Grieving Without God Is One Thing. Grieving Without God’s People Is Another.

Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: Grieving Without God Is One Thing. Grieving Without God’s People Is Another., by Paul Thornton (L.A. Times Editor):

How does someone grieve without God? As an atheist whose devoutly Christian mother died in August, I can answer this question with alacrity: We grieve just fine.

By “fine,” I mean we run the same gamut of emotions as anyone who believes in heaven and hell. Grief is a deeply human experience that binds people, whether or not they live with the reassurance of an afterlife or a loving God. Simple acts of empathy by those around us help move the process along.

Perhaps, then, the question should really be, how does one grieve without God’s people? In other words, how do we pick up our lives without the built-in communities that churches, temples and other houses of worship almost always provide?

This question deserves serious contemplation as younger Americans leave the faith congregations of their parents in droves. Based on my experience, it’s hard in ways I hadn’t imagined.

We can debate the implications of America’s increasing irreligiosity and whether religious institutions brought about their own decline by protecting their leaders at the expense of their followers. But we still must deal with death and grief wherever they find us, and until recently, they found most of us within those temples, churches and other houses of worship.

No longer. This year, a Pew Research Center survey found that 28% of Americans identified as nonreligious and, for the first time, made up the country’s largest “faith” group.

Even amid this secularization, with church attendance dropping about as fast as print newspaper circulation, I found one of the most eager comfort-givers as my mom lay dying to be the pastor of the Lutheran church I hadn’t attended in more than 15 years. In the scramble to plan my mom’s memorial service at the church, the most pleasant, reassuring voices belonged to the women who taught me Sunday school long ago and knew exactly what memories to bring up. It was as if I had never left.

This brief reunion with my former faith community helped my family navigate the dark weeks after my mom died, but it lasted only until the end of the memorial service. ...

I worry about how this affects my three children and, for the first time in their lives, I wonder if raising them without a faith tradition is a disservice. ... [T]hey’re grieving as I did when I was their age, but without the support built into faith communities. ...

For me, losing those people has been more profound than losing God.

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Ruth Graham (New York Times), F3 (Fitness, Fellowship, Faith): A Cure For Middle-Age Male Loneliness? (Oct. 2, 2022)
• David French (New York Times), Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America
• Jessica Grose (New York Times), What Churches Offer That ‘Nones’ Still Long For (July 16, 2023)
• Jessica Grose (New York Times), The Church Of CrossFit (July 30, 2023)
• Perry Bacon Jr. (Washington Post), I Left The Church — And Now Long For A ‘Church For The Nones’ (Aug. 27, 2023)
• Ross Douthat (New York Times), Where Should Agnostics Go On Sundays? (Sept. 3, 2023)
• David French (New York Times), Being There: The Cure For The Male Loneliness Epidemic (Oct. 1, 2023)
• Russell Moore (Christianity Today), Why Young Men Are Failing To Launch—And What The Church Can Do About It (Jan. 28, 2024)

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