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This is the finale of my Why I Am Not a Christian series.
In part one, I explored why I came to doubt claims of the miraculous, thereby undermining my core Christian convictions. In part two, I explain why I came to doubt the veracity of inner experiences of God. In part three, I describe how my fear of a godless universe kept me from accepting nontheism, and how I came to understand that my fear of such a universe was no argument against it.
I could cover quite a bit more: why I came to doubt the historical claims of Christianity, for example, or why I no longer believe the Christ story is unique. I could also tell of how my near conversion to Roman Catholicism permanently hobbled my faith. Perhaps I will, at some point, tell those stories.
But, for now, I will bring this series to a close. I want to circle back to where I started, and the podcast conversation that launched this series.
In an episode of my Sibling Rivalry series, my sister pressed me on why I don’t believe. I gave a meta answer, and I still believe that it is the most honest one: unbelief happened to me. Everything I’ve described in this series is a post hoc explanation for what occurred.
The book of Ephesians describes faith as a gift:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:4-9).
I find this and similar passages fascinating because they acknowledge that faith is something that can’t be consciously chosen. Faith is a gift given by the Holy Spirit. You either have it, or you don’t. If you don’t have it, no amount of striving will open the door to you. That door can only be opened from the other side by divine will.
So too with doubt. While I don’t believe in a God who arbitrarily opens and closes people’s minds to faith, I do believe that this is an accurate description of the psychological experience of theism and nontheism.
My unbelief was something that emanated from a subterranean place beneath conscious awareness. I did not choose it, I did not want it, and my departure from Christianity was like watching my beloved grandmother die before my eyes.
I desperately wanted to remain a Christian. I loved the person of Christ (I still do) and the consolations of the Christian faith. I loved the church. I loved prayer. I loved the Bible. I loved the God revealed to me by the mystics of the Christian tradition – the God who draws all of creation to himself, the God who abides in the suffering of the broken and outsiders, the God whose love knows no end, the God through whom “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
I even came to a truce with my doubt. Starting in college, doubt started to grow like a tumor, and it threatened everything I held dear. I had a brilliant philosophy professor in college who heard my woes and introduced me to the work of Soren Kierkegaard, especially his book Fear and Trembling. According to Kierkegaard, faith was incomprehensible, perhaps even unreasonable. But, by making a leap of faith, I could cross the chasm of doubt and come to the other side where I could have an intimate relationship with a preposterous God.
This framework sustained my faith for years. I came to understand that doubt would be the constant companion to my faith and that, rather than fight against it and try to eradicate it, I had to dance with it. I lived with what I called my “doubt garden” – a place in my mind where I allowed doubt to grow. I accepted that doubt would be my shadow, following me everywhere.
So why, then, after accepting doubt as a feature of my faith, did it consume me entirely? And, conversely, why do so many believers have the same experiences I have, and yet persist in belief?
I don’t know. That is a mystery of temperament. My relationship with God became distant and abstract. He receded further and further into the dark curtains of the universe. The doubt could not be kept to the doubt garden. The chasm of doubt engulfed me. I didn’t choose this, and I didn’t want this. My unbelief was deeper and bigger than me. I resisted it for years until it finally swallowed me.
I think I let go of faith the same way a person dying of a terminal illness learns to let go of their life. I surrendered. It was in 2017 that I let go of my faith entirely, and accepted that I no longer believed in God, and no longer found my home in the church.
I had a number of Faith Death Doulas. Mike McHargue’s book Finding God in the Waves eased my passage into unbelief. The wonderful Episcopal Church I attended as my faith diminished provided me with comfort and acceptance. Kindly nontheists, like the hosts of the show Oh No Ross and Carrie, demonstrated to me that nontheism could be gentle, fun, and curious.
When it was finally time to let go of my faith, it was simple. Sad, but simple. I announced on my website that I no longer called myself a Christian, and life continued as it had before.
This whole experience has left me with an enormous amount of compassion for believers and nonbelievers of all stripes. Believers are not stupid or bad. They believe in God because they cannot do otherwise. Every theistic Christian has told me this: they cannot not believe. Similarly, nontheists cannot believe. None of us can do otherwise.
The lesson to be gained from this insight is a truce. My job isn’t to make atheists. My job is to make the world a better place, and that means encouraging Christians to be better Christians. I don’t want to lead believers into a godless universe – I want to help them be more compassionate. The best way to do that is to point out the best interpretations of their own traditions.
And, of course, if a believer does find themselves dying of terminal doubt and confronting all the fear, heartache, and anger such a process involves, I will do my best to be a companion and ease the suffering of surrender. There is life after unbelief, and it can be rich, beautiful, and fulfilling.
But that’s just me. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and I might feature them in an upcoming post.
Stephen Bradford Long 