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 had a markedly different experience growing up in the church.
About 30 years ago, my grandfather, who put down roots in the church after emigrating from Norway in the 1950s, died in tragic circumstances. Then, it was as if someone had put up the grief bat signal, and a posse of humble Lutheran superheroes sprang into action.
This meant more than just the pastor delivering a service and parishioners politely giving condolences.
It meant being surrounded by people who didn’t have to be told what we were going through — they just knew and tried to make our lives a little easier.
It meant people offering to bring us dinner and help care for my brother and me.
It meant comforting scratches on the back of my neck from a few old ladies in the pews, rare moments of tenderness from people who would normally scowl at kids like me for fidgety behavior during church.
It meant being eased out of our sadness for as long as it took.
Now that kind of enveloping support is harder to find. 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.
As with anything else, nonreligious parenting comes with trade-offs. My kids never had to worry, as I did, about displeasing God or the eternal fates of their nonbelieving loved ones. But in this life, right here and now, they’re grieving as I did when I was their age, but without the support built into faith communities.
And so are countless others experiencing age-old traumas outside the local institutions that once helped guide them.
For me, losing those people has been more profound than losing God.
Paul Thornton is the Los Angeles Times’ letters editor.