Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2005 Fall Issue -- I Do Believe

: Chuck Bryant has graciously responded to our request to hear from "unbelievers." We seek to open up our ears better so that we can understand those with whom we would hope to share the good news. Let's let our guest contributor speak for himself.

My “unbelief” reflects not a rejection of God, but a neutral non-belief that remains in the absence of clear, objective, compelling evidence, comparable to the Scottish legal finding, “not proved.”

I became a Christian at about age 12. Before finishing high school, I read the entire Bible through three times. I studied it substantially more for some preaching I did and I completed an academic minor in New Testament Greek. My present “unbelief” emerged not through erosion from any secularism, humanism, nor empiricism, but from my fervent scriptural studies, during which I believed the Bible intently, and sought to defend it. Ironically, my studies forced me to admit that I could not responsibly defend the abundant flaws, contradictions, ignorance, and moral evils upheld and promoted in any literalist belief rooted in the Bible.

Eventually, I concluded that if any god does exist, the god of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures does not deserve my belief as such, nor do its attendant monotheisms. Having even less evidence for any other deities, I refrain from affirming belief. In effect this posits an unbelief more properly called agnosticism, which I must emphasize, for reasons too complicated to address here, does not mean atheism.

Here I summarize some key points—rooted mostly in my Biblical studies—that eroded my traditional theism and left me neutral toward such “belief”:

: 1. The Hebrew covenant did codify and advance some great moral ideals, and many of the prophets did promote social justice. However, the same Torah also promoted warmongering invasion, bigotry, ignorance, and cruelty—among all “Biblical” traditions. Key example: the genocide perpetrated by my theological ancestors (per Deut. 20:16) to wipe out everything that breathes—to seize land!—excludes any semblance of a “just war” in whatever sense, per Maimonides, Aquinas, and others. This to me vividly and reprehensibly demonstrates the human origins and blatantly political motives of oral traditions, later writings, and religious traditions, that came to be considered sacred. The Hebrew Bible contains numerous other examples of egregious ignorance which then passed for morality, some equally severe, some only foolish.

2. Not a single example of Christian “Messianic Evidences,” taken literally, in context, supports belief in the traditional Jesus story. E.g., Matt. 27:34 and John. 19:28-30 supposedly “fulfill” Psalm. 69:21. Keep reading Psalm. 69:22-28. Anyone who affirms that the psalmist “foresees” Jesus must also affirm Jesus as viciously vindictive, not forgiving. If we discard the literalist view of Jesus and recognize the “prophecies” dogma as a later retrofit, we can focus on the significant meaning. This truth does undermine mainstream literalist “belief.”

3. Many unusual, overlooked passages expose the human origins of the texts. One simple example: too often I’ve heard a particularly insipid treatment of the erotica in the Song of Solomon, ludicrously trying to twist it into a foreshadowing of “Christ and the Church.” Such silliness undermines conventional “belief” in “inspiration.”

4. Discoveries rooted in the Nag Hammadi library allow for a fuller understanding of the flawed, political, and finally arbitrary process of selecting the canon. We have no reason to attribute divine guidance to this self-contradictory collection of writings known as the Bible.

I’ve found that most Christians have hardly examined these serious problems interwoven with their scriptures, traditions, and attendant beliefs.

Many Christian apologists still aim—pointlessly—to support nonrational faith and belief by establishing or implying “rational proof” of God through faux science. Empiricism does not validly evoke belief via the current model of creationism being marketed as “Intelligent Design.” Given limited space, here I’ll offer only this: if we attribute cosmological/biological “irreducible complexity” and wonder to any Designer, we must also attribute all disorder and tragedy, from miscarriages and birth defects to hurricanes and astronomical collisions, to the same “design.” This stirs up the problem of evil, which no amount of theological gymnastics over “the fall” will ever dismiss. I have no reason to believe in a god who “designs” mayhem, destruction, and anguish.

If we accept the obvious sociological origins of theisms and scripture, and we duly discard archaic literalist beliefs—as most of us have properly discarded flat earth worldviews—then we can, to use Marcus Borg’s phrase, take the Bible seriously, but not literally. Some scorn this as “unbelief.” I affirm it as honoring religious traditions, symbols, myths, and legends, with the value they genuinely deserve as part of history and culture. In this “unbelief,” I find myself valuing greater truth, which makes me free indeed, so that I can better focus on the nobler ideals of most theisms: a more just and loving world. My absence of traditional “belief,” blended with what I consider informed, modern belief, compels me to behave more morally, more compassionately, more diligently with more rational regard for myself, all members of humanity, and all that exists. Thus, I maintain a very active role with a courageous, open-minded, progressive Christian church—because I do believe in life.

Chuck Bryant lives in Miami, Florida. We appreciate his response to our request to submit an article by a "non-believer" and we use that term only with gratitude and respect for his response. For more of his perspectives in detail on these issues, see this section of his own website.