I’m not a Christian, but I like church. I like the music, the socializing, the social causes, the smorgasbord of activities to choose from, the potlucks, the community, the network of support. It’s where I grew up, met my husband, and commemorated events. It’s where I had the platform to perform from an early age, and it’s the vehicle that led to spending a summer in Tanzania when I was 18.
Those are all real benefits of being part of the church community. In my view, they are all manifestations of 'love your neighbor,' and even if you never get past that you've already mastered the hardest part of Christianity. Where is the intellectual dishonesty?
It would be nice to join a community that is for me more intellectually honest. But there is frankly nothing like a religious group. There is nothing else that competes with the social offerings, the unifying communal effect evoked by intense belief, or the level of support, at least to this degree. There are many exceptions, but I’m addressing the majority.
If you feel like you are being dishonest with yourself by being in this community, then I guess that would be weird. I would personally find it hard to attend church services if all the way through I was thinking it was just all meaningless, or worse.
Richard Robinson wrote in 1975 that “we need to create and spread symbols and procedures that will confirm our intentions without involving us in intellectual dishonesty.”
Makes sense, but every time people start to agree in growing numbers on shared symbols or rituals, you create a religion, or a nation, or some identifiable body that sooner or later another group of people is going to find intellectually dishonest or offensive.
And how do you feel about a nonbeliever joining or participating in your church, synagogue, mosque, etc.?
No problem at all.
What about in a leadership role?
Well, if you start leading folks according to your own way of thinking, eventually you'll be going down a different path and forming a new group.
I ask because when I told a few people from my church about my deconversion a few years ago, they were grief-stricken and shocked. One suggested I lay low, not participate in Bible studies or discussions. I got the impression Christianity is an army that kills its wounded. Got doubts? Here’s the door. But that’s another discussion.
Doubt seems a different thing to me than realizing you don't believe any of it. I have participated in religious study groups with some pretty diverse beliefs honestly expressed, all by members of the same church. If one is going to participate only by saying that it is all hogwash and meaningless, then probably staying away from Bible study/religious discussion makes sense. But, if you like a scholarly approach to Bible study, or want to explore what it meant to the church historically, or what if anything it means to you, then being a non-theist would not put you beyond the pale.
2c
Will delete the long drawn-out post! 