Faitheist?
“That’s a pejorative term in many atheist circles to describe an atheist who’s seen as too accommodating to people of faith. It’s something I was called the first time I went to an atheist meeting.”
So says Chris Stedman, who borrowed that term for the title of his memoir, published late last year by Beacon Press. And perhaps, according to nonbelievers in some circles, Stedman is indeed too accommodating to people of faith. The subtitle of Faitheist admits as much: “How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious.”
That’s the topic Stedman will present in a lecture, free and open to the public, on Monday, April 8th, inside Rhodes College’s Hardie Auditorium at 7 p.m. It’s a topic he addresses on the NonProphet Status blog, online at Huffington Post and The Washington Post, and as assistant humanist chaplain at Harvard University. It’s a topic he further explained in a recent phone conversation from his home in Boston. Of his Monday night lecture: “I want to stress the importance of constructive and compassionate understanding between people of faith and the nonreligious.”
How does an atheist and young man — Stedman turns 27 on Tuesday — arrive at such understanding? Especially since he grew up in a nonreligious household? Especially since he converted to an evangelical church at the tender age of 11? And especially since, since his freshman year in high school, he has made no mystery of the fact that he is gay?
Let Stedman explain.
