WHAT IS ATHEIST SPIRITUALITY?

I’ll start by noting that, while a minister’s own sense of spirituality is important, it’s not as

important as the spirituality(s) of each member of the congregation. That is, as a minister, I do have my own religious beliefs and practices. But my job with you is not to

get you to understand and accept what I believe. It’s to provide you healthy meals of

mind and spirit, with which to nurture your own beliefs and practice.

Like a lot of Unitarian Universalists, my spiritual journey has taken me through several

different religious phases. As a child, my parents were members of what was then

called the Unity School of Christianity. (They have since added the word “Practical” to

“Christianity.”) In our terms, you might have called me a Christian Universalist.

Then in high school, I happened across the Hindu text: the Baghavad-Gita. I was

amazed that beliefs so different from my own even existed, sincerely held by their

practitioners. I quickly became a questing agnostic. Decades later, teaching in Korea, I

studied Zen Buddhism.

One thing led to another, and I finally entered Meadville Lombard Theological School to

study for Unitarian Universalist ministry. I considered myself a non-theistic mystic by that time. But after graduation, I gradually came to realize I was closer to what Unitarian

Universalists call a religious humanist. I have long felt, however, that “humanist,” the

way we use it, is not a real accurate term. After all, Reformation religious reformer

Desiderius Erasmus, Reformed (Christian) Church leader John Calvin, and any number

of non-religous—and religious—Koreans all have called themselves “humanists.”

So just for my own sense of clarity, by the time I retired from ministry—and to this day—I just call myself an atheist. But an atheist, for the record, who retains respect for all the

religious homes through which I passed—as well as religious beliefs I’ve never tried.

Which begs the question: how can an atheist consider himself “spiritual,” or even talk

about spirituality? Because I do, in fact, like to talk about spirituality, including my own.

To answer, I share a paragraph from my book, Reflections: On Time, Culture, and

Spirits in America: “I mean nothing magical by the word, ‘spiritual.’ Religion is, to me,

yearning and openness beyond the reasoning part of the brain. It wants an ear for the

poetry, music, and living metaphor of the world, biorhythms, and cosmos unfolding about us. I do sometimes use such traditional religious words, though with non-

traditional meaning. Einstein did the same thing. I feel I’m in good company.”

I have, of course, spoken with Unitarian Universalists who don’t agree with that

definition at all. And that’s fine, at least as far as I’m concerned. It doesn’t stop us from

having an interesting conversation—and I believe the conversation is what counts.

First Unitarian's Sabbatical Minister Rev. Dennis McCarty