Today’s “Ask a Progressive Christian” with ProgressiveChristianity.org Co-Executive Director Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines: Can you be a Christian agnostic? A Christian atheist?
“Can you explain how you can be an atheist and a United Church minister?"
I am not comfortable with calling myself an Atheist since that often implies belief in no life after biological death. How do you define an Atheist?
Just as the term “believer” means very different things to those who use it, so do to does the word “atheist” include a wide set of definitions.
How does a progressive Christian exist with no Christian community of support even from clergy who certainly do discuss modernized theology? It certainly is a lonely vigil.
Would it be fair for me to promote the notion that you - a self-declared atheist leading a United Church of Canada congregation - and your church are generally promoting humanist values as well as providing the community benefits that churches normally provide?
Would you comment from your Christian perspective on the Buddhist assertion that we have no separate self or separate existence because we cannot understand who we are without understanding who we aren't, and our separate existence is known only because of everything we are? Is the sense of self an illusion?
Whether the person engaged in the act of prayer believes in a supernatural deity or force or the benevolence of the universe, we are the only answer we’ve got to the challenges facing our world. Some will work toward solutions compelled by the god in whom they believe. Others will work toward solutions compelled by theirs own sense of compassion and responsibility. Goodness comes into the world through our own hands, voices, and actions.