Can An Atheist Walk With Jesus?
I was watching Deadline White House on MSNBC, as I do nearly every day. Ali Velshi was substituting for new mom - for the second time - Nicolle Wallace.
One of his guests was Atlantic writer Tim Alberta. Alberta was promoting his new book, The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. At one point, in discussing his own background as the son of an evangelical minister, Alberta said, “I have walked with Jesus for my entire life.”
That got me thinking.
I was raised Catholic. I spent five long years in Catholic school. (I was sprung when Sister Emerencia told my fifth grade class, “If a Black person attacks you in an alley, you shouldn’t hit them in the head because our skulls are thicker than ours.” Yes. For real.) As a very good student, I learned all of the lessons I was supposed to learn. I still mumble all of the appropriate responses when I have to attend Catholic Mass for a wedding or funeral. Talk about indoctrination!
But despite my good memory for going through the proper motions, I am no longer Catholic. In fact, I no longer believe in God.
What do I believe in?
I believe in the power of the best of us working together. I believe in, as Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. …” I believe in goodness and caring and human rights and treating others as I want to be treated.
(In my senior year of high school, I was assigned the somewhat absurd task of writing my philosophy of life. I was 17. I’d barely started my life. Nevertheless, I persisted. :-) I entitled my essay, “The Virtue of Bigness.” In it, I stated my belief in generosity, in expanding rights to all people, in government as an instrument by which we take care of one another - you get the idea. But this is an idea for another post.)
When I think about it, I realize that I believe in much of what Jesus Christ is said to have preached - at least according to the New Testament. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, discusses Christ’s highest ideals on spirituality and compassion.
The idea that Jesus is the Son of God doesn’t resonate as much with me - if I don’t believe in God, it follows that I don’t believe he/she had a son. Nor does the concept of discipleship - I cannot follow anyone blindly and without question.
But Jesus as a role model? Jesus as a good person? Hell, yes!
I wish more people who call themselves Christian would think of Jesus as a role model and actually do what he preached. Jesus’ messages about caring for the poor and less fortunate are all over the New Testament. But that’s for yet another post.
In the First Gospel of John (1 John 4:16), Jesus is said to have said, “God is love and he who abides in love, abides in God.”
In other words - at least to me - God is not some guy with a beard and a white robe. God is not anthropomorphic. God IS love. The highest ideal is love.
I do believe in the ideal of love.
Jesus lived and preached according to that ideal.
That is someone I can walk with …