The Atheist Christian

I’ve been a believer as long as I can remember. Maybe longer.

See, I was raised in the pews, at church services, Bible studies, and prayer meetings. Christian language was my native tongue. I was immersed in the Bible and immersed at my baptism.

I’ve preached sermons and created Bible study curricula. I’ve led worship and crafted songs for the congregation to sing. I’ve been part of multiple church plants.

I spoke in tongues.

I was slain in the spirit.

I’ve seen miracles.

I’ve witnessed exorcisms.

If it is part of the Christian experience, it’s a part of my history.

There was never a time in my life that I didn’t believe in what I saw, in the movements of God among people. I’ve known the truth of the Spirit falling on a congregation in song. Faith has been in my blood and grace has been my food.

In short, I know what it is to be brought into Christianity and on fire for God. I know what it is to believe with more than your whole self.

And I wish I could stop.

I want to stop praying, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” I want to stop being drawn into scripture week after week. I want to stop hungering for the table of the Lord. I’ve already stopped being a Christian; now I wish I could stop believing, stop having faith, stop being obsessed with Jesus.

But belief won’t let me go, as much as I wish it would.

In the dark of the night, in the middle of my depressive episodes, in the lonely hours I keep, I hear my heart still singing songs to God.

When life threatens to fall apart and I’m at the end of my rope, by bones cry out for divine rescue.

As joy begins to seep through the cracks, I feel my soul drawn upward into the heavenly places where I can rejoice with the heavenly hosts.

When good triumphs over evil, my mind gives thanks to God, from whom all blessings flow.

These are more than habits. This is belief at a cellular level. This is the faith that is latent in me coming awake (riffing off Christian Wiman in “My Bright Abyss”). This is being in love with the Spirit from the depths of the bowels of my being.

I can’t stop acting like I believe because I can’t stop believing.

Once, Jesus decided to head back to Judea to heal/raise Lazarus from the dead. Judea was a bad place to be. It’s where the people who wanted to kill Jesus were. It was tempting fate and walking into what could be a suicide mission.

When Jesus set out on this bad idea, the Apostle Thomas said, “Whelp. We might as well go and die with him.” (my paraphrase). Thomas was all in all the way. There wasn’t a fiber of his being that held back. He was willing to die a fool’s death for Jesus.

I relate to this. Back in the days I was on fire for God I was willing to give anything and everything to follow Jesus. I was all in. There wasn’t a fiber of my being that held back. I told myself I was willing to die a fool’s death for Jesus.

I was just like Thomas.

I followed, no matter where Jesus led.

I followed Jesus out of good romantic relationships.

I followed Jesus away from jobs that could have become careers.

I followed Jesus out of some churches.

I followed Jesus intellectually, never being satisfied until I found him in the ideas and theology I was constantly teasing apart.

Anywhere I sensed or saw Jesus, I followed him.

And I was happy about it. Jesus wasn’t a burden back then. Jesus was my joy. Jesus was my love. Jesus was my everything.

As much dopamine was pumped into my system during worship times, as much wonder, awe, and doxology was birthed in me during intense experiences of prayer, Jesus didn’t let me stay in a toxic system of dogma, doctrine, and domination. Jesus rescued me from my own faith.

I don’t want to leave Jesus behind, but I don’t want all the baggage that comes with belief anymore.

I’d love to just walk away from the Jesus story and live a non-religious life. But that story, that person, won’t let me go. I keep getting drawn back into Jesus’ orbit, keep getting gripped by the story and beauty of who he is.

It might sound silly to want to stop believing, but the truth is, I’m tired. I’m tired of the expectations I put on myself to “be good.” I’m tired of the rules I play by. I’m tired of the tethered to something as toxic as the Christian church (especially in the U.S.). I don’t want to leave ethics behind; I just don’t want them to be tied to the hypocrisy and socialization I was indoctrinated into.

See, as much as I’ve followed Jesus, it’s always been in this container of Christianity. I don’t know how to separate him from this beast. Maybe you can’t cleave Christ from Christianity. And if that is the case, I want nothing to do with either.

But maybe Jesus is greater than the religion that twists his name, building golden calves and false prophets and calling them God. Jesus has to be more than the force that would put a white supremacist, queerphobic, money worshiping, power-grabbing, fascist-aspiring political regime in office. Jesus, in his death and resurrection, shows us something greater than the violence and domination that this world venerates.

Jesus has to be separate from Christianity if I am going to continue to be willing to die with him.

I don’t believe in the God I was raised with. I renounce the works of a hell-bent, angry God who uses war and wrath to enforce his (and of course this God is a he) capricious will on our miserable lives.

I need more deity than I was given if I’m going to believe in a god at all.

I need someone here, with me, with us. Someone who isn’t pristine and perfect. I need an earthy messiah, one that knows the pain and sorrow of being human. I need a savior that brings joy and love, not as happy clappy emotional bypassing, but as hard-earned, well-deserved, exhausted expressions of goodness in the cosmos.

I need a God who is willing to die with me, not just expect me to die for them.

So, no, I don’t want to believe what I was raised in. I don’t want miracles and speaking in tongues, tithing and building campaigns. I don’t want a fucking religion any more.

I want to get to know the one that won’t let me know, to lose myself in the belief that won’t let me go. I want more than I was promised: I want faith that gives a shit.

Give me a God that bleeds, that cries out in abandonment, and still forgives because they refuse to be shaped by the powers and principalities that keep us all enslaved to money, power, and fame. Give me a god who suffers violence without retaliation. Give me the slain lamb.

I can’t believe in any other god.

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