Atheistic Christianity in action, Dutch style

The Rev Klaas Hendrikse is a minister in the Dutch Protestant Church, and doesn't believe that God is a "thing" or a "being", but a word for human experience. While a lot of traditional believers will have some problems with this purely naturalistic view of Christianity, it strikes a major chord with the many Christians who have come to the realisation that God doesn't really exist in the sense we used to think.

Here is a BBC article on Rev Hendrikse and his church, while here is the Unitarian blogger @TimothyJMoore's take on the subject.

I suspect that there are many people within traditional "theist" congregations who share these views. Any thoughts?

Letter to God

There is something heartwarming in this story from the Daily Telegraph in which a six year-old girl, being brought up in a secular household, although attending a church-affiliated school. The children in the school were asked to write a letter to God, asking "How did you get invented?" The little girl, Lulu, showed this to her parents; her dad emailed it to a number of church leaders, getting either no response or a pile of theobabble, but, bless him, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sent this reply:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

Now I know I don't believe that there is a god, and nor do I indoctrinate my children either way - they will find out for themselves, and I'll answer their questions as best I can when they ask them. But for Archbishop Williams to write such a lovely non-in-your-face gentle letter gets him piles of credit in my view. There is no dogmatism there. There is no attempt to stifle the child's wonder or curiosity. There is of course a general assumption that god exists, but I don't expect the Archbishop to come from any other position.

So, Archbishop, thanks for this beautiful response; to me it demonstrates the meaning of a Christianity that people can engage with and use, whether or not they believe there is anyone there to actually write that letter. And well done Lulu!

Clive James on Jesus

This is a bit of an oldie - from 2008 in fact. Clive James, popular broadcaster, wit and  bon viveur is an atheist - no surprises there. In this article on the BBC, Clive writes about how someone who does not believe the supernatural elements of the bible stories of Jesus can still derive a great deal from them, and appreciate the ethics and outlook of "Jesus the man".

There is a lot of sense in the article, and I think I broadly agree. I also think it can serve as a useful touch-point for those of us who don't believe in gods, demons, angels or messiahs to engage with those who still do in a meaningful, educational and collaborative way. After all, the question of belief (to the unbeliever) is spectacularly less important than setting the basis for an ethical and mutually-beneficial society and global outlook. Indeed, if you look at the Jesus portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels, you see a picture of a man opposed to religious dogmatism, antithetical to religious belief as the admission card to "The Kingdom". I've mentioned before that this is the somewhat lost meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan - belief is unimportant. It is how you interact with your fellow humans that counts, and your relationship with whatever metaphysics you find to your taste is your own business.

Where I would perhaps depart marginally from Clive is over the implication that this "Jesus the man" is necessarily cognate with "the historical Jesus" - we simply do not have enough evidence to judge, and to be realistic, there is every evidence that Jesus was a fairly observant Jew, and did of course believe in God. He was not just a teacher of ethics; he had a religious axe to grind too - and these are separate things. However, the important thing is that we have been left with a series of stories that we can use, expand upon, midrashise, fill out, crop, mix and match as we like (hey, that is what Christians have been doing for millennia!), and just because we atheists have realised that there is no God behind all this, that should not disqualify us from adopting it if we wish, and parsing it through our Christianity Compatibility Layer.

Jesus the Nazarene presents a rich narrative resource, backed up by centuries of infrastructural investment (much of it with a rather unattractive history, but we are where we are) and a wide cultural familiarity. If we are honest and open, there is no reason why Atheists cannot be Christians too. I suggest...

Secular Bible Scholarship

Debunking Christianity is one of my favourite blogs, run by the incomparable John Loftus. John has posted a call from himself, Hector Avalos, Jim Linville and Ken Pulliam for the establishment of a group to apply biblical scholarship from an explicitly non-religious perspective.

Yes, yes, I know the CJCA is trying to not rock the boat, but replace it plank-by-plank, while keeping it afloat (possibly a doomed enterprise, but who's to say it's not a fun experiment?), but this has got to be a good thing. Many Christian Atheists have come to their positions because they have studied the bible in considerable detail, and Christianity ultimately supports Atheism in the final analysis.

Of course, a corollary of what I'm saying is that Atheistic Judaism and Atheistic Islam etc. are perfectly valid positions to take, and people are developing atheistic compatibility layers for these religions too (possibly most advanced in Judaism - a fantastic model to follow in many respects). Atheistic Christianity is not exclusive - our atheism joins us to our colleagues in many other camps and disciplines. Keep it up, folks! Similar groupings for study of the Torah and Koran, anyone?