What's Up With All These Smart Christians?

I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing

Two weeks ago, I attended Sunday Mass at Austin Ridge Bible Church, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

To say it was a fascinating experience would be an understatement. When we first walked in, it was like a concert. There were shining lights flashing as a full band was jamming out and people sang along.

The music was an epic prelude to the pastor giving his sermon. There were young, good-looking families everywhere, and afterwards, people were chatting in the lobby with big smiles all around.

Despite what a great morning it was, I couldn’t ignore the alarming sound of my bullshit detector or the subtle bad taste in my mouth.

For one, I was surprised by what an incredible display of wealth the place was, considering it is presumably in honor of someone who tells us that, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”¹

More importantly, I couldn’t help but think that aspects of the Mass itself were offensive to truth.

I say that while being a proponent of the idea that there is profound “metaphorical truth” in the Biblical stories, i.e., much in the same way that great novels and movies offer wise moral lessons that make people’s lives better, people are inspired by the story of Jesus walking on water and improve their lives. As the writer Albert Camus quipped, “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” I’m on board with this idea!

But just because they make some people’s lives better, does that mean that the charismatic guy who spoke Aramaic and lived in the Middle East 2,000 years ago—Jesus, to risk stating the obvious—was literally the son of God? I think not. In the same way that, just because Mark Twain was brilliant doesn’t mean that Huckleberry Finn and Jim really had an adventure on the Mississippi River.

The main difference, of course, is that there is no one claiming Huck Finn actually helped a runaway slave escape to freedom in the 1800s. But there are people holding up bread and wine and saying that it is the body and blood of a man who actually was the son of God and rose from the dead 2,000 years ago. And there are crowds of hundreds of people who appear to have no suspicion about this claim, and I find this ludicrous.

Now, I understand all the reasons Christianity brings people comfort, joy, and a sense of purpose. Good for them, I say. But I also say what I think: that the enigma of existence is not explained by this religious tradition, which is full of cultish superstition and obvious falsehoods.

It is especially shocking that such intelligent, well-read, and worldly people seem to believe in the literal truth of the Bible. I don’t get how an educated and well-traveled person can be at a mega-church nodding along to the Book of Revelation. I just don’t.

Again, I’m not dismissive of the value of Christianity. I write this criticism with as much respect as possible. Especially because there is no shortage of Christian people who I respect and admire for their strong character, among other things. And when I see so many people coming together with such love, respect, and unity, as I saw that morning at Austin Ridge, it is impossible to not see its worth. It’s a meaningful way to bring people together.

Additionally, another, more abstract reason that I’m not dismissive of the value of Christianity and religion more broadly is the argument that without religion—without a collective belief in a higher power—societies descend into chaos, with destructive ideologies rushing to fill the void. Intellectuals often point to Communism, Nazism, and even today’s Wokeism as examples. Humans are hardwired to worship, and it’s better to worship God than the false idols of these “new religions.” It is the classic Nietzsche idea: If God is dead, something else will fill that void.

While there is some good sense in this perspective, it still does not mean that religion is the ultimate source of truth. It still does not mean that the people who wrote these ancient texts and stories were anything more than human. Moreover, closer inspection reveals something condescending about this perspective, anyway. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins sums it up well in his article The myth of the God-shaped hole:

How patronizing, how insulting to imply that, if deprived of a religion, humanity must ignominiously turn to something equally irrational. If I am to profess a faith here, it is a faith in human intelligence strong enough to doubt the existence of a God-shaped hole.

Now, that said, as I’ve written before, I’m still open to the idea that God exists.² But I imagine God—whatever that means—would be something independent of any one religion.³ I would not describe myself as an atheist, but I do not have faith.

But I would describe myself as someone opposed to groupthink, superstition, and ridiculous ideas about the nature of reality. All of which I’ve witnessed a significant amount of every time I’ve ever gone to a Sunday Mass.

So with all that laid out, am I missing something? Why are so many smart people, in the year 2025, Christians, or becoming Christian?

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Jeff

1. Matthew 19:24.

2. What is tricky—to say the least—is that God is a hard thing to define, if it’s even possible. On one hand there is the basic conception of God as an old man sitting on a throne in the sky. On the other hand there is the Pantheistic perspective, that the universe itself is God—that they are identical. Somewhere in the middle there are mountains of personal answers I’ve heard, that seem to fall in between those two perspectives. God as the ultimate reality, God as the supreme intelligence, God as the conscious spirit, and other conceptions. I’m open to the possibility that any of these conceptions—some much more than others—are true. But I don’t have faith in any of them, because again, I just don’t know. I’m agnostic. Deep down, regarding the question of God, my gut simply says: “I don’t know, but I really hope so.”

3. The simple fact that every culture across history has created its own religion makes it hard to fathom how anyone could believe that the one they follow is the “real one.” Judaism? Christianity? Islam? Hinduism? Take your pick. Of course, more often than not, people’s pick is the one they happened to be born into. Naturally.