Who is the Christian Atheist?

Hi, I'm your host, the Christian Atheist.  Let's make this a FAQ.

Q.  Is there just one author of this blog?

A.  Yes.

Q.  So are you a Christian or an atheist?  Because you can't be both.

A.  I'm a Christian who thinks like an atheist.  This is explained in the introductory post, What do you mean by "Christian Atheist"?

Q.  What kind of Christian are you?

A.  Probably best described as post-evangelical.  I go to a denominational church but can barely stand the group-think and cultural parasitism.  I would be described as confessing, in that I point to certain creeds (the Nicene is my favorite) and confessions (the Westminster is pretty good) as somewhat reliable and accurate statements of Christian belief.

Q.  What is your profession?

A.  Hate to be coy here but I must stay anonymous.  I have a postgraduate degree and it got me my current job.  I do a lot of writing and I travel regularly.  I am not a clergy member.

Q.  Where do you work?

A.  Don't be silly.  I'm anonymous because there are things I will write that could annoy my employer or its partners.

Q.  Male or female?  Married or otherwise?  Old or young?  Hot or not?

A.  Hot.

What do you mean by "Christian Atheist"?

Let me start by explaining what I don't mean by the term.  Years ago, I was chatting with a professor who mentioned that he was "an Orthodox Jew."  I thought this was interesting and started asking him about his lifestyle.  After answering a few of my queries, he said something like this: "Yes, well, the only thing I'm really orthodox about is my atheism."  He was a Jewish atheist.  At the time, I found this curious, even absurd, but it described him pretty well.  He was an unbeliever, who was practicing a particular religion for reasons apart from belief.

So there are many Christian atheists, I suppose.  These are people who don't believe, but who practice Christian religion for reasons apart from belief.

But when I write as The Christian Atheist, I write as someone who is the converse of that portrayal.  I do believe, but culturally and intellectually and even religiously, I'm an atheist.  I act and think more like a humanist or a skeptic than like a typical Christian.  I'm more comfortable around atheists than I am around most Christians – I'd rather spend a week on a cruise with nothing but skeptics than an afternoon with a clatch of earnest evangelicals.

I'm naturally skeptical, and habitually prone to disbelief.  I trust atheists more than I trust believers.  I tend to hate religion as much as atheists do.  It's not enough to say that I'm embarrassed by Christians, or apologetic about the failures of Christianity.  I'm distrustful of Christians, and suspicious of Christianity as a system.  Yes, I've seen and heard and experienced evil at the hands of Christians, but I have no dramatic story of persecution or suffering.  Rather, I'm just someone who finds most of what is said and done in the name of God to be worthless or worse.  And I'm someone who has found that the questions of the skeptics are good questions, and that the answers of the faithful are not always honest or helpful.

So why not "The Skeptical Christian"?  It would be more accurate, but it doesn't sound quite right.  The Christian Atheist bespeaks the tension and the contradictions.  And it sounds better.