2013/02/04

review: Christian Atheist

Christian Atheist: Belonging without Believing
Brian Mountford

I happened upon this thoughtful book in Blackwell's Book Shop while I was Christmas shopping: so much for Amazon!  It caught my eye because Brian Mountford has been the Vicar of the University Church for as long as I can remember.  I've been aware of his ministry there almost exclusively second-hand.  Until a few years ago, I would probably have dismissed it as not for people like me. On the other hand, it's always been clear that the life of the University Church meets the needs of quite a number of people.

And that, really, is the point of departure for the book.  Through the church, and wider University life, Brian encounters numerous people who wouldn't claim to believe in God, but find themselves friends, fellow-travellers, and even active participants in the life of the Christian Church.  Mountford sets out to explore their experience and perceptions, and to consider how the Church should respond to them.

It's an interesting journey.  He points out that for all the credal, propositional public faith, the actual life of the Church, and the local congregation, and indeed the individual, is often much more tentative. It is based more on relationship, on belonging, than on belief.  "Belonging before believing" was of course a distinctive of some of the first people to write about the emerging church, so this is a meme that has a wider applicability.  Mountford, though, isn't talking of people on a spiritual journey towards God - or not particularly, anyway - but those who are quite happy with vast swathes of Christian life and practice, and with the experience of worship, without being persuaded, or even wanting to think about, the metaphysics.

So he discusses the place of Christian morality, aesthetics, and 'permeable borders of doctrine', in the lives of these Christian Atheists.  This is motivated and illustrated by lots of short 'interview' pieces with individuals he has encountered who embody these positions which seem initially contradictory.

The book is very plainly the work of a pastor.  This isn't high-blown abstract theology or philosophy, it's strongly rooted in the life and ministry of a thinking man in a city and University prone to a lot of deep thinking.  Of course, Mountford is well-read and highly-educated himself, so his work draws on countless theologians, philosophers and others throught the ages, their ideas woven together with skill to present an account strongly rooted in the western traditions of Christendom, yet moving the reader's thought into a seldom-explored category of unbelieving Christian practice.

You might guess that I'm rather taken with the book.  I don't think I fall quite into his category of being a Chistian Atheist - not on most days, anyway - though I can very much see the perspective he describes.  It strikes me as a much happier place than the militant atheists find themselves, and, dare I say it, an intellectually more satisfying place also.  I 'get' that you might want to dismiss the foundational belief system of two millenia for a significant part of the world's population, but it's simply careless to ignore at the same time the breadth and depth of cultural life and moral teaching that has accompanied it.  To liken the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the Church of England is to make a category mistake.

The book avoids over-blown conclusions or predictions, but concludes with the notion that "Christian Atheists are definitely part of the enterprise - tangential, in some sense maybe, but contributors [...]"  He provocatively suggests that some of the best theology of our age may be written by such people.  He concludes that the correct and best response to those who don't just doubt, or seek, but really don't
believe, is one of welcome.  Amen to that.

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