Faitheism

This morning’s sermon was inspired by the world of two men. One of them I know and the other I only know of.

Chris Stedmen is a young man I went to seminary with. A tall hipster with an irreverent outlook, he seemed sort of an odd fit. He wasn’t a Unitarian Universalist And he wasn’t going to seminary to become a minister. He just wanted to get a Master’s of Arts in Theology.

And in fact, he is an avowed atheist.

Now that last part isn’t really so scandalous to us.

Chris now writes regularly for Huffington Post, has a new book coming out from Beacon Press in November called Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious. And now you know the origin of today’s sermon title. He is the Assistant Humanist Chaplain and the Values in Action Coordinator for the Humanist Community at Harvard.

An atheist chaplain…what is the world coming to?

The other gentleman, Allain de Botton, wrote a book called Religion for Atheists.

Mr. Botton is exactly the reason one should refrain from going into the religion section of an independent bookstore when one is one vacation.

Because it’s an independent bookstore I feel a lot more pressure to buy a book while I’m there, because, you know, independent bookstores aren’t so common any more.

Because I’m a Unitarian Universalist minister, a book with a title like Religion for Atheists is just impossible to resist at any time, but inside an independent bookstore?

So even though I was on vacation with Denis and the dog, I bought the book, and began to read it.

Chris Stedman is a bright and shining young intellectual who first really offered me a framework for the atheistic theologian, and I am looking forward to his book in November.

Allain de Botton’s book really offered some deep questions that I wanted to share with you.

Botton’s opens his book with this sentence “The most boring and unproductive question on case ask of any religion is whether or not it is true—in terms of being handed down from heaven to the sound of trumpets and supernaturally by prophets and celestial beings.”

“Attempting to prove the non-existence of God can be an entertaining activity for atheists. Tough-minded critics of religion have found much pleasure in laying bare the idiocy of believers in remorseless detail, finishing only when the felt they had shown up their enemies as thorough-going simpletons or maniacs.

Though this exercise has it’s satisfactions, the real issue is not whether God exists or not, but where to take the argument once one decides that he evidently doesn’t.”

I can not recommend this book more highly. In fact, I could’ve just gone through this book, taken quotes from various sections and read it to you, disguised as a sermon.

Sort of like what Jefferson did to the Bible to produce “Jefferson’s Bible.”

I found this text so well written that I had pull away from the text lest I commit plagiarism.

Do you all know about the Jefferson Bible? It’s actual title is The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. It was “composed” in 1804 by Jefferson when he cut passages out of the traditional bible, and pasted them into a new book, leaving out what he thought were unreasonable errors in the original text: mis-reportings by the “Four Evangelists.”


I want to talk with you about some challenges I found in Botton’s book.

1. What religion brings us
2. Secular Atheists lack the tools for community
3. Religion is good at building community through ritual
4. The challenge of Yom Kippur for seculars.

My question for my friends the atheists in our church is this: are you living a spiritual life as atheists? Part of practicing Unitarian Universalism is engaging in “The free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Are you still searching, or have you arrived at the stop called atheism and got off the bus, secure that you need search no further?

Actually, that’s a great question for us all.

Have you found your theological niche, and stopped the process of searching for a deeper meaning in your own spiritual journey?

I want to invite us, all of us, including the minister, to get back on the road to discovery.

As a Unitarian Universalist minister, I am not particularly invested in your specific theological detals. By that I mean I don’t stay up nights worried that you might be a Christian or a Buddhist or a Pagan or some hybrid mix. I trust you with that. I trust that on Sunday’s you’ll come to church and share coffee, fellowship, important life matters and theology with those you meet here, in this church.

While I find people’s personal theologies interesting, I am a Unitarian Universalist after all, that’s not the important question for me.

The important question for me, as the minister, is “Are you theologically stuck, or are you in motion? Are you widening your theological perspective…are you drilling deeper into your spirituality? Or are you at the bus stop, watching bus after bus of searchers go by you as you sit secure in the knowledge that you know all you need to know about religion?

We are a liberal faith, a faith by its very definition that is never complete, never free of critique, never settled.

It is my deepest hope that wherever you are theologically, you are a little uncomfortable and you are looking around for bigger and better answers to a deeper spiritual life.



© The Rev. Joseph M Cherry
Written for and delivered to
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County
August 19, 2012