by Jessie Roberts
Nat Case articulates how he reconciles being both an atheist and a committed Quaker:
If you are really going to be part of a community, just showing up for the main meal is not enough: you need to help cook and clean up. So it has been with me and the Quakers: I’m concerned with how my community works, and so I’ve served on committees (Quakerism is all about committees). There’s pastoral care to accomplish, a building to maintain, First-Day School (Quakerese for Sunday School) to organise. And there’s the matter of how we as a religious community will bring our witness into the world.
Perhaps this language sounds odd coming from a non-theist, but as I hope I’ve shown, I’m not a non-theist first. I’ve been involved in prison visiting, and have been struck at the variety of religious attitudes among volunteers: some for whom the visiting is in itself ministry, and others for whom it’s simply social action towards justice (the programme grew out of visiting conscientious objectors in the Vietnam era). The point is: theological differences are not necessarily an issue when there’s work to be done.
But the committees I’ve been in have also had a curious sense of unease too, a sense of something missing, and I’ve now been on three committees that were specifically charged with addressing aspects of a sense of malaise and communal disconnect. The openness of liberal religion resonates strongly with me. It means I do have a place, and not just in the closet or as a hypocrite. But I wonder if my presence, and the presence of atheists and skeptics such as me, is part of the problem.
People need focus. There’s a reason why the American mythologist Joseph Campbell chose the hero’s journey as his fundamental myth: we don’t give out faith and loyalty to an idea nearly as readily as we give it to a hero, a person. And so a God whom we understand not as a vague notion or spirit, but as a living presence, with voice and face and will and command — this is what I think most people want in a visceral way. In some ways, it’s what we need.
And I do not believe such a God exists in our universe.
The Dish 