Can Atheism save Christianity?

Inside the new movement to reinvent the world's largest religion

Congratulations on opening this article. I realize it likely required something of you. Atheism saving Christianity, Christian Atheism??? I know it’s a lot to wrap your brain around. In a Substack chat thread I was asked, “Can Christianity be saved?” A portion of my answer read, “It seems lately that the people most likely to save it are atheists.” It was then I realized I had some explaining to do.

Creating Context

Some context is needed for this conversation. I can’t possibly discuss the totality of the relationship between atheism and Christianity in one short article, but I’ll start with a collection of relevant contextual factors. Throughout the article, I will offer links to articles in which I have discussed topics more extensively.

Unpacking Atheism

The etymology of the word “atheism” is a (without) and theism (belief in the existence of God). In a nutshell, atheism is disbelief in the existence of God. It’s noteworthy that in the 19th century, as defined in the 1897 Century Dictionary, the term atheism was understood as, “The denial of theism, that is, of the doctrine that the great first cause is a supreme, intelligent, righteous person.”

This is significant because it’s often the case that “atheism” is a denial of traditional Christian theism, and not necessarily a rejection of alternative understandings of ultimate reality outside the traditional/religious framework and baggage that the term “God” carries, despite the best efforts of many to reframe it.

In my view, it was the “four horseman” and “New Atheism” that fueled a deep and unnecessary divide between Christianity and atheism by making sport of the worst of religion, and not understanding the merits of fields such as the philosophy of religion and psychology of religion. Perhaps this is most notably on display in the recent conversation between Richard Dawkins and Jordan Peterson in which Dawkins argues that “God” makes no sense scientifically and Peterson tries to enlighten Dawkins on Jungian psychology. Two ships passing in the night.

Contrary to the belief of some, atheists are not evil, immoral, unspiritual, God-haters who want to grease the skids toward an existential wasteland of nihilism and eternal oblivion. I could easily make the argument that Jesus was an “atheist” if what you mean is the denial of the “God” of religion that atheism is often refuting.

Christian Atheism is Not New

There is a longstanding tradition by atheists to purge religion of its absurdities, and find a better path forward. Here are a few relatively recent examples.

Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) is well-known for having a philosophical understanding of God, unshackled from the doctrines of orthodox Christianity. Known as an atheist, Spinoza insisted upon using the term “God” to identify his theory of everything. I wrote about Spinoza’s God in great detail in my article: Which “God” should you believe in... or none of the above.

There are many who say that William Blake (1757-1827) was the first Christian atheist, who articulated a kenotic or self-emptying of God through the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus. You can explore Blake’s Christian Atheism in the book, The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake.

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was raised Christian, studied theology, and became atheist. He tried to advance a non-religious path forward when he made the observation that the outcome of history (sparked by Darwin’s work) proved that the “God” of religion is false and unnecessary. I’ve written in many places about Nietzsche’s declaration “God is dead”, most recently my article, The Perfect Murder.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was an atheist British mathematician, logician, philosopher, and public intellectual. In his book Why I am Not a Christian, he wrote, “Religions are both harmful and untrue.” What I find interesting is Russell’s attempt to conceive of Christianity as something that could be good:

“If a religious view of life and the world is ever to reconquer the thoughts and feelings of free-minded men and women, much that we are accustomed to associate with religion will have to be discarded. The first and greatest change that is required is to establish a morality of initiative, not a morality of submission, a morality of hope rather than fear, of things to be done rather than of things to be left undone. It is not the whole duty of man to slip through the world so as to escape the wrath of God. The world is our world, and it rests with us to make it a heaven or a hell. The power is ours, and the kingdom and the glory would be ours also if we had courage and insight to create them. The religious life that we must seek will not be one of occasional solemnity and superstitious prohibitions, it will not be sad or ascetic, it will concern itself little with rules of conduct. It will be inspired by a vision of what human life may be, and will be happy with the joy of creation, living in a large free world of initiative and hope. It will love mankind, not for what they are to the outward eye, but for what imagination shows that they have it in them to become. It will not readily condemn, but it will give praise to positive achievement rather than negative sinlessness, to the joy of life, the quick affection, the creative insight, by which the world may grow young and beautiful and filled with vigor.”

I featured Bertrand Russell in my article, What Christians Can Learn from Atheists: Can Bertrand Russell Save Religion?

Radical theology

That above Time magazine cover is from 1966. Time magazine’s religion editor, John T. Elson, wrote the 5,000-word cover story titled “Toward a Hidden God” for the April 8, 1966 Easter issue, which asked the question, “Is God Dead?”

The article evokes the “God is dead” statement made by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882. Nietzsche wrote, “The belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable.” In the wake of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Nietzsche asserted that both science and reason sufficiently answered life’s greatest questions without the need for the religious notion of “God”.

The Time magazine article also mentions a group of radical theologians who were proposing to “… carry on and write a theology without theos, (or without God). This has come to be known as “radical theology” or “death of God theology”, pioneered largely by the work of theologians such as Thomas J. J. Altizer, Paul van Buren, Gabriel Vahanian, and Dorothee Sölle.

Today’s Christian Atheism

There are several people more recently who have sparked new interest in Christian Atheism and death of God theology. Matthew David Segall in a recent post of his wrote:

“There seems to be a revival of a certain form of Christianity—prominent intellectuals who were atheists, artists and celebrities, are converting and talking about it publicly. It’s quite a turn, considering that not long ago, Christianity was seen as uncool or dogmatic—something to reject if you were even slightly “intelligent” or “free-thinking.” Now it's based again.”

A prominent public intellectual Slavoj Žižek recently published a book titled, Christian Atheism. Žižek wrote, “Christianity is the religion of the death of God.” He also wrote, “The only way to be an atheist is through Christianity.”

Northern Irish theophilosopher Peter Rollins often speaks and writes on death of God theology or apophatic theology (also known as “negative theology”). Philosopher Cadell Last recently created and curated a Christian Atheism Course, and is organizing and presenting at the Wake Festival in Belfast along with Rollins and others who will be discussing Christian Atheism and death of God theology.

Another term that pops up, especially with Peter Rollins, is “pyrotheology”, which is a religionless interpretation of Christianity that views faith as a way embracing the difficulties of existence and face the challenges of being human. A few places to explore this would be:

• Pyrotheology: Videocast Discussion - Cadell Last and Peter Rollins

• The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction by Peter Rollins

• Insurrection: To Believe Is Human To Doubt, Divine by Peter Rollins

It’s also worth noting that English philosopher of religion and scholar of Christian theology, Don Cupitt, pioneered the Sea of Faith movement, inspired by Cupitt’s book Sea of Faith, and a six-part BBC documentary by the same name. The Sea of Faith movement states it’s aim to be to “explore and promote religious faith as a human creation.” A few related quotes by Don Cupitt include:

“God is the sum of our values, representing to us their ideal unity, their claims upon us and their creative power.”

“I am suggesting that we can and do regain eternity when we are so immersed in life, in moral action, or in aesthetic contemplation, that we completely forget about time and anxiety.”

“To love is to be vulnerable: if God loves, then God is mortal.”

“The Servant who really studies his Master gradually becomes like his master; gradually learns that he himself is the one who in the end does all the work and has all the power.”

“Those who first acquired language and tried to think the human situation were utterly overwhelmed. They could cope only by imagining that there were greater invisible beings who could and did understand and control both the human psyche and the world. ‘I can’t make sense of it, but I have to believe that there is a larger perspective within which it all makes sense.”

“The reason why Jesus got into such severe trouble was that he tried to bring into the present a construction of the world, of God and of the self that belonged to a still-remote future. He was much too far ahead of his time, and suffered accordingly.”

My Work in Christian Atheism

I’ve written on various ways religion and atheism intersect. A few articles include:

• What Christians Can Learn from Atheists

• How Atheism Fails Religion-Leavers

• Not Religious and Not Atheist

• The Case For (and Against) Cultural Christianity

• Can you believe in Darwin and Jesus?

In the deconstruction work I do with religion-leavers it’s not uncommon for a person to abandon Christianity for atheism. But too often the wide and diverse spiritual and philosophical landscape is sacrificed on the altar of a false choice between the two, which I address in my article, The Either/Or Problem with God.

Last year I gave a presentation at ORTCON24 (Open and Relational Theology Conference) in the Grand Tetons. In my presentation, I shared for the first time publicly my thoughts about a “Christian Atheism”. I published an article about the ways postmodernity and the deconstruction of language destabilizes the core of Christianity, as a logocentric religion. I followed this up with a preview of my ORTCON24 presentation, and after the conference posted the actual presentation with further commentary. I have written two additional pieces related to Christianity and Atheism:

• What if God disappeared? The Bond Between Christianity and Atheism

• The Death of God in Jesus

Christian Atheism and death of God theology (or radical theology) have never quite made it into mainstream theological circles, but there are signs that this is changing, which I discuss in my article: A New Theology: 10 Failings of Theological Scholarship in the Modern World.

A few books of interest for exploring this radical theology are:

• Radical Theology and the Death of God by Thomas J. J. Altizer & William Hamilton

• The New Gospel of Christian Atheism by Thomas J. J. Altizer

• Christian Atheism by Slavoj Žižek

• Christianity Without God by Lloyd Geering

• Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity by Jean-Luc Nancy

• The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake by Thomas J. J. Altizer

• On Nietzsche by Georges Bataille

Can atheism save Christianity?

An acceptable definition of “Christian Atheism” would be:

“Christian atheism is an ideology that embraces the teachings, narratives, symbols, practices, or communities associated with Christianity without accepting the literal existence of God. It often overlaps with nontheism and post-theism.”

In my view, here are the merits of Christian Atheism:

1. A Jesus-Focused Christianity

Too often traditional Christianity seems to be about everything else but Jesus. I’ve written about this in articles previously, including:

• 20 things Jesus Didn’t Say: 10 Christian Things Jesus Wouldn't Endorse

• What if Jesus went undercover boss at Joel Osteen's Church? Can church be relevant in today's unChristian America?

• What Christianity Won't Tell You About Jesus

• Did Christianity Cover Up What Jesus Actually Did?

• Can the real message of Jesus save us now?

One of the merits of Christian Atheism is that it understands Jesus as the central figure of possibly the most liberating truth of all human history. It’s a radical interpretation of the life and death of Jesus and it stands in defiance of traditional Christian theology, but it sees Jesus as a cornerstone truth for both Christian and atheist, and all humankind.

2. A Detoxed Christianity

What would Christianity be without the beliefs of a patriarchal Gandalf-God in the sky, separation from God, total depravity, eternal conscious torment (Hell), blood sacrifice atonement, and bibliolatry? One thing this Christianity would be is void of religious shame, fear, and oppression. Christian Atheism does not subscribe to the religious beliefs and doctrines that are often the reason why people leave traditional Christianity. Christian Atheism scrubs the “Christian” part of virtually all religious toxicity.

3. An Interdisciplinary Christianity

You will find in Christian Atheism a convergence of theology, philosophy, psychology and the natural sciences. That’s one reason why atheists embrace it. How is it that a Slovenian Marxist philosopher like Slavoj Žižek can be promoting Jesus and Christianity? It’s because Christian Atheism is a grown-up Christianity that relates to the full spectrum of fields of inquiry into the human condition and the lived human experience. Even before his book Christian Atheism, Žižek published a book in 2001 titled, The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? I have recently published a few series of articles on Substack that take an interdisciplinary approach to cultivating a post-religion spirituality:

• The Case for Unifying Science and Religion (four-part series)

• God in Mind: The Psychology of Religion (four-part series)

4. An Organizationless Christianity

Although Christian Atheism has a lot to say about community, human solidarity, and collaborative living, don’t expect to see any Christian Atheism denominations, churches, tent revivals or broadcasting networks. In a time when organized religion has often been exposed as corrupt, controlling, oppressive and too focused on money and power, Christian Atheism may have appeal.

5. A Reframed Christianity

I recently wrote an article, Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater (or should you?) What to let go and what to keep after leaving religion. Christian Atheism cannot be accused of tossing the baby with the bathwater, given its focus on the Bible, Jesus and Holy Spirit. I’ve been surprised by how many atheists in these discussions use traditional Christian language. I sometimes jokingly tell my atheist philosopher friend Cadell Last that he’s more Christian than myself and I’m more atheist than he is. He does not identify as a “Christian” and I don’t identify as an “Atheist” but we both find meaning in Christian Atheism.

6. A Humanitarian Christianity

Too often traditional Christianity is a highly individualistic phenomenon, focusing on personal or individual salvation. The focus of Christian Atheism is a way of being among people. Slavoj Žižek writes, “The return of Christ happens in the Holy Ghost (so not some vague moment in the future) and the Holy Ghost is the spirit of egalitarian community.” He also said in an interview:

“What is Christianity? It’s the holy spirit. What is the holy spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other, and who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense, the holy spirit is here now.”

7. An Outliers Christianity

I recently had a conversation with someone who refers to themselves as a Christian Atheist. Here are a few things I learned about this person in our dialogue:

• After leaving Christianity he became a “progressive Christian” but later felt uncomfortable and didn’t seem to fit anymore within progressive Christianity. Even among the online communities of progressive Christians he belonged to, though they agreed on the toxicity of conservative Christianity and usually agreed on politics, there was still disagreement and debate about theology and who/what “God” is.

• In his post-religion deconstruction he could no longer accept the belief in a theistic deity, a “being” that created the universe, holds the universe together, or exists in or apart from the universe. At one point he subscribed to “panentheism”, which is the belief that the universe is within God and God is still greater than the universe. But eventually even this view of “God” was not one he could accept. Though he found more affinity with ideas such as John Shelby Spong’s “ground of all being” or God as “being itself”, he had become increasingly ambivalent about the term “God” altogether.

• Despite it all, his interest in Jesus endured, and he understands the significance of Jesus in terms of social transformation, applying the life and teaching of Jesus to social justice, especially economic inequality and poverty, and the liberation of the oppressed.

One of the merits of Christian Atheism is that it exists as a metamodern spirituality - not pitting Christianity and atheism against one another - but creating a space where synthesis can be built. The landscape of spirituality has changed. For example:

• You can believe in God, but not be a theist.

• You can ascribe significance to Jesus, but not be a Christian.

• You can appreciate the Bible, but not believe it is the only or absolute truth.

• You can believe in eternal life, but not believe in streets of gold or flames of torment.

• You can accept you are capable of wrongdoing, but not believe you are a sinner.

• You can cultivate a meaningful, impactful and social spirituality, but not go to church.

• You can be drawn to a particular spiritual path, but not write off all the others.

Where Christian Atheism falls short

There are merits to be acknowledged when it comes to Christian Atheism, but there are a ways (in my opinion) it needs some work. I’ll mention a few.

1. Made More Accessible

Christian Atheism is currently quite niche. There are some reasons for this. Firstly, Christian Atheism is not latent with evangelistic zeal. It’s not seeking to “save” people in the religious sense or rescue people from the flames of eternal hell. It doesn’t lend itself toward the organizational, communal and infrastructure components, which is what makes traditional religion so pervasive. It’s doubtful there will be a CABN (Christian Atheist Broadcasting Network) or Christian Atheist t-shirts.

Christian Atheism is also sometimes quite intelligentsia and ivory tower. If understanding Christian Atheism requires understanding William Blake and Slavoj Žižek or getting a PhD in Hegelian and Nietzschean philosophy or Lacanian psychoanalysis, it may languish on the margins. If it’s too highfalutin to make any sense to the line cook at Waffle House, elementary school teacher, or registered nurse, it may struggle to connect with people beyond the niche level.

2. Made More Diverse

Christian Atheism may need a more robust and diverse development and approval process. The Christian Atheism space seems to be a bit homogeneous. I could go through a list of people most associated with Christian Atheism and they would mostly be white European and American men with post-secondary education. In my opinion, it would be useful for Christian Atheism to dialogue with black theology, feminist theology, and queer theology. I’m not saying Christian Atheism is white privilege or has no diversity, I just think there is great reward an exerting more effort in that direction.

3. Risk of Ideology

What worries me most about the Christian Atheism Wiki page is the fact that it is identified as an “ideology”. Ideologies are not inherently bad. They can provide a summary of ideas. But we all know how ideologies can become rigid and ironclad belief-systems and even take on some of the same characteristics of high-control religion. Christian Atheism will have to be aware of the dangers that lurk for any belief-systems - anointing gurus, the need to be right, and becoming closeminded to dissent.

Christian Atheism isn’t going to work for everyone. There may be a big difference between a person coming to Christian Atheism as an atheist, and someone coming from a Christian background. For an atheist, discussions of God, theology, Jesus and the Holy Spirit may seem new and intriguing, but they could also be triggers for a deconstructing Christian who isn’t up for an epic Christian theology makeover.

4. Responsibility with Language

“Christian Atheism” is a loaded term. Right? Some people might reject it outright because of the “Christian” word, while others might walk away because of the term, “Atheist.” Sticking the two words together just makes it more complicated. What Hegel means by “God”, Thomas J. J. Altizer means by the “Incarnation”, and Slavoj Žižek by “Holy Ghost” may not even closely resemble anything you’ve ever heard about these terms. While people with a philosophical background may enjoy overhauling and redefining staple theological concepts and terms, Christian Atheism may need to take more responsibility with the language used in this space with the awareness that the field and history of theological scholarship is a thing.

Just a few weeks ago, the longest living theologian, John Boswell Cobb Jr., died at 99. I had the opportunity to meet him a few times. He is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. John Cobb wrote an extensive review of Christian Atheism and death of God theology, which I highly recommend you reading if you are interested in exploring a useful examination of the topic.

Don Cupitt wrote, “To love is to be vulnerable: if God loves, then God is mortal.” Religion often conceives of “God” as a symbol of perfection, flawlessness, and indestructibility, separate or removed or greater than us. But what if God emptied himself into Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago to demonstrate that God is one of us and love is what makes God indestructible. And what if God died in Jesus on the cross so that God was poured into humankind through spirit. And what if God doesn’t exist as a separate being in the sky or something greater, but exists in the infinite possibilities and potentialities possible only in, through and as love.

In Summary

• The “Christian” part and the “Atheism” part of the term “Christian Atheism” is complicated, but it might be worth truly understanding what it means to put these two ideas together.

• There are several merits to Christian Atheism that might appeal to many people, but it may also have a few issues to address.

• Metamodern spirituality is a framework for not pitting atheism and Christianity against one another, but finding meaningful synthesis between them.

• Sometimes atheists are more Christian than Christians and Christians are more atheist than atheists.

• I made this “paid-subscription” article available to everyone. If you found it meaningful, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this Substack publication.

• What if God is us and the indestructibility part is love?

“Here God is not approached as an object that we must love, but as a mystery present in the very act of love itself.”
- Peter Rollins