“You see, the bodily resurrection of Jesus isn’t a take-it-or-leave-it thing, as though some Christians are welcome to believe it and others are welcome not to believe it. Take it away, and the whole picture is totally different. Take it away, and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world. Take it away, and Sigmund Freud was probably right to say that Christianity is a wish-fulfillment religion. Take it away, and Friedrich Nietzsche was probably right to say that Christianity was a religion for wimps.” — NT Wright
“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” — Paul (I Corinthians 15:19)
On Being Expected To Show Respect To Christianity Easter Weekend
Easter is a difficult time of the year for me.
The hardest part of it, honestly, is being expected to revere something that I simply don’t revere. And I know I’m not alone. While the Christians on status updates regularly praise Jesus, a lot of atheists on my page write about how disturbing the whole thing is. For many of us, especially us ex-Christians, seeing Jesus discussed a lot deeply bothers us.
It is absolutely impossible to address all forms of Christianity in one post, but I’ve never come across one I remotely liked. Too often even the most liberal forms of Christianity are giving too much credence to the Bible, and I can’t endorse that book. The moment I admit a single verse of it may have come from God, I leave open the possibility that there is a God who would command things in a book. A lot of Christians disagree with me, and several atheists do as well. There is a major movement among atheists to be more tolerant of Christian viewpoints. But I cannot endorse any part of a book as coming from God when other parts of it say that homosexuality is (or ever was) a sin. Or that we are sinners who need to be saved. Or that we need to follow commandments of a God who doesn’t exist.
This Easter weekend, many atheists and agnostics across this country are going to be going to church for, perhaps, the only Sunday of the year. Many of the “nones” who have left church and rarely go are going to be attending as well. At a get-together with some Christians discussing theology last Thursday, one of the preaching ministers at our gathering said that Easter Sunday is the “Super Bowl” of preaching – it was where the best preacher was chosen, the best suits were pressed, the best sermon of the year was expected to be preached.
On Easter Weekend, more than any other moment of the year, atheists and agnostics and unaffiliated spiritual people are appealed to. And this is the height, as well, of Christian enthusiasm for their religion.
Not all of us give respect to religion, even at this time of the year. But many of us do. As disturbing as the doctrines of Christianity are to us, even many of us who are the loudest at almost any other time of year go anyway and force ourselves to sit in the pews in order to show family and friends that we care about them and respect them. Even when the message of the pastor, who too often preaches directly to us at the altar call (and, in those smaller churches where we atheists are known and stick out like a sore thumb, perhaps look directly at us while doing so), makes us our most uncomfortable, many of us stay there.
Many of us, though, would like to talk back at that altar call. Several of us want to explain to you that we really understand the festivities because we were part of them ourselves, and explain to you how we changed and why we are so thoroughly opposed to coming up to the front of the church at the altar call. We want to explain why we’re nonbelievers — not just at that moment, but especially at that moment, when the pressure for us to respect Christianity is at a fever pitch.
I’m not claiming here to represent every single atheist. That’s impossible. But I do think I speek for hundreds of thousands of us here when I say what I’m about to say. Aren’t you curious what we would say if we could talk back if we could answer the callenges the pastor in front of us was preaching?
If so, read on.
Going To Church
It was my old church: The Hills Church Of Christ. You might have hears some strange things about the Church of Christ – that they don’t let women serve communion, they don’t have instrumental music, they are ambivalent about kitchens, they’re very conservative, etc. The Hills Church Of Christ is a megachurch that is so progressive many don’t count it as a Church Of Christ. The let women serve communion and, occasionally, talk to the congregation. They have a full band. They have not only kitchens, but a Starbucks-style café. The Church was originally constructed like a shopping mall so that it could be sold as one, if needed, so it really does look like a mall. There is a state-of-the-art kids/teen center connected to it, a gymnasium, a bookstore, a kids play area in the middle that’s about twice the size of what you’d find in McDonald’s. They have missions all over the world, can raise a couple million dollars in a single weekend, spend the majority of their incoming funds on programs outside the church, have several satellite campuses, and a lot of different small group Bible Studies all over the metroplex.
So it’s a very nice megachurch. It’s a kind of one-stop-shop for your social needs, your needs to give back the community, outreach when you’re going through a difficult time, praise to God, friends, missions, etc. A zillion different social programs, and so on. I have a lot of fond memories of the place, to be honest. Many good times, and I still hang out with several people from that church on the weekends every once in a while.
It had been about a year or so since I last went. I try to go to church every once in a while so that I don’t lose sight of what it feels like to be part of the religion I’m writing about – I know from experience on both sides of the fence that Christianity looks very different on the outside than it does on the inside.
This Sunday, I was going to church so I could speak somewhat intelligently about what it might feel like for atheists, agnostics, and “nones” to go to church on Easter Sunday. I chose my old church, the one I was most nostalgic about, because I wanted to experience the nostalgia and the whole bit as I went.
As I somewhat anticipated, I walked away from the service feeling very conflicted, and it took awhile for me to figure out exactly how to parse out why. I could go in chronological order to discuss it, but I’d like to skip to the sermon, because that encapsulated my feeling conflicted.
So the preacher, Rick Atchley, seems like a cowboy – wiry, no-nonsense, intelligent, thoughtful, and straightforward. It was no accident that his church had grown; the guy was effective and strongly, forcefully getting a point across, as well as at being friendly and thoughtful. He told good jokes. And he just had a kind of natural aura of charisma about him. His eyes indicated that this was someone who cared about people, but also someone who was not willing to yield to falsehood. Someone you could trust, who could also keep you in line. A man of strength and conviction, so to speak.
He was talking about the resurrection of Lazarus. Long story short, his first point was that you should trust Jesus when times are hard, because God will always show up on his timing; just because things are difficult, you shouldn’t lose faith. His second point was that you should get rid of the “old grave clothes” of your former life. You should follow Christ and put old ways of thinking that are not in the arena of following Christ out of your mind. One example he repeated was marriage – instead of thinking that your marriage isn’t going to work out, you should trust God and his timing, and you should put away the “old grave clothes” thinking that might prompt you to give up on that relationship.
He was preaching this message to a chorus of “amens.” And I was, I admit, a bit infuriated as I repeatedly shook my head. Sometimes marriages need to end, and giving people false hope was not helping them make decisions. It’s like telling someone to sit in a room with an open door and saying someone is coming to give them a million dollars when no one is coming. And then, when they start to doubt someone is coming, scold them and tell them to just have faith that someone is coming instead of encouraging them to honestly and rationally analyze the situation and make their decision.
Now, a Christian will probably say here, “That’s not my Christianity. My Christianity encourages me to make rational decisions.”
And that’s not surprising, because afterwards, when I talked to my old megachurch pastor for the first time in my life, that’s exactly what he said.
Mixed Feelings
When I talked to him, I told him my history of coming to his church and that I became an atheist. He seemed a bit surprised, but nodded as I told him my concerns.
He made a division between sin experienced here in the world, which we deal with, and our hope in Jesus Christ, which would last forever. I did not see this pronounced in the sermon, but in talking with him he said that there were rational things we could do to combat sin here on earth, in this sinful world, but regardless of that, what he was giving people was a hope that, eventually, things would be perfect. He said that he had visited too many people in cancer wards and held the hands of too many people going through tough times for him to give them my point of view, which is that life is pointless and things may never get better. And then, being a busy megachurch preacher and a bit of a family man, he had to cut off the conversation there and attend to his family.
So that’s where my mixed feelings come in. I mean, my parents, for example – even being the rabid anti-theist that I am, I have to admit that my last act if my parents only have a few days to live will not be disabusing them of their theistic convictions. I have to admit that, on a personal level, for some people, there is a hope in Christianity that simply is not provided by my atheistic view of the world.
I get the sense that preachers think that we atheists resent their happiness and are trying to take it away. To some extent and in some cases, maybe that’s true; I’m not a mind-reader, and most of us human beings probably have a desire for some kind of utopia, whether we think we’ll see it or not. But many of us have a much larger issue with this scheme, and it is frustrating to have that dismissed because Christians are focused on us being “mad at God” as if that’s some kind of counterargument.
Maybe the reason we’re mad at the concept of God isn’t the reason you think.
Maybe the reason we’re upset is because we want to be free from religion’s control.
Understand: I’m not saying that every Christian out there is trying intentionally to ruin a non-Christian’s life. I’m not saying Christians, as a group, are lying when they talk about God. What I’m saying is that, as an atheist who does not believe in God, I think it’s dangerous when you encourage people to allow your decisions in life to be guided by the advice of someone who does not exist – dangerous for them and dangerous for the people they interact with. I think that a hope that does not exist in reality can damage the lives of those who believe it and those who don’t.
I should tell you that there’s a division between atheists here.
Some atheists say, “Yeah, Christianity is wrong, But we can still use the hope it contains to do good for the world.” That group, admittedly, is becoming more popular these days. But do you really want your religion to be controlled by people who don’t believe it? I say, “Christianity is wrong, and it is unethical to manipulate people with false hope; we need to be honest with people.” One sees the carrot-on-a-stick method being used and is like, “Yeah, we can still do what we want to do; we just gotta adjust the carrot.” I have a problem with the entire carrot-on-a-stick method. I think it’s fundamentally insulting, harmful, and degrading, and I’d like to be honest with people and tell them straight. Although my language may be harder than those who may seem more “accommodating,” I think my straightforwardness is, ultimately, more respectful.
So the conflict is between two things. When the carrot-on-a-stick approach is used and the “carrot” is a mirage that doesn’t exist, I have to admit that the hope can motivate people. It can make people happier, it can cause change, it can make people feel better about their lives. That’s the honest truth. The problem is that when the direction of the “carrot” is controlled by a pastor, a Bible, a church, etc., it basically takes over people’s sense of direction for their lives. It takes over the way they treat other people and the way the feel about themselves. It fundamentally insults their dignity and allows whoever is controlling the “carrot” to devastate their lives at an immeasurable level.
How The “What If You’re Wrong?” Question Deconverted Me
One of the things that really bothered me as a Christian was the question of whether I was wrong. I was living my whole life striding towards a goal that may not be there. I was missing out on directions that I thought would help and validate other people, as well as myself. What if I was like the horse plodding along with the carrot in front of my face, working for the good of someone who didn’t even exist all of my life?
Leaving Christianity was like leaving carrot-stick thinking. The carrot grew more and more beautiful the harder it was to acquire or work towards, and the harder life got. It was the anticipation of a future perfect moment that made it so beautiful. When I left that thinking, there was, at first, mixed in with the relief I wouldn’t have to chase the carrot anymore, a sense that nothing could ever compare to a life chasing the beautiful carrot. But I realized that wasn’t quite true. Chasing after an imagined joy and experiencing real ones took some adjusting, just as the stallion who thought all his life that the carrot was the most beautiful object he could acquire might have to adjust to the beauty of running free in the fields. But it honestly did not take long for me. I’m not saying that life is perfect. But it is freer, and I can explore more arenas of knowledge, and I have to worry about sin a lot less and can worry about what works for people a lot more; I no longer see people as there for the ideals – the ideals need to be adjusted according to people. No non-existent being influences my decisionmaking, and that’s a very beautiful thing.
So what about people going through hard times?
The largest-ever study on intercessory prayer, which was conducted in 2006, cost $2.4 million, and had 1,802 patients, showed that those who were prayed for did WORSE than those who weren’t prayed for. Why? Because, the researchers theorized, the people who were being prayed for my have gotten performance anxiety stress that actually worsened their health. I find this pretty obvious, based on personal experience with others; for example, people who are depressed can feel an obligation to feel less depressed that makes them actually feel more depressed, in my experience.
False hope can hold people to unrealistic expectations and make life worse than just being honest with people. Maybe a story more beautiful than a resurrection you try to push people into believing is the story of two people at a hospital bed, experiencing love together as one of them takes their last breath, and the decision that that love is the most beautiful moment in one’s life.
That’s something I could live with. That’s taking life in instead of passing it by for a mirage you’ll never see.
And that’s why I didn’t answer the altar call after the Easter lesson.
Hopefully you understand.