Must Christmas happen every year?

Christmas is hard for me because I have a particularly difficult, mentally ill relative who has ruined several recent family gatherings. I am also an atheist opposed to consumerism.

I'm beginning to see myself as a cultural Christian. I never hear people use that term, but I think it applies widely. There seem to be many people raised Christian who later drop some or most of their beliefs and rarely or never attend church. But the major major holidays they observe still have an obvious Christian element. And Christian churches are where these people attend big life events--weddings and funerals.

I hear the term cultural or secular Jew more often. But Jewishness is different, since one can be ethnically Jewish. I suppose then I need to think about whether we can call people who are of European decent ethnically Christian.

At any rate, Christmas for me is pain. Last year I attended a Unitarian Universalist service Christmas Sunday not to celebrate the holiday, but to have a venue among my peers to reflect on my sadness. Incidentally, the service included an uplifting Jesus story. But I was there for the same reason I went to a service on the tenth anniversary of 9/11--to get through it by being around people.

But I am a perfectly clumsy contradiction. I am listening to a Christmas album as I type this. It is not a conventional Christmas album. It is Mary Chapin Carpenter's Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas. Many of the songs are originals and overall the album isn't very Christmassy, but rather Carpenter's typical mellow and thoughtful folk.

And this isn't even the first Christmas album I've been spinning even before Thanksgiving. Atheist-Interfaith guru Chris Stedman (author of the book I blogged recently about) reminded me in a tweet that Sufjan Stevens had a new album out. Sufjan once announced that he would release an album for every state in the USA. He completed two state albums (Illinoise is mesmerizing) and took a break to record a five-volume Christmas album. That was 2006. Now, in 2012, this nut has released Volumes 6-10.

Sufjan's Christmas music is extremely unconventional, and hearing it drove me to revisit Mary Chapin Carpenter's 2008 holiday release, whose music is more conventional, though not very conventional for a Christmas album, since its Chistmassiness is for the most part subtle.

I'm an atheist trying to understand my Christian cultural identity, and my appreciation for Christmas music, however nontraditional, is a piece of that puzzle.

Faitheism

Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious by Chris Stedman is a book that had to be written. Raised in a largely nonreligious household, Stedman became a born again Christian in his early adolescence by his own initiative. He then agonized over the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality as he began to discover his own gayness. He distanced himself from Christianity and eventually stopped believing in god. He became a militant atheist, happy to offend believers, and once in a drunken rage, vandalizing church property.

Yet he happened to be studying religion in college and learned through a series of transformative interpersonal experiences that he wanted to build bridges between the religious and nonreligious. He had a natural drive to serve people in need and felt at home with faith-driven individuals who shared this drive. Moreover, only by sharing his story as a queer atheist did he form deep and rewarding relationships within the interfaith community. He concluded that it was fruitless to define himself by his atheism, since atheism is about what one doesn't believe. He writes:

I am far more concerned about whether people are pluralistic in their worldview--if they oppose totalitarianism and believe those of different religious and nonreligious identities should be free to live as they choose and cooperate around shared values--than I am about whether someone believes in God or not.

He argues that the "New Atheist" movement, led by such writers as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens, are too confrontational and give atheists a bad name. I happen to appreciate the image of Christopher Hitchens touring the world and sharply criticizing theism as he is dying of cancer, and Richard Dawkin's pressing Muslims to reveal that they believe death should be the penalty for infidelity.

I think that Stedman's outlook is going to broaden the atheist movement. There is no grand council of atheists who set an agenda. His approach of building bridges rather than walls and working across religious lines to fight suffering, injustice, and extremism can become part of the atheist movement. His conviction that the interfaith movement must welcome not only those of diverse religions but also the nonreligious (and should in fact name itself something that doesn't include faith) is gaining traction.

Stedman notes the folly of writing a memoir in his mid twenties. But his story needs to be shared. There are many nonreligious people out there who don't believe in the supernatural, but respect--or heck, are even drawn to--religious traditions. There are nonbelievers whose cultural identity is still Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, and that is simply a part of who they are.

Stedman's openness and respect of for religious people has impacted my thinking. I find myself feeling for the Catholics I know who are non-practicing, but still have some of their Catholic beliefs, leaving them conflicted and guilt laden. For Pete's sake, I don't respect Catholicism, but I'd prefer that these people find peace in their faith.

And I don't share Stedmen's distaste of the New Atheist movement. I think that in a pluralistic society, nothing is so sacred as to be free from public criticism. But I think he is changing the atheist movement by inserting his style into it, broadening it into a more robust movement that welcomes freethinkers and can ally with moderate religious individuals.