You may have seen last week’s article in The Atlantic entitled “Listening to Young Atheists: Lessons for a Stronger Christianity.” In it, college-aged atheists are interviewed about their reasons for becoming atheist. While there are lessons for a stronger Christianity, more particularly there are lessons for a stronger Catholicism. I reprint the article’s subheadings with my own commentary:
- “They had attended church“–College atheists mostly came from a Christian (not Jewish, Muslim, etc.) background. This might simply reflect that most Americans in general come from a Christian background; i.e., if Christians are X% of the population and Muslims are a much smaller Y% of the population, it would be somewhat unsurprising if X% of atheists are ex-Christians and Y% of atheists are ex-Muslims. But, still, the fact that there are any ex-Christian atheists (and I would imagine a disproportionately large number of ex-Catholic atheists) reflects poor evangelization on our part.
- “The mission and message of their churches was vague“–Here the Church seems to have a leg up. It is difficult to reject the fact that the Catholic Church has maintained the same message and mission for two thousand years if 1) one is aware of the Church’s history and basic teachings, and 2) one’s local parish is in conformity with said history and teachings. Being uncatechized (as I was until about a decade ago) or sitting in a parish that bends or openly defies the rules is inviting an exodus. The paragraph under this heading alone is worth 30 seconds of your reading.
- “They felt their churches offered superficial answers to life’s difficult questions“–Superficial? Have you seen how big the Cathechism is? Have you read Frank Sheed explain the Trinity? The college atheists had big, meaning-of-life type of questions that they hoped their churches could answer but didn’t or couldn’t: “they often concluded that church services were largely shallow, harmless, and ultimately irrelevant.” Priests and liturgists can use this as a reminder that the entirety of the liturgy needs to revolve around the central Eucharistic mystery; as in the previous paragraph, if Mass is just a “feel-good” hour and not a period of deeply humble and awe-filled thanksgiving, teenagers of course will get “bored with church.”
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“They expressed their respect for those ministers who took the Bible seriously“–Again, maybe “young atheists” are a representative sample of Americans who, if Christian, are more likely to be Protestant than Catholic. If so, and if their traditions exclusively embrace the Bible, then drifting from that anchor is discouraging. For Catholics, a drifting from Church authority (Scripture, Tradition, Magisterial teaching) will likely produce the same effect. Do young Catholics subconsciously swallow the Protestant emphasis on the Bible alone? By doing so, is it easier to slip into atheism?
- “Ages 14-17 were decisive“–Yup, that’s when I stopped caring. Even before that, though, C.C.D. classes was just school on Sunday night, and why would an uncatechized kid want to go to that? Not to mention that our parish had guitars up front, a tabernacle in a far-flung room, and these for “pews.” It was an environment that wasn’t very conducive to heavenly thoughts, but hey, it was the early ’80s. Could the cure be re-energized youth groups? Perhaps, but by 14 I already had the sense that youth groups tried in vain to replicate coolness. Since I didn’t have a fundamental understanding of why the Church, Jesus, or the Eucharist was really important anyway, even at a much younger age, by 14 I was too secular to be drawn back by pizza and lock-ins.
- “The decision to embrace unbelief was often an emotional one“–I never embraced unbelief, it’s just that belief and I stopped hanging out. What brought me back, and what this reason seems to suggest, was the importance of friendship. The friend who brought me back ultimately became my wife, and I certainly wouldn’t have taken her attempts to bring me back to the faith seriously if we hadn’t established a friendship first. Since the choice to be atheist apparently can often be traced back to a troubling or emotional event, Catholics need to show charity. Rational arguments for God’s existence cannot undo trauma, but a caring, sympathetic ear can eventually help frame the event within a Catholic understanding of the meaning of suffering.
- “The internet factored heavily into their conversion to atheism“–The article seems to suggest that the effect of the internet in promoting atheism was not so much the information that it provided (e.g., reading online versions of Marx, Sartre, Nietzsche) but the sense of community. It’s one thing to sit in your room wondering if there is no God; it’s another thing when you watch a video suggesting there is no God and seeing that the video has hundreds of likes. Ultimately, I think the solution here is not to thrust all our efforts into social media. Before I watch a Catholic video, I need to know why I should watch a Catholic video. Understanding that the Catholic Church is the church Jesus founded, that it retains the authority of Christ Himself, will dwarf the “authority” of a youtube video.
How can young Catholics avoid the “new atheism?” The older Catholics in their lives need to prove, every day, why being Catholic matters.