Disclaimer: As you read this, I ask you to remember that I am new to the faith. If anything I share seems wrong, I would be thankful if you want to discuss it together. To readers who are familiar with atheism, know that I am writing from very limited experience and personal findings. This post was difficult to write. The challenge is from my ignoring the unbiblical teaching I should have tackled months ago. So, I hope to write a series of posts on my experiences with belief systems outside the judeo-christian realm. Any wisdom or response you have would be a blessing if you want to share it.

It’s hard to hide from someone you can’t see. Since the promise I made to myself when I was thirteen, that’s what I tried to do. “I will never be a real Christian.” So I started intentionally hiding from everyone around me, and I hoped God wouldn’t notice. Spoiler: He did. 

The word ‘atheist’ was a taboo for me as a kid, growing up in a radical Christian community where God was portrayed as vividly as the sunsets every night. I actually believed He painted them by hand in the sky. Eventually though, any magical beliefs I had about God faded. By the time I was a senior in high school, I had visited, left, and moved from so many churches that I didn’t even believe God was constant. I was questioning everything that I could see. Did I have a belief in God? Sometimes. I always tried to act like I did. But I was beginning to feel that I had no clue of who I believed God to be. 

Unsurprisingly, playing Devil’s advocate in every conversation with my parents made for a wearying senior year for all of us. When my college acceptance letter came, I tried to convince my parents that I would find God for myself at college. Secretly, I hoped I’d find someone else. What I didn’t realize until later was that their consent came after months of prayers, along with prayers from Christians in the church we were visiting as a family.

Leaving God out of my new life at college turned out to be harder than I’d expected. Being an awkward homebody with awful time management led to a challenging first semester. Soon, I wanted a belief system for guidance, but I wanted to create it for myself. So I started to apply the tidbits of Neopaganism I’d accumulated over a few years of casual interest, while still identifying as agnostic. For me, it was simpler than explaining how I blended my New Age beliefs with my conservative Christian background. 

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

That first year, I talked with many people who had different concepts of the spirit world. It began a phase of my spiritual journey in which I believed that all humans are spiritual, and that the ideas people have about God were just ideas. My prayers became intentions I whispered and drew. God became a presence I felt inside myself on walks and wondered if it came from the trees. My idea of God was a maternal spirit, who let us go after we outgrew Her. Sometimes, I still felt a need to come back. 

One of these times was when a Christian friend had invited me to come to her church on campus. As I stood that Sunday listening to the worship music, a question flicked across my mind…Am I an atheist?

Objectively, atheism is understood as a lack of spiritual faith in any deities. It was easy for me to continue to generalize atheism to merely an absence of belief. Further isolating it from the realm of religion, atheism is usually associated with fields like science where rationality is acknowledged above personal beliefs. Yet, the relationship between atheism and faith – particularly Christianity – seems to be unavoidably personal, not just objective. The line between atheism and agnosticism; between rejecting God and questioning God, is blurry and it is personal.

It’s a point in Christian conversation that often feels so polarizing. In academic conversation and in the atmosphere of public college, it felt like there was less at stake to debate the nature of God. Especially since college let me meet and encounter stories of those who believe in spiritual forces without believing in their sovereignty, atheism became a topic that I felt less afraid of and curious about. I learned that atheism doesn’t necessarily exclude religious practices, or even a belief in ‘something more.’ If atheism allows for a spectrum of belief levels, maybe it could even be considered a kind of belief system on its own. 

Atheism can be described simply as nonchalance about whether or not some spiritual force exists, but I would argue it is comparable to a belief system in that it doesn’t always remain nonchalant. In my experience, atheism can absolutely be a belief that God exists, but as much less of a god than the Bible says. 

“And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Hebrews 4:13

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.” Isaiah 40:28

Disagreeing with the omniscience and total sovereignty of God’s nature easily leads to a firm belief system that actively denies God, specifically the God of the Bible. Questioning the nature of God is similar to atheistic thinking, making it dangerous for spiritual growth. While I recognize now that questioning God was part of my path to truly know Him, I first whitewashed ‘making faith my own’ into a way to make my own God. So I have learned not to let humanist or New Age teaching sink into my heart unchallenged, because failing to do so contributed to difficulty accepting the Bible as the inspired Word of God.

“Be careful not to allow anyone to captivate you through an empty, deceitful philosophy that is according to human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” Colossians 2:8

“But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” 2 Peter 1:20-21

While I never fully considered myself to be an atheist, I can reflect on what it’s like not believing in the God of the Bible, yet being unable to shake my thoughts about such a God. I was hiding from a god who gets called power-hungry, uncaring, outdated….because who wouldn’t? Still, I hoped there was a better God. But God is far better than my spiritual eyesight. He was watching me, and once I dared to ask Him, God prepared me to see who He actually was. 

One night at a church conference, a Sister talked with me well past midnight. She shared how she’d been distrusting of God too, but how after calling out to Jesus and following Him, she gained peace in areas of her life which had distanced her from God. I know God spoke through her as she told me about Jesus. My heart was finally softened; I realized that the God of the Bible was Jesus. He wasn’t the concept of God I had contrived from the Bible by searching everywhere but Scripture itself, but a human who God became, so that people could see Him. Someone I could see. 

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”  John 17:25-26