There are still lots of people who don't get the whole thing about Christian Atheism (or at least the version I'm working on here). And that is understandable. Surely you either believe in God or you don't - if you believe, you follow a certain course; if you don't, you follow another. Why try to ride two horses (or donkeys - but that's for another day)? No man can serve two masters?
Well, it's not quite as simple as that.
The more I learn about human beings and how we wend our way through this world of dizzying complexity and craziness, the more I observe that we do so by subscribing to stories. Beliefs are stories that we tell ourselves, and we sometimes add the additional layer of stating that they are True. However not all stories need to be True to be useful.
This is where the Christianity Compatibility Layer re-enters the fray. An atheist will state the God does not exist (or is very unlikely); a theist will state that God *does* exist. But it's not at all obvious how these statements connect up to what decisions we make in the here and now. Perhaps a theist is looking forward to eternal reward and hoping to avoid damnation; the atheist isn't looking forward to anything much. But is it this thinking-ahead that is really determining how they choose what to do in a given situation?
When the Good Samaritan stopped to help the man at the side of the road, was he thinking about what God had commanded him to do? Or was he using something else as his motivator? It seems very clear that Jesus was pointing out the straightforward compassion that comes from one human seeing another in need - a neighbour, no less. In the authentic Christian tradition, if we are to hold up this parable (which we don't maintain as true in the usual sense) as a guide, we are clearly subscribing to the narrative and using it to inform our own decisions when faced with moral dilemmas.
And for the Christian Atheist this is exactly what the whole story of God and Jesus and even the Resurrection and the supposed Second Coming are - they are a story, and one to which we can choose to subscribe. The mental imagery of the Resurrection isn't just a historical mistake - it's a powerful narrative that retains its transformative power even if we know that it didn't actually happen.
I need to do a lot more to unpack this further, but in the meantime let me just re-emphasise that we can do better than just show that religion is based on things that didn't really happen. We can try to understand why the stories arose, what human needs those stories address, and what the consequences of the stories are. We can recognise that the stories themselves were shaped by the humanity of the people to told and re-told them, and that humanity is our humanity too.
So when we stand up and sing about God or Jesus, we're not lying, and we're not even taking God as a "metaphor". We're seeing God as a transformative story - one created by humans, one that has sub-narratives and tropes and twists and turns. And it's in that story that we too can find and express our humanity, because it's our story too. And we can shape it and use it to speak to others and to reach out and do some good in the world.
Building tunnels
I am very likely not ever going to convince my theist-inclined friends that God is at best a metaphor, and that atheism is a valid form of Christianity, but then they're hardly going to convince me that God actually really exists when every single apologetic argument is demonstrably false - and that Jesus himself didn't engage in apologetics.
But the core issue is wider than Christianity itself - we need to find forms of communal expression in which we Christian Atheists *can* express our heritage and culture, while being welcoming and inclusive and *facilitative* (not just "tolerant") of Theistic Christians, Jews and Muslims and Hindus and whatever. Indeed, I think we should (as the Apostle Paul - not one of my favourite chappies, but that's another argument - sort-of suggested) be able to become as Jews or Muslims as the situation demands. When in a mosque, behave in an appropriate way, and join with the worshippers. Similarly in a synagogue or temple. There is no need to stand aloof. Get in there and feel what your fellow humans feel - maybe you'll learn to understand them just a little better.
This was brought home to me when I was last in Nazareth - a place very close to my heart. One of the Nazareth Hospital doctors was giving us a guided tour through Old Nazareth; some of the places were familiar from my previous forays, others were new to me. I had never been inside the White Mosque, but our group were kindly allowed inside, and the imam showed us into pretty much every nook and cranny of the place - including the entrance to the Nazareth tunnels. Sadly the chap with the key was off for lunch so we didn't get inside, but these little-known old tunnels link the Christian and Muslim places of worship, as well as other centres in the town, so that if Nazareth was ever attacked (as it often was over the centuries), the entire population could join together and mount a joint defence. I later joined an Evangelical Christian friend on the floor of the mosque, and we both "prayed" in our own ways towards Mecca.
Maybe we all need to build these tunnels, and learn to stand together despite our differences. Learn to dig beneath the superstructures to our core shared humanity, deep in the earth. The differences will not go away, and represent different places where we are on our respective journeys.
Next time, I'm going to wait for the keyholder to get back from his lunch.
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