Apatheism

April 15, 2003

“Apatheism” is a word coined by Jonathan Rauch. In an article in “The Atlantic Monthly”, May 2003, he defines apatheism as “a disinclination to care all that much about one’s own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people’s.”

I am 100% in agreement with 50% of his definition of this new word. I do care much about my own religion. But as with Rauch, I have a strong “disinclination to care about other people’s.” To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, I don’t care if any fellow-inhabitant on this wonder-full planet Earth believes in one God, three, twenty or none, if he/she does no harm to others.

Jonathan Rauch also points out that more and more persons seem to agree with him. He cites a survey which indicates that “the proportion of people who say they never go to church or synagogue has tripled since 1972 to 33% in 2000.”

I’m reminded of a verse my colleague, Keith Munson, cited in a sermon recently:

If one drop of rain
The sidewalk doth besmirch
It’s far too wet
To go to church.

If you conclude that, as a career professional in religion, this trend disturbs me, you are wrong. The “true believer” in a particular religion has too often been so fanatical about belief that they have prayed to their God and often preyed violently on others.

In Judeo-Christian history alone, there have been such notorious persecution, wars and suffering in the name of particular religion: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Thirty Years War, the Puritans who came to this land to secure religious freedom for themselves and to deny it to others, the KKK and its violent hatred of Catholics and Jews, the terrible Holocaust of recent memory. There are many other examples.

James Russell Lowell, who lived in the 19th century and more known for his poetry, once wrote, “Toward no crime have men shown themselves so cold-blooded cruel as in punishing differences of belief.”

So two cheers for “apatheism.” This attitude toward religions will not ruin our nation in spite of the money-begging appeals of some intolerant TV evangelists.

There was a healthy, hopeful contrast in the book, LONGITUDES AND ATTITUDES by Thomas L. Friedman (p. 309). Attending Parents’ night at his daughter’s school, in Washington in the gym with a large American flag, a Noah’s ark of black, white and Hispanic singing “God Bless America,” Friedman choked back tears, saying to himself, “Here is the whole story right here, E. Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One ... Natalie’s school and the World Trade Center have a lot in common – both are temples of America’s civic religion. Our civic religion is built on the faith that anyone can aspire to come to our shores, become a member of this American nation, work hard, and make of him- or herself whatever he or she wants. The economic strength of America derives from millions of individuals doing just that, and the military might of America derives from the ability of all these different individuals to come together into a fist when these bedrock values are threatened.”

So Be It.