Let's Play "Spot the Atheist":

Whenever I can't sleep I imagine I'm standing in the middle of the courtyard, between the classroom building and the chapel, and count the closet atheists. Sometimes it works, and I nod right off. Sometimes, well...there are just too many of them to count. Seminary just beats the God right out of you. Well, the Church anyway.

I am not a closet atheist. I came out. In a spectacular way, in front of my Sociology of Religion class. I have no idea what possessed me to say this. It certainly wasn't the Holy Spirit. Our first assignment is to research the doctrine/beliefs/whatever and observe the activities of a faith tradition not our own, with a demographic different from ours. For instance, if you're a WASP-y Presby from Connecticut, you might want to visit an African Methodist Episcopal Church, or a Holyness Tabernacle. Those are the Snake Handlers, by the way. I can't imagine anything scaring the shit out of a sheltered Ivy League town girl more...can you? If so, I'd love to hear it. I'm always looking for new ideas.

Anyway, I'm interested in doing my paper on the Baha'i Faith. My stylist is Baha'i, and so is my former Honors Mentor/Academic Advisor at my undergrad institution. Neither was raised in the Baha'i faith; not many are. They come to it in their adulthood. My stylist is Persian, my professor is Dutch. Calvinist. (Talk about beating the God right out of you.) My stylist's husband is also a college professor. And not knowing who else is a part of their devotional group, I am a bit concerned that most of them are also educated professionals and academics, which would put me smack-dab in the middle of that demographic. So, I raised this concern with the professor. "Are you Baha'i?" he asked. "No," I said. "I'm a non-practicing nothing, which pretty much leaves my options wide open." The walls of the classroom seemed to expand and then contract sharply as everyone took this in, registered shock, and then gasped.

The professor didn't seem the least bit surprised, or shocked, or offended, or concerned. (I love this guy.) He then asked, "well, were you raised in a particular tradition?" I responded, "yes. Methodist. I have absolutely no interest in revisiting that." Another gasp. O.K. huge clue time: this is a UMC Seminary. Most of the MDiv students who are on the ordination track will become United Methodist ministers. I just offended and alienated more than half the class. In less than a minute. Damn, I'm good.

Footnote:

Yes, I know Holiness is spelled incorrectly. In the outside world. But that is how most of them in this state spell it. The Pentecostals of this particular sect, usually called "Holiness Church," in Canada and other Northern states spell it with an i. For those who are unfamiliar with the practice of snake handling, and drinking water laced with arsenic or strychnine, and engaging in glossolalia (speaking in tongues), The Holiness believers base their entire church around apocryphal verses in Mark: "And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover." Mark 16: 17-18, NRSV


That should tell you something right there...an entire dogma built around two verses of Scripture taken entirely out of context. Maybe they're on to something here. I should proof-text a tiny, obscure verse and start my own church. No doubt it will be something from Revelation. Because nothing gets a cult going better than the End of Days. As they say...there are no atheists in the foxholes.