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Why I am Not a Christian

Malcolm McNeill (NOT Bertrand Russell)

I’ll get the personal history bit over first, before I chicken out and decide to embellish it with tales of heroism and fights against dragons.

My parents aren’t Christians, and perhaps it is interesting to note that out of three sons, all brought up in schools that taught the Christian message, the only one who really approached becoming a Christian was the bookish one who always let in the most goals. I think a degree of introspection is needed for any growth of that kind, and while I probably did it a bit too much, I was certainly equipped with enough of a curiosity about things metaphysical to pay close attention to Sunday Services at boarding school, where I was privileged to some of the best teaching the country had to offer in the myriad of guest preachers that graced the microphone behind the school choir. I was not an avid reader of the Bible — I always made the fatal mistake of trying to read it from beginning to end, thus never getting past Genesis X and XI — but I did pray rather a lot in a very unformulaic fashion, either just venting spleen or confessing what a rotten bastard I’d been that day (it occurred to me that God probably already knew, but He struck me as the sort of chap who would like to be told as well).

I decided to get confirmed at the age of eighteen.

WHY? The school chaplain, Alan Robertson, wise in appearance and mind, had been a receptacle for my ‘what’s it all about’ monologues since I’d first discovered his tiny study behind the organ loft.

ALAN: How’s your faith holding up this week? Violently swinging about, I used to reply, complaining that I had such doubts about it all. He would be very soothing, but it turned out to be my own rationalising that saved me and got me up there with twelve others in June 1994. Basically I decided that if you don’t believe in something because of your obsession with the holes, then you end up believing in the holes, and lose sight of the grander picture. My faith became firm enough for me to decide to get confirmed. I couldn’t have been more naive.

I registered happily in my local parish after I left school, but as I had to leave for a year in Japan a few weeks later I only managed three services before I was plunged into a city of practically no Christians. (There were a few whacko groups, but I was put off by a big argument with one of them in the street when he claimed Darwin’s Origin of the Species was a load of old tosh — always a bad sign). This gave me a lot of space for building a personal relationship with God, but it was during this time that I came to the disturbing un-earthshattering conclusion that I didn’t believe that Jesus was the son of God. Of his martyrdom I had no doubt, and while I can’t list all my objections to his divinity (you’ve probably heard them all before anyway), it struck me that his sacrifice would have been far more admirable if he hadn’t been under so much pressure from Dad to get it over with.

This led me down a path of thought which brought back to my mind my primary objection to getting confirmed (I was originally up for it when I was seventeen). I had worried about joining a group for whom I would have to tailor my beliefs. And in Japan, away from that group, I quite naturally returned to my own beliefs, and my general outlook improved beyond measure.

True belief is not something which can be enforced. Christians are fond of claiming that faith will come out of a knowledge of God and Jesus. I would say that faith should come first out of a knowledge of oneself. If that self moves you closer to the Christian ethos, then you are in luck, for you will be joining a happy group. But if it does not, and if you do not feel the ring of truth in any other creed, then take what you already have and make it your own. My mistake was in choosing to accept Christianity at a stage in my life when I was only half-way mature, and still unaware of who I was. When I got confirmed, I was quite sincere, but that sincerity was part of a transitional Malcolm who was not likely to be around for very long.

I suppose what I am saying is that Christianity is just not me. There’s no point struggling into a pair of shoes that doesn’t fit. You probably wonder if I am happy or not. Well, yes I suppose I am. There are miseries that afflict us all from time to time, some greater than others, but through it all I have maintained a conviction that life is a glory and trumpets experience, a conviction that I can only attribute to a profoundly personal relationship with the world and, I suppose, with God. That ‘I suppose’ probably means that in ten years I will be a humanist, and maybe I will. I’m quite happy to be ephemeral. I don’t even see the need for an afterlife. (Why applaud a man who gave up a strenuous life for one of perpetual bliss?) I would rather there was, of course, even if only for the sake of those for whom life here is a living hell.

Well, that’s your lot. Sorry it was all a bit stream of consciousness and unstructured, but I think I’ve done justice to my beliefs. I don’t suppose I’ve rumbled anyone’s Christian faith, but if I have, then let me know and I’ll indoctrinate your children.

Malcolm McNeill

Last modified: 25th November 2005