I sometimes think doctrinal Christianity is like drug addiction. After growing up in the magisterial order of Christianity, glimpsing the vastness of a triune God and the revolutionary beauty of a self-sacrificing god-man, the secular world is a pale place by comparison. I feel a raging maw in the center of my core nothing else fills. No matter how good my life is — and my life is very good — there is an insatiable restlessness.
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I look at my fellow secularists and don’t see the same restlessness. They are content with their godlessness. To them, identifying with a religious identity is a step backward into oppression and would be intolerable for them. I left Christianity in 2017, and I’ve been fiending for religion ever since. I’ve previously called this the phenomenon of the Bound and Unbound, but I occasionally wonder if it is the difference between the addicted and the sober.
The comparison falls apart, of course, and might even be disrespectful to those suffering from chemical dependence. Religion isn’t a chemical. We don’t build a chemical tolerance to it, nor do we suffer physical withdrawals. Religion is an altogether different category from drugs.
The only similarity is that, just as opioids provide access to experiences that make normal life pale in comparison, religion grants us access to unique experiences and emotions that make secularism intolerable. As a Christian, I had emotions and mystical experiences that, since leaving the faith, have withered on the vine. I no longer experience intimacy with a divine being; I no longer know the forgiveness of my sins; I no longer know the beauty of worship; I no longer have the promise of eternity; I no longer know what will happen when I die.
Nothing can replace these experiences. I have traded them in for other wonders. The awe at a mysterious, godless universe surpasses the wonder I felt at an ordered universe created by a triune God, even if it is a stark and bewildering awe. In Christianity, the secrets of the world were laid bare. Now, I can only confront inexplicable mysteries suspended like living, breathing koans. I know that there is something deeply hidden in our cosmos (to use Einstein’s phrase) but I cannot begin to grasp what it might be. Embracing this experience can only be described as mystical, but it is a far cry from the comfort I once knew as a Christian.
I still yearn for a religious path, community, and code. After I departed from The Satanic Temple leadership, and especially as I read Tom Holland’s book Dominion, I began to feel the siren call of Christianity again. Inexplicably, I have found myself contemplating the figure of Christ, the liturgies of the Church, and listening to Christians on YouTube. I have even, alarmingly, found myself yearning to return to church on Sunday morning.
Christians in my audience will no doubt rejoice at this confession. Numerous people are waiting in the wings for me to confess my sins and return to Christianity. The endgame for the honest heathen must, inevitably, be a return to Christ.
We might as well address this directly.
If Christianity were merely the emulation of the person of Christ and a cultural inheritance of values, symbols, and ethics, then I would happily call myself a Christian. But let’s not be blinkered. From its very beginning, Christianity has been a religion of belief. It has enforced not just a cultural inheritance, but also dogmatic belief. Every major branch and church provides handy, stringent confessions of faith, be it on clay tablets or modern websites.
I reject every single core belief that Christianity espouses. I do not believe Christ rose from the dead or was born of a virgin. I do not believe in heaven or hell. I do not believe in a God who has volition, will, personality, and desire, as we see in the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe in the divine forgiveness of sins or the resurrection of the body. I do not believe in the soul.
I am open to evidence for all these claims, and I am ultimately agnostic on all of them. But, to me, agnosticism equals a default position that they are not true until proven otherwise. I don’t know if there is a God, but saying I’m agnostic about God is the same as saying I don’t believe in God. I withhold belief until sufficient evidence is presented.
This doesn’t mean I think Christians are stupid. On the contrary, many of the smartest, wisest, and kindest people I know are Christians. I am simply not compelled by the evidence of their claims, while they are. That doesn’t make them bad, stupid, or narrow-minded. It simply means we have a profoundly different interpretation of the evidence. Honest people can disagree with each other.
I frequently come across a baffling argument from Christian apologists: they want the godless to acknowledge that we do believe in God and that we are, in fact, Christians. I apparently believe in God because I believe in beauty, morality, and human rights. I am apparently a Christian because my ethics, culture, and psyche are shaped by Christianity.
It is here that I want to address Christians directly. I need a frank and honest answer. Do you really want me to say that I believe in God? Do you really want me to say that I am a Christian? I’m not sure you do. Think through the implications of this ask.
What would it mean if someone like me — an agnostic atheist — were to say I believe in God? I have no problem using the word God in a myriad of ways that frequently exasperate atheists. I have no qualms about using “God” to describe the sublime, hidden mysteries of the cosmos, or the universe itself. Einstein and Stephen Hawking used the word “God” to mean the principles that govern the workings of all things. But this is a far cry from what any type of confessional Christianity means by God.
And, even more so, what would it mean for your community if someone like me professed to be a Christian simply because I am an inheritor of Christian ethics, culture, and symbol? I live in “sexual sin” and have no intention of ever stopping; I reject every core claim in the creeds; I believe the very notion of a conscious God that interacts with us to be contrary to reason; I dabble in the occult; I’m an ecumenical slut. Is this the type of person you want to call a Christian?
People often tell me: well yes, you can remain in the faith if you have doubt! You can keep open the option that the claims of Christianity are true and continue to live as if they are true.
This doesn’t work for me. If I choose to remain open to the doctrinal claims of Christianity but continue to doubt them, why would that not apply to every other religion on the planet? My consistency-seeking brain requires an answer beyond mere nostalgia, sentimentality, or familiarity. What breaks the tie between all the religions of the world? If I am open to one then I must be open to all.
If I return to Christianity, it will only be as a cultural heritage – a body of literature, symbols, practices, and community that bring meaning and value to my life. Dear Christian, are you comfortable with that? Or, once I get my foot in the door, will you expect me to renounce my intellectual integrity and expect me to lie about what I think is self-evidently true about the world?
If your honest answer is that you will accept the full body of my atheism, denial, and non-Christian lifestyle without qualification, then I might be happy to return to church and enjoy the culture, symbol, and story that I love so dearly. I might even call myself a Christian. But I doubt that any Christian aching for my return will accept these terms.
I started this article with a description of restlessness. What’s so wrong with feeling restless, anyway? “I hope you find peace,” some Christians tell me. Why? To be human is to be eternally restless, hungry for more knowledge, experience, and illumination in our dark world. Yes, I yearn for truth, community, meaning-making stories, and answers to the deepest questions of existence. But I have now accepted that this restless yearning is a good thing. It is the font of wisdom, knowledge, and experience. It is what drives me forward as a writer and human. I will only stop being restless when I’m dead.
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Stephen Bradford Long 