The Atheist Who Went to Church

 

Curious and open to Christianity, Hemant Mehta became the "eBay atheist" when he posted his soul on eBay and began accepting bids to visit churches and then share his thoughts. Some 30 church services later, he's still an atheist. He tells us why, what he does believe in and what Christians should consider when talking to someone with different beliefs.

 

By Heather Johnson

I like many others, first learned of “the eBay atheist” in a Wall Street Journal article last year. Hemant Mehta had posted his “soul” on eBay, the article read. He told eBay patrons: “While I don’t believe in God, I firmly believe I would immediately change those views if presented with evidence to the contrary. And at age 22, this is possibly the best chance anyone has of changing me.”

To that end, he proposed visiting one hour of church for every $10 of the final bid. One week, 41 bids and more than 10,000 eBay hits later, the winning bid of $504 was made by Off the Map (off-the-map.org), a Christian organization trying to make evangelism practical for ordinary Christians. A deal was made. Hemant would visit 10 to 15 churches selected by Off the Map, and then write about his experiences for the organization. 

What has transpired is much more than he bargained for—national secular and religious media coverage, a popular blog (friendlyatheist.com) and a book deal. All this because an atheist said he’d go to church.   

I wanted to hear more. So a few months ago, I e-mailed Hemant to ask if he’d be willing to chat with me. His quick e-mail response (within minutes) was my first clue—we’ve got stuff in common. He lives off his computer too! He congenially agreed to talk, but only after he finished his exams. He was completing a master’s program in math education at DePaul University.

When we finally talked, more likenesses emerged. Both at the edge of the millennial generation (born in the early ’80s) with new college degrees under our belts, we’ve secured places in the work force and desperately want our jobs to mean something. Each has one younger sibling, and we were raised by both parents in loving, devout households. Mine, however, was Christian. His was Jain. Enter our differences. I am managing editor of Outreach, trying to equip pastors and church leaders to spread Christianity. He is a voting member of Secular Coalition for America, a Washington, D.C., organization lobbying for the rights of atheists and non-religious people.

Nevertheless, we laughed and challenged each other in our conversation. This type of friendly dialog between a Christian and an atheist is exactly what Hemant believes would help the Church’s cause, as he explains in his new book I Sold My Soul on eBay (WaterBrook)—a title he laughs at because after all, atheists don’t believe in souls, but it’s catchy. As a self-proclaimed “friendly atheist,” he shares in his book his thoughts on the churches he visited: everything from why some churches focus on the “quantity of conversions” rather than the quality of the help they provide, to why some pastors consider him “lost”—because he doesn’t feel lost. 

Hemant’s views have not changed. He is still an atheist, but some of his assumptions about church and Christianity were wrong, he says. In the next few pages, he tells me what those were. He also tells me the questions he thinks Christians should be asking and why. I invite you to not only meet him, but join our conversation.

Heather Johnson: Your parents are from India, and although you were born and raised in Chicago, you were brought up Jain. Can you briefly explain some of Jainism’s underlying beliefs?

Hemant Mehta: Well, Jainism is this ancient religion from India, and its main tenets include things like non-violence, non-possessiveness—things that I still try to live by. But Jains also believe in things like reincarnation, this idea that karma is going to stay with you and you can shed or gain it, and that the world’s time is divided into cycles of a couple of thousand years. These things really have no basis in reality. They’re nice ideas, so people believe in them.

HJ: When did you start thinking that what you believed in might be just a “nice idea”?

HM: When I was around 14, I started questioning for the first time. I just didn’t see any reason to believe in the supernatural aspect of it. No one I knew had any reason to believe in it either, other than it’s just what has been passed down.

  So that’s really why I don’t call myself a Jain anymore. But I am still vegetarian, and I still try to live that non-possessiveness, non-materialistic type of life.

HJ: Did you verbalize any of these thoughts? I’m curious what your parents thought.

HM: I didn’t tell anyone. Late at night, I’d go online and try to look up what stuff meant. And basically everything kind of led to atheism—if you don’t believe in the supernatural and you don’t believe in God, then you’re an atheist. I didn’t know much about atheism, just that “it was bad.” The more I kept reading though, the more sense it made—that morals come not from a book, but from your learning and your daily interaction with people.

One night during my freshman year in high school, I just stopped praying before I went to bed. I woke up the next morning, and I was still alive, and I was like, OK, I guess this works. And that was it.

HJ: There’s something very scary about coming to a realization that goes against not only everything you’ve been taught but also against the beliefs of everyone you’re close to.

HM: Not to say that this is exactly like the gay movement, but having to tell my parents that I’d become an atheist really felt like I was coming out to them. Atheism is something so foreign to them. I thought it would cause more harm than anything, so I didn’t tell them until my second or third year at college. I was starting to work more and more with a lot of atheist groups. I had gotten a scholarship to go to an atheist conference, and I didn’t want to lie to my parents about where I’d be.

They had an idea this was happening, but they weren’t sure until I told them. They have slowly begun to understand that just because I’m an atheist doesn’t mean that I’m off looting stores. I think they understand that I’m the good person they raised me to be. They feel a little better about it now, but I’m sure they’d be happier if I were more religious.

HJ: You went to the University of Illinois in Chicago for your undergraduate degree. Tell me about your experience there. Did you meet other atheists?

HM: My first year, I didn’t really do anything in terms of religion. My friends were kind of a mixture of everything—Hindu, Catholic, or they just didn’t care either way. By my second year, I still didn’t really know any atheists, yet I really wanted to meet some. So I started this group for atheists—Students WithOut Religious Dogma (SWORD)—with a girl I met in one of my English classes. We just wanted to meet other people and talk about issues that mattered to us.

People started coming to our meetings, having discussions with us about the afterlife and also taking God out of the pledge [of allegiance]—that was a big issue at the time. We soon affiliated SWORD with a larger national group called the Secular Student Alliance (SSA). I worked with them closely, and now I’m the chair of SSA. Through it, I’ve gotten involved with other atheist national groups, as well.

HJ: How do you work with these groups?

HM: We help students who are atheists or seeking to be atheists. They might come to us wanting to start a group on their campus, and we give them the necessary tools. We also do a newsletter that goes out to a couple thousand people about what’s going on in the youth/atheist movement.

Through the SSA, I’ve also worked with the Secular Coalition for America. I’m one of the seven voting members of the coalition—the first registered lobbying group in Washington. It’s specifically for atheist/non-religious people.

But I think these secular groups, more than anything, are about trying to get out the message that we’ve all been through the same thing—it’s hard to come out as an atheist in this country.

HJ: Basically, it’s just about people wanting to feel comfortable and find community.  

HM: Right.

HJ: So how did your eBay bid fit into your work and beliefs?

HM: Having come from Jainism, I didn’t know what church was like. I had never even been inside a Christian church. I wanted to find a way to not just explore church, but to also go and ask people questions about it. I wanted to find out why [Christians] believe certain things, and I didn’t want anyone to be able to tell me that I was just an atheist because I had never even thought about Christianity.

That’s when the eBay idea came to mind. It wasn’t about the money; in fact, the money was donated to the SSA. I didn’t really think anything big would happen. I just thought it would be an interesting way to get people’s attention.

HJ: Now you’ve been inside many Christian churches. Tell me about the first time.

HM: I went to a Catholic church in Chicago near where I lived. My first observation was that while the people knew what the rituals were, they weren’t even thinking about them as they did them. The priest had a memorized script, but at one point, he talked about how we need to overcome obstacles. He shared about this time when he had smoked cigarettes and really wanted to quit. He prayed to God and then—cold turkey—he just stopped.

I thought that was a really great story, powerful stuff! You could tell he was emotional about it. But as soon as he finished the story, he went back into the monotonous scripted speech. I thought, Ah, you had me! I was listening, and then I got bored again.

HJ: You said you wanted to not only attend church—you’ve now visited nearly 30—but also ask questions. Have you been able to do this? 

HM: Yes, a few times. But at the bigger churches, the pastors were almost nowhere to be found, and at some of the smaller ones, where it was more solemn and formal, it just didn’t seem right to approach them.

But one, a local church outside of Chicago—Parkview Christian Church—invited me to come and talk onstage with their pastor, Tim Harlow, for all three services. He was doing a whole series on The Da Vinci Code, and the final week, he was basically preaching about how it’s OK to have doubts and that if you have doubts, the Church thinks it can help.

It was really cool. We got into evolution and some of the harder spiritual questions. This was a pastor who really believes in intelligent design, and yet he was talking to me who believes in evolution. Most importantly, the audience got to hear the discussion. Yes, it got heated at times, but when all was said and done, the pastor and I were still friends. We were still able to shake each other’s hand, and I genuinely liked that guy. Yes, I disagree with him about some very important issues, but the idea was, we can have a discussion. He didn’t try to convert me or tell me that everything I believe is wrong.

HJ: You said that it was important the church audience saw this, but what about other atheists? What did your atheist friends think?

HM: Some of my atheist friends said things like “Oh my god, I would love to be in your shoes. I would love to tell that pastor how wrong he is!” And I’m just thinking, That’s why you’re not invited! That is not what this is about, and that is why it worked.

HJ: Did you experience negative things while visiting these churches?

HM: I heard a lot of what I considered to be hate speech. Some churches led missionary trips with the intent to “convert Muslims,” as if that was the reason some countries were under-developed or impoverished.

Then, there were prayer services where people were asking God for things I figured they could just take care of themselves. You have a problem in your relationship? I think you should talk to the other person and work it out. You don’t like your job? Then work on finding one that suits your passions. I think atheists are a lot more confident than Christians in their own abilities to make things happen.

And a lot of people, because of this eBay thing, they were like, “You need to read such-and-such book,” and they’d send them to me. One of the titles someone sent me was I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. And it said something like, “If you are an atheist, you might as well be killing everyone you meet and robbing all these stores.” I’m thinking, someone actually believes that?

HJ: Before you visited churches, what were some of your assumptions about them? Were they right or wrong?

HM: Before, I thought church was a boring place everyone was forced to go to on a Sunday morning and that there was absolutely no thinking involved. I was wrong on those points. The churches I saw knew how to bring people in and keep them there, and several times, I heard sermons that raised ideas I had hardly thought about. Of course, there were also sermons that put me to sleep, but not as often as I thought they would. The people in the church chose to be there, and so did many of their children.

HJ: You say in your book that your interactions with Christians, for the most part, have always been good, but they’re—we’re—not asking the right questions. What are some of those questions that Christians need to be asking when we’re talking to someone with different beliefs?

HM: You should ask: Are atheists really bad? Why do we think other religions are wrong? And not just “I’m right, so they’re inherently wrong,” but what really do they believe? Why do so many people believe these other things? Why do only certain people believe in Christianity? How do we know what’s divine? How do we know every single thing the Bible says is true? 

And I know some of these questions have been answered in apologetics books, but it would be great if more regular people, not just academics and authors, asked themselves these questions. I think that might make their faith stronger—or maybe it’d weaken it—but more than anything, it would get them thinking, to really distinguish what they believe.

HJ: Often, many Christians shut down because they’re afraid they may not have all the answers.  

HM: And I want to say—that’s OK! If you’re talking with someone who’s also not trying to convert you to atheism or another religion, but is just trying to have a discussion with you, it’s OK if you don’t have the answers. Talk about the questions you have. You may find you have some of the same ones. You can always read and look up material after the conversation, but just talk while you’re together!

HJ: Hemant, you’re still an atheist, but you say you’ve learned some things through this experience. And you’ve wanted others—Christians and non-Christians—to join you as you went through the process of exploring Christianity and its churches. So, what do you hope Christians learn from your observations?

HM: Clearly, most churches have aligned themselves against non-religious people. By adopting this stance, Christians have turned off the people I would think they want to connect with. The combative stance I’ve observed is an approach that causes people to become apathetic—and even antagonistic—toward religion as a whole. Many evangelical pastors seem to perceive just about everything to be a threat against Christianity. Evolution is a threat. Gay marriage is a threat. A swear word uttered accidentally on television is a threat. Democrats are a threat. I don’t see how any of these things pose a threat against Christianity. If someone disagrees with you about politics or social issues or the matter of origins, isn’t that just democracy and free speech in action? Why do Christians feel so threatened?

You need to spread the message of Christianity—the message being what Christianity stands for—loving each other, helping the people around you. Those are things everyone can get on board with.

Also, atheists ... we’re not non-believers. We do believe in a lot of things, but they come from other experiences and other encounters, not necessarily a book.

HJ: What would Christians have to do to change how atheists view them?

HM: Well, for instance, a lady e-mailed me and she said a group of people from her church wanted to do something nice over the weekend. They contacted the mayor of the town and asked if he knew any service projects that they could do. He told them there was an older couple—the guy is a war veteran—and their house needs remodeling. And so they did this kind of extreme home makeover thing. They pitched in, sent the couple away for a weekend to a hotel or something. And they didn’t get just church people involved, they invited friends and the couples’ neighbors.

So the couple returns and sees what these people have done for them and their house, and they are just overjoyed. 

That sort of thing can change views. It had nothing to do with “we’re Christians doing this.” It was just a group of people doing the Christian thing, just helping these people.

The woman even said they had no idea what the faith of some of the people helping were, what church they attended or if they even attended a church. But the whole point was to do something nice while all these people were together.

And that is the type of thing that is hard to argue with. If that is what your Christianity can do, wonderful! And I can’t think of any atheist who would be against that sort of a thing.

HJ: What are things you can’t get on board with?

HM: Religion tries to answer unanswered questions, ones that philosophers have struggled with for millennia. Atheism also seeks answers to the same questions, but when we don’t know an answer, we just admit it. My sense of logic prevents me from making a leap of faith where none is needed.

The idea of an afterlife is also troubling. The atheist view of death, which is that death is the cessation of existence, makes much more sense to me—considering the fact that I’ve never met anyone who died and then came back to verify what happened after death. The life that matters is this life, here on earth, the one we know for sure exists.

Heather Johnson is managing editor for Outreach.

Read chapter one of Hemant's book, I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes (WaterBrook)

Answer the study questions for "The Atheist Who Went to Church"

 

-EXCERPTED from Outreach magazine, "Features," March/April 2007

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