Churched Atheists

Understandably, atheists don’t go to church. Church communities demand a huge time commitment and heavy emotional labor. They exert subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle pressure to change, to believe, to confess. And, what with the statistical decline nationwide in Christian belief and church attendance, fewer people even notice or care if atheists are absent.

Really though, if you’re an atheist you need church as much as believers do! Behold, all the benefits of churchgoing—singing, making friends, potlucks, social service, moral guidance, coming of age rituals (e.g., confirmation, graduation), social intensification rituals (e.g., births, baptisms, weddings, funerals). You may find a loving, accountability group (e.g., Christian AA) that offers hope instead of despair. You will find a good job-seeker network. A support group for life crises. A place to get married or buried. A place that offers meaning to your life. You might even find free babysitting! You can have all these things without abandoning atheism because so much of church life does not demand any belief in the supernatural

Turns out that churchgoing is good for your health. A 2020 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology reported that church attenders had a 26% reduced risk of dying and a 34% lower risk of heavy drinking. Church attendance was also associated with less anxiety, depression, hopelessness and loneliness. Church attenders lean toward healthy family and community behaviors. You’ll find good mentors who will hold you accountable and give you honest critique. If you’re older, just getting out of the house and doing something—anything—is good for you. If you’re younger, hey, it might be worth going just to make your parents happy!

And the food! Go to “men’s fellowships” or ladies’ teas. Even some Bible studies are partly an elaborate excuse to eat good food. You run into older “church basement ladies” who are great cooks and you won’t find better potlucks anywhere. You can drink free coffee every Sunday with no hangovers or regrets.

Much church music is great music that people of all faiths or nonfaiths enjoy. Some sermons are masterpieces of homiletics, persuasive argument and great rhetoric—it’s ok to get inspired, even if you don’t buy the teachings. You may satisfy your need for the fine arts even if you don’t share the beliefs—singing, sculptures, paintings, images, creeds, holy books.

You might get free travel. Church people take “mission trips” to U.S. and foreign destinations and the congregation sometimes springs for the cost. There are often no explicit belief requirements or litmus tests for these trips (although there may be some behavioral requirements).

You’ll be shocked by the broad palette of church activities—basketball, book clubs, service groups, breakfast gatherings—none of which demand any religious commitment. And what a great place to meet someone who might become your good friend—or spouse!

You’ll learn about charitable causes to support. You’ll learn how to better deal with needy people, the poor or mentally challenged. You will become part of a fellowship that will support you in your dire need: health, family or marriage breakdown, social conflicts, economic collapse.

A multigenerational congregation will give you a chance to interact with people of different ages. If you pick a multiethnic church, even better. (But beware of over-zealous people who take their faith way too seriously and tend to have more rigid lifestyle expectations.)

You’ll be amazed at how rarely any churchgoer quizzes you on your own beliefs. Shocked at how infrequently anyone buttonholes you to contribute money to the church. Know that many other attenders do not share core church beliefs and may never contribute any money.

However, you must be on guard against the pitfalls. You might feel like a hypocrite—presenting yourself as someone you’re not. But take heart; many churchgoers feel the same way. They’re convinced others are much better Christians than themselves. They keep silent about their doubts and tend to mask their more juicy lifestyle habits. You’re in good company!

Another danger—your atheist friends might feel passed by or ignored, might mock and criticize you, might call you a hypocrite. You need to assure them you’re not a “seeker.”

At church you dare not trumpet your own beliefs nor criticize the beliefs of others (however crazy they might seem to you). You may need to hide your true beliefs, mask some of your more interesting habits. But surprise! I’ve found that people get way more upset over my politics than they ever do over my doctrinal beliefs. So, be careful.

Beware of ramped-up demands—asking your opinion about a Bible passage, inviting you to volunteer on a committee or to participate in a prayer meeting. Even with coffee and donuts it’s tedious to circle for an hour with people who think they’re talking to someone invisible . People might even seek you out for spiritual advice—awkward.

It’s rare, but church leadership might push you to become a member. This might require a litmus test that would demand that you lie about your beliefs and about certain delicious parts of your ungodly lifestyle. But in my experience, they let almost anybody slide through.

But we haven’t mentioned the greatest threat. You might like church. The food, camaraderie, physical and emotional support, entertainment, uplift and inspiration may tempt you to question your most deeply-held non-beliefs. As C.S. Lewis warns, you can’t be too careful. You run into these temptations at every turn.

Be strong. Resist. If not, you, like C.S. Lewis, might get sucked kicking and screaming into that 2,000-year-old fellowship of diverse, broken, hurting, annoying and amazing people who are on the road to a Christ encounter.

18 thoughts on “Churched Atheists”

    1. Ah, the comforts of delusion. It’s a wonderful life, unless it isn’t. But then, we can simply turn on the mythological machine and turn it into anything we like! What could possibly be better than that?

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    4. “You read your Bible? We get death threats here. I am not walking into the slaughterhouse.”

      you said “here”, Aaron, so you appear to be talking about this website getting death threats, and that would mean you are a christian, which explains my response, questioning if a christian is afraid of death threats. If I am wrong, I do apologize.

      “From the death threats from Christians? What god are you talking about?”

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    5. Ahhh my fault. Yeah that should be Human beings get death threats from the Christians. Here is the USA but I am certain it is more widespread. I mean in Ireland christians kill christians. The extremists in US will be doing this soon. Their only enemy here is themselves and well, us non believers.

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    6. I live in the US too, and yes, it would not surprise me if these christians started attacking each other (and everyone else) since they are all so sure only they are right and are desperate for their “end times”.

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  3. This is such an interesting perspective on churchgoing for atheists! It’s refreshing to see that so much of church life doesn’t require belief in the supernatural. Have you personally found that the benefits you mentioned outweigh any potential drawbacks or challenges?

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    1. As a Christ-follower, I sometimes find church transformative; and sometimes dreary and boring. And yet I always find the community intriguing and stimulating. Some of the attenders have had amazing life journeys into faith.

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  4. You should stop wasting your time try to “understand” atheists. We’re just like you except we’re a lot more discriminating when it comes to belief in anything supernatural whereas you are obviously not. We don’t believe in aliens, UFO’s, Sasquatch, leprechauns, fairies, ghosts, poltergeists, and many other supernatural entities including saints, holy men, and a god. It’s that simple. We do not require your psychotherapy, in fact, we believe that it’s more likely that you do. And, while it may have taken some of us more time than others to explicate ourselves from the slavery of such mental and moral imprisonment as religion, we’re fine just as we are, thank you very much.

    If I were you I’d spend more time trying to figure out what exactly it is about mythology that YOU are so mired in and enamored of that you’re so willing to hand over your own personal freedoms for a story that seems to lack even a scintilla of evidence. Now that is worth analyzing.

    Good luck!

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    2. curious since your religion advocates for genocide, slavery, and killing poeple for things they didn’t do. Reading the bible was quite eye opening for me, a christian. Pastors don’t mention those parts.

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  5. Happily, I don’t need any religion for moral guidance, especially christianity with its supposed god that commits and commands genocide, that kills people for things they didn’t do and had no control over, and who supports slavery.

    And no one needs your religion to have hope. Us atheists do quite fine without it.

    “You might get free travel. Church people take “mission trips” to U.S. and foreign destinations and the congregation sometimes springs for the cost. There are often no explicit belief requirements or litmus tests for these trips (although there may be some behavioral requirements)”

    wow, travel to try to convert people who have their own religion or who don’t want religion. Yep, my former church sends people to countries with plenty of christians in them, just to try to convert them to their version.

    “You’ll learn about charitable causes to support. You’ll learn how to better deal with needy people, the poor or mentally challenged. You will become part of a fellowship that will support you in your dire need: health, family or marriage breakdown, social conflicts, economic collapse.”

    Don’t need the religion for this either. Having been a christian, I know that your claims aren’t always true about churches.

    it really is amusing how desperate you seem to be to fill the pews no matter who is there.

    “But we haven’t mentioned the greatest threat. You might like church. The food, camaraderie, physical and emotional support, entertainment, uplift and inspiration may tempt you to question your most deeply-held non-beliefs. As C.S. Lewis warns, you can’t be too careful. You run into these temptations at every turn.

    Be strong. Resist. If not, you, like C.S. Lewis, might get sucked kicking and screaming into that 2,000-year-old fellowship of diverse, broken, hurting, annoying and amazing people who are on the road to a Christ encounter.”

    Oh yes, C.S. Lewis, who said to lie to potenial converts about the splintering of Christianity since that would not convince them that joining the cult was a good idea. ” And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son. ” – Mere Christianity, preface.

    I do wonder if my post will be allowed to be seen, or if as usual, the christian will try to hide that atheists aren’t interested in their claims and can see how false they are.

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