Saturday, February 20, 2010

Christian Atheism

I'm having internet problems today, hence this mobile post.

Tweeter @guerillamonk brought the concept of Christian atheism ("CA") to my attention today. CA is a belief system in which the god of Christianity is rejected but the teachings of Jesus are followed.

Thomas Ogletree, an assistant professor of Constructive Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, describes CA as comprising these four common beliefs:

1. the assertion of the unreality of God for our age, including the understandings of God which have been a part of traditional Christian theology;

2. the insistence upon coming to grips with contemporary culture as a necessary feature of responsible theological work;

3. varying degrees and forms of alienation from the church as it is now constituted; and

4. recognition of the centrality of the person of Jesus in theological reflection.

Sounds great to me. I have no problem with the teachings of Jesus. Just leave the miracles and holy trinity at the door please.

If you're interested in finding out more CA, go to this site: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism?wasRedirected=true

*For those interested, the picture of the scraggly tree above was taken last summer on the coast of Nova Scotia looking over the Northumberland Strait towards Prince Edward Island. The tree struck me because it was stubbornly hanging on to an earthen cliff that was collapsing towards the beach. I can almost guarantee that it is now simply beachwood, 100 feet below where it is pictured above.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Posted by The Atheist Missionary at 9:54 AM
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4 comments:

  1. I wrote recently on Contra-Faith, which I would suggest is a different form of Christian Atheism.

    It's ex-Christians who use both the Christian theological arguments and the understanding of the contra-arguments (e.g. contrary, contrasting, and contradictory) to show that faith based arguments aren't sustainable.

    And also why Christians avoid the contra-faith arguments and refuse to defend against them.

    http://advocatusatheist.blogspot.com/2010/02/contra-faith-on-collision-of-reason-and.html
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  2. With respect, this is stupid. There is no Christianity without God. The name is schizophrenic. It is nothing more than a cheap effort to appease everyone, but nobody satisfactorily.

    What's next? A group of Bishops who moonlight as paleontologists?
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  3. I was thinking the same thing. It would seem that either you believe or you don't. How can you have belief in jesus but not his father? How could jesus be here if not for his father? Bear with me, I have never had religion to begin with so I don't know much about the bible. It's all so confusing.
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  4. "What's next? A group of Bishops who moonlight as paleontologists?".... lol. You've obviously never heard of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Christian Atheism is not as oxymoronic as you think
    ReplyDelete

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