“Conflict can be understood as the motor of change, that which keeps relationships and social structures honest, alive, and dynamically responsive to human needs, aspirations, and growth.”

 – John Paul Lederach, The Little Book of Conflict Transformation

Dynamic conflict sometimes inolves melodramatic hand gestures and beer

One of the most wonderful things about being human is our capacity for growth—for having our lives enriched as a result of challenging experiences. Often this kind of challenge and growth happens though sharing personal stories—because stories enable us to really see other individuals for who they are, to genuinely hear what they have to teach us, and to find ourselves open to new ideas that may otherwise be seen as foreign and threatening. Because atheists are currently such a distrusted minority in the United States, building relationships and sharing our stories with religious people are imperative. We need for people of faith to see us, to hear us, and to open themselves to the challenges we present—and we need to do the same for them; we can use stories to make this happen.

My approach to empowering atheists and promoting secularism is one of diplomacy—and there is something of a misunderstanding in the nontheistic movement about diplomats and interfaith advocates; we are frequently charged with being unwilling to challenge religion. There is a palpable tension between diplomats, who often advocate seeking common ground with religious people in order to effect positive change, versus our counterparts, the firebrands, who seek to eradicate the harms caused by religion by directly and confrontationally drawing attention to those harms. There are frequent accusations hurled between the two camps, with firebrands regularly suggesting that diplomats capitulate to religion and enable the harm it causes and diplomats accusing firebrands of damaging the movement with their hostility. But let me be clear: I have no desire to exempt myself from criticizing religion where it underpins injustice—and where diplomats fail to confront religious injustice, firebrands are right to reprimand us. The moral imperative to speak courageously against religion where it causes suffering does not require diplomats to be firebrands—but it does require us to be bold and to not eschew conflict when it is necessary to secure justice. Adopting a narrative approach, which facilitates connection rather than emphasizing division, is one way diplomats can and do productively challenge people in the religious community to grow—to encourage the religious to be more rational, compassionate, and fair. And perhaps there are some things we can learn from our firebrand colleagues.

Sean Faircloth, for example, effectively utilizes the narrative technique in his forthcoming book, Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What We Can Do About It; Faircloth draws attention to the danger of religious intrusion in secular government by writing about religious exemptions from health and safety laws that have resulted in horrific abuse, suffering, and death for real children. By telling us the moving stories of these kids—by telling us their names, their ages, the terrible circumstances in which they needlessly lost their lives—Faircloth is able to illustrate a systemic problem while at the same time evoking the kind of empathy and association that inspire people to care and to act rather than to become defensive, combative, or entrenched. The stories Faircloth tells allow him to make clear, focused criticisms on specific harms caused by specific problems rather than making broad and unproductive attacks on religion as a whole.

Another, more intimate, example comes from Brian Wallace (a colleague with whom I have the great pleasure of working to build a new nontheistic community in Northern Arizona, the Flagstaff Freethinkers). In his Gone Apostate blog post, Religion Didn’t Destroy My Marriage, Wallace writes movingly about his recent divorce and the way Mormon indoctrination had encouraged him and his wife to build their relationship around religion rather than with one another—and how it ultimately disempowered them from having an intimate partnership. Like Faircloth, Wallace’s use of narrative illustrates a systemic problem and evokes within readers a sense that something is very wrong with this situation; through the story, we begin to feel that something needs to change when a religious institution is structured in such a way that it contributes to dehumanization in a real marriage—between two good, loving people—rather than facilitating one of the most sublime of all human experiences: romantic intimacy.

Prescott Freethinkers thinking together and pondering the deeper meaning

The voice we use when we tell stories, the narrative voice, is substantively different from the voice we use in debate; stories are not about logic and syllogisms—they are a way of connecting to truth and meaning through empathy and association. In his book, Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together, William Isaacs writes that the “narrative voice, the voice of storytellers, is unlike that of the rational, analytic mind. It does not break things up or categorize. It makes distinctions, but these are always seen as part of a larger weave.” People who listen to our stories are able to connect not just to us and to our personal narratives, but also, writes Isaacs, to the deeper meaning that comes through them. This process can be profoundly challenging and richly rewarding for both nontheists and people of faith; it is a way for all of us, religious and nonreligious alike, to confront one another with new ideas, with opportunities to look critically at our assumptions about what we believe, and to improve the way we interact with people who are different from us. Stories allow us to work through conflict in the most utterly humanizing way—and this kind of conflict is, as Lederbach suggests, “the motor of change.” Where religion perpetuates injustice and damages our human family, people of goodwill must challenge those who empower it to do so—but, though story, we can be challenging in a way that enriches everyone involved.

If we, as atheists, are going to change public perception of who we are and what we value, narrative is going to be one of the most useful tools at our disposal. If we want to clearly, conscientiously, and effectively criticize religion when we see it hurting people, we must begin challenging religious people with our stories in order to create space for connection and growth in a way that simply is not possible with angry rhetoric. Ultimately, by using challenging narratives as our approach to religious criticism, we facilitate the enlivening and exhilarating experience of personal growth.

Serah Blain serves on the boards of the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Arizona Coalition of Reason, and the Prescott Pride Center. The Executive Director of QsquaredYouth, a nonprofit organization that supports LGBTQ youth in Prescott, AZ and surrounding areas, Serah is also the organizer of the Prescott Freethinkers, a thriving community of nontheists in Northern Arizona that meets regularly for discussion, fellowship and fun. She also co-chairs the Secular Student Alliance at Prescott College where she is working on a B.A. in Engaged Humanism. Her current interfaith volunteer projects include hospice care, and faith outreach for the Prescott Pride Center. Serah has two children who are being raised to be conscientious, compassionate human beings.

The new face of interfaith?

Now is a tragic hour for supporters of interfaith cooperation. Our greatest hero and spokesman, the wonderfully smarmy, super-accomodationist-interfaith-atheist-hipster, Chris Stedman, has become so arrogant about his interfaith cooperation powers that he has exposed his Achilles heel and made the whole interfaith movement vulnerable to potential collapse.

Stedman himself admits that without his hipster mustache, he “looks like a tween. We’re talking Bieber-esque.” How does he expect interfaith activists to be taken seriously when our most notable representative is Justin Bieber?!

Anyone who has spent any meaningful amount of time near any of the devoutly religious has realized one thing: they love facial hair. In fact, the only thing hipsters and divinity school students have in common is their otherwise socially-unacceptable facial hair.

Chris’ mustache is how he bridges the secular divide. Hipsters have the unique capacity to straddle both camps: the trendy atheists and the fuzzy-faced devouts. Like Samson’s hair, Chris’ mustache provides him the unique power of interfaith cooperation. Without it, he is nothing.

In order to stop this imminent interfaith catastrophe, concerned interfaith activists have launched a counter-campaign to SAVE CHRIS STEDMAN’S ‘STACHE. If we are able to raise $5,000 before Stedman, the hipster ‘stache, which is so utterly essential to the movement, will NOT be shaved. All proceeds from the SAVE THE ‘STACH campaign will go to support initiatives by the Harvard Interfaith Collaborative. Click here to give generously TODAY!!!!

Serah Blain serves on the boards of the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Arizona Coalition of Reason,and the Prescott Pride Center. The Executive Director of QsquaredYouth, a nonprofit organization that supports LGBTQ youth in Prescott, AZ and surrounding areas, Serah is also the organizer of the Prescott Freethinkers, a thriving community of nontheists in Northern Arizona that meets regularly for discussion, fellowship and fun. She also co-chairs the Secular Student Alliance at Prescott College where she is working on a B.A. in Engaged Humanism. Her current interfaith volunteer projects include hospice care, and faith outreach for the Prescott Pride Center. Serah has two children who are being raised to be conscientious, compassionate human beings.

Vlad Chituc is a senior at Yale University, studying Psychology and Philosophy with an interest in how we form beliefs (particularly moral and religious), and an interest in metaphysics and moral philosophy on the side. He has served as the Community Service Coordinator and President of the Secular Student Alliance at Yale (formerly the Yale Humanist Society), during which he participated in the Inter-Religious Leaders Council and worked closely with the Yale Chaplain’s Office to foster relationships with liberal member s of the Yale religious community. In his spare time, Vlad enjoys listening to hipster bullshit and writing sarcastic articles and music reviews for the Yale Herald.

My mom was a deeply religious woman. Her religion framed her understanding of social justice and hospitality, and she used the language of her Hasidic Judaism to understand and express how to be good to her fellow human beings. Her home and table were always open to whoever needed respite or food because she believed God commanded her to welcome the sojourner. She cared about peace and justice because she believed God required her to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with [her] God” (Micah 6:8). She created a Jewish/Muslim women’s dialogue group to try to heal the division between these two communities because she believed God desired the reconciliation of his whole human family. And when she was diagnosed with an aggressive stage four cancer three years ago, she was simply grateful for the good years she believed God had given her.

As the severity of my mom’s cancer became clear, I flew in from across the country with my daughter and my newborn son to help my stepdad manage her hospice care. Despite the fact that I was an atheist, my mom’s religion framed much of my experience of her death. To begin with, part of my experience included a crash-course in Hasidic Judaism and Lubavitcher traditions (keeping mom’s kitchen kosher, learning the modesty rules for when she had visitors, determining what one could and could not do on shabbos, etc). The local Hasidic community was infinitely generous—both to my mom and stepdad, as well as to myself, my siblings (who also flew in from out of state) and our kids. People came to visit, brought food, helped with chores, talked or prayed…whatever was needed. Importantly, the community never let us run out of vodka. Or pie. It did not matter to them that my brother and I were atheists, that my sister was apathetic, that my older brother was an evangelical Christian. What mattered was that we belonged to my mom and so we belonged to the whole community—and we clearly required vodka and pie.

My mom’s home, the home she died in, quickly became an intense, concentrated representation of the very best of interfaith. Rabbis came in and out to attend to my mom and stepdad (and brought kosher sour mix for the vodka). The hospice chaplain visited frequently as well as a United Methodist minister whose church I used to belong to. Muslim and Jewish women from my mom’s dialogue group came, and conservative Christian family members, and evangelicals who had gone to church with my mom before she returned to Judaism. Religion was both immensely present and completely irrelevant; while we all used the language of our religion or secular lifestance to articulate what was happening, ultimately, we were all talking about the same thing. We were all talking about the preciousness of life, its joy and its sorrow. We were talking about fear and gratitude and meaning and the unfairness of it all. What transcended religion as my mom approached death was our common humanity, and in it, the pain of loss and the delight of living.

It is often said there are no atheists in foxholes—the implication being that, when faced with the possibility of death, even an atheist will call upon God for help and salvation. Stories of deathbed conversions abound, and regardless of the fact that atheists die every day completely at peace with their nontheism, the “no atheists in foxholes” myth persists. This myth distracts from what really happens when human beings are faced with the possibility of death. What really happens in foxholes is that we are confronted with our humanness—and given the opportunity to reconcile ourselves to what this means for us. There are atheists in foxholes, and there are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Wiccans…an endless variety of human beings who are all, most essentially, human beings. We’re just people in foxholes.

Very soon after my mom’s death, I became a hospice volunteer. It is truly the easiest kind of interfaith work, because what dying people seem to crave most is to have another human being really truly present with them—and I am very good at being human and at being present. My atheism and my patients’ religious traditions are not nearly as important in those moments as our mutual humanity. I have attended many deaths now, and visited many dying people. I have found that the concerns my mom had as she approached death were mostly human concerns rather than explicitly religious concerns—and that they are shared by most people as we contemplate our deaths. My mom wanted to know that her children would be o.k. after she was gone. She wanted to know that she would not be in unmanageable pain or feel like she was suffocating. She wanted her life to have mattered, and asked for memorials to go to Jerusalem Peacemakers and Brick World (my mom was all about peace in the Middle East and LEGOs—because peace and LEGOs are awesome, duh). These are the same concerns secular people share, as well as people who have religious faiths very different from my mom’s. We want our loved ones to be cared for, our pain to be managed, and our lives to have meaning. We all have to die regardless of religion or nontheism—and we are all very human at the moment of our death. So many of the differences between us dissolve during the end of life, and only what is most essential remains.

"Let your house be wide open for guests; treat the poor as members of your household."

These things that happen—the transcendence of religion and the affirmation of humanness—are why I love hospice work so much. I am able to see who people really are—when all of the arbitrary divisions and labels we use to separate ourselves from one another during our lives are cast aside (or at least are no longer used as barriers, but just recognized as incidental facts). I’m sure there are people who use religion or atheism as a weapon right up until the end, but I have been fortunate to see something else at work as I attend the dying: I have seen people articulate the human experience in a clear, connecting way rather than in a way that is divisive.

I wish we could participate in this kind of connection before the end of our lives; I wish we could practice seeing one another as fellow human companions in this short life and cease seeking to draw attention to our difference and separation. This is why I care about interfaith-nontheistic cooperation—because I have seen how beautiful the transcendence of difference can be. Death is hard, and horrible and unfair. And so is life. If we can do a better job of being human together in our lives and in our deaths, we will spend much less time creating additional, unnecessary hardships and horrors—and have much more time for joy and gratitude.

Serah Blain serves on the boards of the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Arizona Coalition of Reason, and the Prescott Pride Center. The Executive Director of QsquaredYouth, a nonprofit organization that supports LGBTQ youth in Prescott, AZ and surrounding areas, Serah is also the organizer of the Prescott Freethinkers, a thriving community of nontheists in Northern Arizona that meets regularly for discussion, fellowship and fun. She also co-chairs the Secular Student Alliance at Prescott College where she is working on a B.A. in Engaged Humanism. Her current interfaith volunteer projects include hospice care, and faith outreach for the Prescott Pride Center. Serah has two children who are being raised to be conscientious, compassionate human beings.

Photo: Creative Commons 2.0, Kate Tegtmeyer

“Community is the goal.” – Tom Pettit

Prescott is a beautiful small town in Northern Arizona surrounded on all sides by National Forests. We have epic views of Granite Mountain and Thumb Butte. The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking. During thunderstorms, there are often rainbows everywhere and it smells like juniper for hours afterward. There are ugly things about Prescott, as well. There’s a lot of gossip, xenophobia and limited perspective on a number of issues because people’s exposure to difference is minimal. There was that whole mural controversy. If you Google “Prescott, AZ” and “racism,” you’ll get 130,000 search results. I am not idealizing my town. That said, moving here has taught me about the very best human beings have to offer, and about the beauty and productivity of loving my neighbors in order to accomplish amazing things—despite serious differences.

Life in Prescott is inherently humanizing. You know everybody. And the few people you don’t know, you’ve heard of. People tend to be polite and honest—because if you’re a dick or a liar, you’re certain to run into the same person again down the road and it will be awkward and unpleasant. People tend to be helpful, because we’re all neighbors, and we understand what it’s like. People tend to be forgiving, because despite ideological differences, we know each other and we know that, even when folks in town are wrong, they’re usually acting in good faith. In a word, people in Prescott can disagree all day long, but usually we’re able to see each other as people and we’re willing to come through for one another when it matters.

Never has this been more evident than when my friend Tom Pettit was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. Tom was a local progressive activist and community organizer. He was involved in every progressive issue imaginable, every environmental cause, everything that really mattered in Prescott. Being that this is a small, conservative town, Tom had his share of adversaries, but even his adversaries knew him to be a man of integrity who cared passionately about the quality of life here. When Tom got cancer, people from all walks of life turned out for fundraisers on his behalf, bought t-shirts that said “I ♥ Tom,” brought meals to his partner and looked for ways to help. Even politicians who he’d publically spoken out against contributed. Why? Because Tom was a human being. He was a member of the community whose humanity was evident and whose presence mattered to all of us. He wasn’t a statistic or an abstract name. When people heard that their neighbor was dying of cancer, it hurt all of us—regardless of political stance, regardless of ideology, regardless of religious belief or nonbelief.

Tom Pettit believed in community organizing because he knew it could change people—and by changing people, it could change the world. And the communities Tom organized came together beautifully when he needed them. This is the same way interfaith/nontheistic cooperation works. When religious and nonreligious people come together to achieve a goal, we are participating in relationship. We are acting for a common purpose and validating our common humanity. We are building trust and goodwill and creating the kind of dynamic where difference isn’t a barrier to progress. This kind of trust and goodwill abounds in Prescott, and while I can think of dozens of examples, my very favorite is our annual Empty Bowls fundraiser. Empty Bowls is an interfaith project, sponsored by Prescott’s Unitarian Universalists, that raises money for our local food banks. The event is held on the courthouse square, and for a $15 contribution, donors receive a beautiful handcrafted bowl created by local artists and a bowl of soup prepared by local chefs. Last year, in our little town of about 40,000 people, we raised over $14,000 in one day at this one event. Prescottonians love participating, and we’re proud of the fact that the whole town comes together to do it.

People in Prescott have shown me that the abstract concept of building relationships to effect change works; it’s a model that people all over the world participate in daily in their own neighborhoods and towns, and the rewards are tangible. I take Tom Pettit’s vision of healthy, transformative communities with me into my activism as an atheist and it feeds my vision of interfaith/nontheistic cooperation. People in my town know that I don’t agree with the predominant conservative attitude, just as people in the interfaith community know that I don’t buy into their supernatural beliefs or much of the ethical systems those beliefs are based on. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do important work together when it really matters. And it doesn’t mean we can’t have honest, respectful, productive dialogue about our different worldviews—dialogue that often results in profound attitude change and ultimate victory for reason and compassion.

Just as small towns have their dark side, interfaith work isn’t always perfect either. Sometimes there are miscommunications. Sometimes there is a failure to strategize clear-sightedly. Sometimes there is too much animosity toward a particular idea for opposing viewpoints to come together at all. But we need to keep doing it and keep learning as we go—because when we get it right, we transform everything.

Serah Blain serves on the boards of the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Arizona Coalition of Reason, and the Prescott Pride Center. The Executive Director of QsquaredYouth, a nonprofit organization that supports LGBTQ youth in Prescott, AZ and surrounding areas, Serah is also the organizer of the Prescott Freethinkers, a thriving community of nontheists in Northern Arizona that meets regularly for discussion, fellowship and fun. She also co-chairs the Secular Student Alliance at Prescott College where she is working on a B.A. in Engaged Humanism. Her current interfaith volunteer projects include hospice care, and faith outreach for the Prescott Pride Center. Serah has two children who are being raised to be conscientious, compassionate human beings.