version of Christian atheism and the claim that Jesus was merely a moral guide:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [...] Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.
Lewis's argument, now known asLewis's trilemma, has been criticized for constituting afalse dilemma, since it does not deal with other options such as Jesus being mistaken, misrepresented, or simplymythical.Bart Ehrman has stated that the historical Jesus never claimed to be God.[23][24] Philosopher John Beversluis argues that Lewis "deprives his readers of numerous alternate interpretations of Jesus that carry with them no such odious implications".[25]
McAfee: Are you religious? Do you support the Separation of Church and State? Spencer: I'm an atheist.
Martin: Are you a Christian? Spencer: I'm an cultural Christian.
Vosper herself is a bit heterodox on the question of Christ. Asked if she believes that Jesus was the son of God, she said, 'I don't think Jesuswas. ' That is, she doesn't think He existed at all.
