15

Church, Prayer, Holidays, and More

What happens entirely in my head, including my thoughts and beliefs, is nobody’s business but my own. But when I put thoughts or beliefs into action, I have to consider the impact on others, especially those whose thoughts and beliefs differ from my own. This chapter looks at a few of the most significant shared experiences secular/religious couples have, and how they find compromises without compromising their essential values.

Going to Church

After the knot is tied, and before kids arrive (if any do), one issue rises to the top as a common source of tension or uncertainty for the secular/religious mix. It’s not a belief but a practice: the act of attending religious services.

If you want to figure out the churchgoing norm for these couples, best of luck—there really isn’t one. When we asked whether one, both, or neither partner regularly attends religious services, these were the results:

→ Both partners currently attend religious services of some type together: 8%.

→ One attends regularly and the other never has (since marriage): 15%.

→ Both attended in the past, but now just one partner does: 14%.

→ Both attended in the past, but now neither does: 13%.

→ One attended in the past, but now neither does: 9%.

→ Partners split to attend different types of services: 1%.

→ Neither used to attend, but now one does: 1%.

→ Some other configuration: 9%.

→ Neither partner has attended services regularly since they were married: 29%.¹

In all, about a third of secular/religious couples report that at least one of them is currently a regular attender of religious services, meaning about two-thirds do not include even one regular churchgoer. This seems at first to confirm a common worry in many books on mixed-belief marriage—that marrying outside of the faith pulls the religious partner away from the church. But the best survey data indicate that the attendance habits of those religious partners is not far off the mark for the general U.S. population. Only 36% of Americans overall claim regular religious attendance.² So a religious believer with a nonreligious partner isn’t much less likely to attend church than the average American.

It’s no surprise that the churches being attended are mostly the ones in which one or both partners were raised: about 20% Catholic, 9% Baptist, 7% Methodist, 6% Mormon, 5% Lutheran, and so on. But one denomination had a much higher percentage than you’d expect from this pattern: Unitarian Universalism (UU).

Seven percent say one or both of them attend UU services with some regularity, even though just 1% of respondents were raised UU, and only about 2% identify formally as UUs now. This speaks to the unique place in American religion held by UUism, a denomination built around shared values and principles rather than shared beliefs. Since that’s a pitch-perfect description of the foundation for the secular/religious marriage, UU fellowships are often a perfect place for couples who share values but not necessarily beliefs to meet in the middle. (For more on UU, see the section titled “The Noncreedal Solution,” as well as Evan and Cate’s story in Chapter 9.)

Seven percent of individuals in secular/religious marriages say one or both of them attend UU services with some regularity, even though just 1% of respondents were raised UU, and only about 2% identify formally as UUs now.

A lot depends on the past experience the nonreligious partner has had with church. Some see church as a place of manipulation, ignorance, and fear. Others are fascinated by the window it gives into the human mind and heart. Still others have no strong feelings one way or another. Many feel a sense of loss when they think of church, even a little envy, while others feel nothing but relief at leaving church and religion behind.

I fit mostly in the “fascinated” category myself, thanks in part to a background in anthropology. My and Becca’s experience as a couple fell into the 13% survey result—both partners once attended, and now neither does.

When Becca first learned I was an atheist, she made it known that she would still be attending church. She never insisted that I join her, but it was clear that she would prefer sharing that experience with me each week. This wasn’t a problem for me, nor was it new. I attended the United Church of Christ growing up, then a Unitarian fellowship as a teenager. Over the course of 25 years I’d attended churches in seven other denominations and even held a music ministry position shortly after college, though I was an atheist the whole time. My college major was anthropology, and I’ve always seen religion as a great source of insights into the human mind and heart. I always listened to sermons with a Bible in my lap to see the context and would leaf to any verse that was mentioned. Attending those nine denominations gave me a broader and deeper religious literacy than I could have had through study alone.

For the first year we were dating, Becca and I went to Bel Air Presbyterian Church in California. The church was pastored by the charismatic Rev. Donn Moomaw, a College Football Hall of Fame football-player-turned-minister who gave the invocation and benediction at both Reagan inaugurals. (We twice had the surreal experience of sitting directly behind the Reagans in the service, or as I remember it, behind their hair.)

Years later after we married and moved to Minnesota, we ended up at Wooddale Church, a large Baptist-aligned church on the outskirts of Minneapolis. The senior minister at the time was Leith Anderson, and we both found most of his sermons intelligent, insightful, even relatively progressive.

But his associate ministers, who often had five-minute bits in the service, were another thing entirely. Their messages were often intolerant and narrow-minded. We often found ourselves united in irritation on the way home by something we’d heard from them. (That’s a common bonding experience for many secular/religious couples, by the way, especially when both partners are progressive.)

But even Anderson’s messages sometimes grated on me, and after six years, the experience of attending what was essentially a Baptist megachurch began to wear me out. My angry venting about the service became the reliable soundtrack of every car ride home, and Becca became gradually quieter during those rides. I was processing the content, while she attended for the experience of spiritual reflection. I began to feel that my weekly postgame rant was diminishing her experience. It wasn’t fair to her. But I also felt it wasn’t fair for me to be made fist-clenchingly angry once a week.

I didn’t know what to do.

Push finally came to shove one Sunday in 1999 when Anderson preached on Second Corinthians 6:14–15: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? … What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” His message, adapted from this passage in his 1994 book, Winning the Values War in a Changing Culture, was clear:

[This passage] does not forbid friendships with non-Christians, but it does say that there cannot be a soul-bond with an unbeliever. There is an inherent danger for a Christian marrying, becoming a business partner with, or even a best friend with a non-Christian. … Christians should beware of entering into fellowship relationships with non-Christians. The higher principle that applies in every relationship is to be sure to “not share in the sins of others” (1 Timothy 5:22). … The most important basis for fellowship is a common denominator of Jesus Christ.³

He did mention briefly this passage in First Corinthians (7:12–14) that seems to say the opposite:

If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband.

The last thing I heard before my ears filled with my pounding pulse was his explanation of the seeming contradiction: Don’t marry an unbeliever by any means. But if your faithful spouse loses faith, stay married so you can strive to bring him or her back to Christ.

That was it for me. I could hardly see straight for the rest of the service. As much as I wanted to support Becca, I couldn’t attend a church where a biblical passage equating me with wickedness and darkness was cited approvingly, and the most progressive and intelligent minister on the staff said quite clearly that my wife made a mistake in marrying me.

In the car on the way home, I told Becca I was done with church.

“I was devastated,” she said later. She continued to attend on her own for a couple of years. As I learned when I first told her I was an atheist (see Chapter 13), churchgoing for her was as much an act of repairing some bad family history as anything, but she had hoped we would go together.

Eventually we found a middle ground at the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis. It’s a noncreedal congregation, meaning they gather not around a shared set of beliefs (creed) but shared values. We both attended for two years, then eventually, without fanfare, joined the two-thirds of secular/religious couples in which neither partner attends services, creedal or noncreedal. (See “The Noncreedal Solution” in this chapter and “The Seven UU Principles” in Chapter 9.)

Churchgoing and Happiness

The claim is often made that churchgoing leads to higher marital satisfaction. But that claim runs into one awkward fact: The divorce rate of Christian Evangelicals, among the most churchgoing of all Christians, is 34%—the highest of all major U.S. religious groups. Baptists are in second place, at 29%. Atheists—obviously the least churchgoing—are tied with Lutherans and Catholics for the lowest divorce rate, at 21%. The survey that revealed these divorce rates was conducted not by an atheist, but by George Barna, a prominent Christian Evangelical researcher.⁴

Of course not all unhappy marriages end in divorce, and author Naomi Schaefer Riley quotes some relevant figures measuring the difference in church attendance between spouses and checking that against marital satisfaction. Satisfaction is highest if both attend the same amount (a satisfaction rate of 8.25 out of 10), and lower if one partner attends a lot more often than the other. The difference isn’t large, but it’s there.

Here’s where it gets interesting: If one partner attends church regularly and the other doesn’t, it has little impact on the happiness of the one who stays home. But the churchgoer is another story. Marital satisfaction is a full point lower for the churchgoer than the nonchurchgoer—7.2 versus 8.2. To put it in plain terms, if your partner goes to church on a regular basis and you don’t, he or she is probably less satisfied with the marriage than you are.

It’s easy to see why. The churchgoer sits alone, surrounded by couples sharing the experience—a weekly reminder of something she doesn’t share with her partner.

“It’s hard to not have common religious or sacred experiences anymore,” says Julie, a Mormon whose husband left the church several years ago. “Before we used to attend the Mormon temple together and talk about our sacred experiences. Now he no longer values those sacred experiences, which were defining moments of our marriage for me, and we no longer have many sacred experiences together. We do still have our love, and intimacy has a sacred feel to it at times, but I have felt there is a hole in our relationship.”

For Arlene, that hole eventually grew to consume her marriage to Nate. “I started going to church regularly again when [our son] John was about six. I knew Nate would sit through it if I asked him to, but I respected his feeling and never pushed the issue. But the questions about ‘Where’s Nate?’ began to grow, so Nate would make an appearance once in a while. He would be polite, but obviously not engaged when deeper conversation would take place.” Finally the charade got to be too much for her. “I just told everyone at church that Nate was an atheist. While people prayed for him and all that, he was still more than welcome at every event. He started coming more often and finally felt comfortable not having to pretend. That was great for everyone else, but I still really wanted a partner who shared my beliefs.”

See Arlene and Nate, Chapter 8

Filling that hole is a particular challenge for couples whose relationship was founded on that shared core from the beginning. Recognizing the need is the first step.

“I have to admit I wasn’t getting it for a long time,” says Rick, a secular humanist whose wife is Catholic. “Elena would come home after Mass and say, ‘I just wish you were still there with me,’ and I’d say, ‘Believe me, you really don’t want me there.’ I thought she wanted me to ‘get religion,’ but eventually I realized that wasn’t it at all. She was having this rewarding emotional experience every week, and she wanted to share it with me. I couldn’t do Mass every week for my own reasons, but I started thinking about what we could do together.”

Eventually they found a common experience they could share. “We got into a meditation routine together, and it clicked. I actually look forward to being together on a different level.” He even gained insight into the gap she feels from the empty space next to her at Mass. “She was out of town one week and I meditated alone, and I totally missed her being there. It just wasn’t the same. So the next week I went with her to Mass, and I’ve gone a few times since then. I can’t manage it every week, but I know she really appreciates the times I do, and it makes a difference in my own head to know why I’m there.”

He’s far from alone in this. Many nonreligious people find it possible to accompany their religious partners to services once they reframe the experience—even services as visibly participatory as a Catholic Mass. “My wife is more of a traditional Mexican Catholic than anything,” says Joseph, an atheist in Northern California. “She doesn’t think much of the typical Catholic beliefs and puts lots of emphasis on the ceremonial aspects of the religion, like taking communion and attending church every week. I was originally apprehensive about attending Mass with her. It was always boring for me, and I struggled with the participation that was expected of me. ‘Should I kneel? Should I bow my head during prayer?’ Over time I realized that my wife couldn’t care less if I participate or believe—she just wants my company while she attends Mass. I thought about how nice it is when my wife and children are with me when we are doing something I’m interested in, and she simply tags along with a smile on her face.” Sitting beside her in Mass once a week has become a way for him to return her patient companionship.

“Now during Mass I smile and shake hands and converse with my fellow humans. If the topic comes up and I can elaborate on my own personal beliefs, it’s always met with a bit of surprise, but it’s never escalated into a heated debate like I used to think it would. People are typically fairly accepting and respectful of other’s beliefs … and I learned that during Mass.”

"People are typically fairly accepting and respectful of other’s beliefs … and I learned that during Mass."

Social scientists wouldn’t be surprised to hear that a churchgoer’s experience of church has more to do with those around him than with God or theology. A 2010 Harvard/University of Wisconsin study confirmed that churchgoers are generally happier than nonchurchgoers.⁵ But they dug deeper and found something fascinating:

→ Churchgoers with close friends in the congregation are happiest.

→ Nonchurchgoers are next.

→ Churchgoers without close friends in the congregation are last—lower in life satisfaction than those who stay home on Sunday.

If you attend church regularly and have at least 10 good friends in the congregation, your life satisfaction on average will be almost double that of churchgoers with no close friends there. The researchers say that no other factor—not individual prayer, not strength of belief, not reported feelings of God’s love or presence—accounted for the overall difference in happiness. “[Life satisfaction of churchgoers] is almost entirely about the social aspect of religion rather than the theological or spiritual aspect,” says lead researcher Chaeyoon Lim. “People are more satisfied with their lives when they go to church because they build a social network within their congregation.”⁶

And though some couples (like Rick and Elena) find other shared experiences fulfilling, that isn’t always the case. Connecting in the context of a religious community is often uniquely fulfilling. “We think it has to do with the fact that you meet a group of close friends on a regular basis and participate in certain activities that are meaningful to the group,” says Lim. “At the same time, they share a certain social identity. … The sense of belonging seems to be the key to the relationship between church attendance and life satisfaction.”⁷

Couples looking for a meaningful alternative to attending church together should keep in mind that churchgoing isn’t always something that can be replaced by a bridge club or taking long walks together. For many people, though not all, church provides a unique blend of social connection, regularity, meaningful activity, and belonging that can be hard to replace.

The Noncreedal Solution

Most congregations are built around the assumption of a shared creed or set of beliefs about the world. In most cases, these will include a belief in one or more gods and a number of related doctrines. In a few, such as the Sunday Assembly or Church of Freethought in several U.S. cities, congregants are assumed to specifically not believe in a god or gods. In either case, half of a secular/religious couple may feel a less than perfect fit.

Couples in that situation who nonetheless would like a shared congregational experience should consider one of the noncreedal options—congregations built not around shared beliefs but shared values. The most widely available option is Unitarian Universalism, a fascinating religious denomination formed when the two most liberal denominations of the mid-20th century—Unitarians, who believed God is one entity, not three, and Universalists, who believed that everyone is saved—merged. The two denominations had been on the front lines of social justice for a century before they merged, agitating for the abolition of slavery, getting arrested on picket lines for women’s voting rights, protesting wars, and feeding the hungry—the kinds of things nondogmatic churches do really well. Both continued to get harsh treatment from mainstream Christianity. Finally, in 1961, the two merged to become Unitarian Universalism (or UU).

Since that time, UUs have developed an interesting and courageous experiment: a religious denomination built around something other than beliefs. UU is creedless. That doesn’t mean people sitting in the UU pews don’t have beliefs, just that their community is built around something else: shared values and principles like the worth and dignity of every person, justice and compassion, and a free search for truth and meaning. Many UU members are religious believers, and many are nonbelievers, which is why so many secular/religious couples find it a perfect meeting place for their shared values.

Not all find what they need at a UU fellowship. Some atheists say UU feels too much like church, and some believers say it doesn’t feel enough like church. They both have other options individually, though shared experience is harder to find. One former Methodist who now attends a UU fellowship said she can’t get her atheist husband to attend. “I just miss the time spent together and the fact that nothing has stepped in to fill its place,” she says.

But for mixed couples willing to compromise a bit to have that shared experience, UU is worth looking into.

See Evan and Cate, Chapter 9

“We tried liberal Protestant churches, and almost joined one until I learned I would be prevented from attending my children’s baptisms,” says Evan, an atheist. “However, we have been attending a UU church recently. I am enthusiastic, but sometimes Cate [a Catholic] feels there isn’t enough Jesus. I tend to feel like UU embraces both Catholic (her) and nonreligious (me), so UU is a perfect middle ground. I have learned how comforting it is to be part of a community.”

When I was young, I often got in trouble with Sunday school teachers in the Mormon church because I asked difficult questions. By the time I was in high school, I knew I couldn’t be a Mormon. Later I discovered that one of my great-great uncles had been disowned by the family, probably for being gay, and he became one of the founders of the UU congregation that I later joined. I found his name in the membership book, which gave me a strong feeling of connection. —Lisa

Families with Jewish identity on one or both sides can look into Humanistic Judaism, a noncreedal, God-optional expression of Jewish culture and values. Founded in 1963 by Rabbi Sherwin Wine, Humanistic Judaism currently has more than 40,000 members embracing their Jewish identity without theistic requirements. As noted in Chapter 2, it’s not a heresy but one of the five officially recognized branches of Judaism today.

If you’re lucky enough to live in a city with an Ethical Culture Society, well, I’m jealous. Founded in New York City over a century ago by social reformer Felix Adler, the Ethical Culture movement is a network of multigenerational, God-optional communities built around the motto “Deed before creed.” Most of the Societies are in the northeastern United States, but several others are scattered across the country in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Missouri, Oregon, and California. If UU is “too religious” in tone for the nonreligious partner, consider the Ethical Society—still congregational, but born as a philosophical social reform movement, not a traditional religious denomination.

Saving Grace

Prayer, meditation, and other solo expressions of belief shouldn’t require any negotiation between partners. But when one partner wants the other to join in the activity, a little communication and compromise is in order to be sure both partners are comfortable.

See Hope and David, Chapter 7

A common example and good illustration is the practice of saying grace before a family meal. Not long after David deconverted, he asked Hope to consider making a change to their family tradition of saying grace. Not to discard it—he knew it was important to Hope. But given his own change of beliefs from Christian to atheist, he wanted to find a way to preserve the practice in a way that wouldn’t exclude or marginalize him.

“It was a difficult step to make at first,” Hope admits. “Saying a prayer at meals is a big part of Christian culture. But David was wonderful about how he approached me. He was really gentle, he shared his point of view and asked me to think about it, then he gave me a couple days to get back to him about it.”

Even so, she says, “The conversation was really painful for me. I didn’t want to let it go. But I realized a mealtime blessing is more of a culture thing, not so much a biblical command or an essential element of my faith. Unlike some other things, at the end of the day, I felt like this was not a hill to die on. We went through a few weeks of not saying anything at all, which was awkward for both of us. So I suggested we find or write a less religious blessing as a compromise. We both hunted around and sent each other some ideas by email. In the end, I’m happy with our compromise: ‘For the meal we are about to eat, for those who made it possible, and for those with whom we are about to share it—we are thankful.’”

Meeting on the Secular Side

Only about one in four survey respondents have ever attended atheist and humanist meetings or events with any regularity, and just one in six currently does:

→ Neither has attended any such meeting regularly since their marriage: 72%.

→ One attends regularly, but the other never has: 12%.

→ Both attend together, at least occasionally: 3%.

→ Formerly one did, but now neither does: 3%.

→ Formerly both did, but now neither does: 2%.

→ Formerly neither did, but now one does: 1%.

→ Formerly both did, but now only one does: <1%.

As recently as 5–10 years ago, most atheist or humanist groups gathered once a month for a talk by a guest speaker who usually spoke on topics related to science or the debunking of religion, with an occasional book club in the mix. This semi-academic format has a limited appeal, especially for families, many younger people, and anyone looking for the social or community engagement aspects that religious congregations offer.

Just as many churches woke from their sermon-heavy formats a generation ago, a sea change has swept through the atheist/humanist movement, transforming many freethought groups from single-focus lecture societies to vibrant communities whose programming in a given month may include social events, community volunteering, food and clothing drives, support for members in need, and of course the occasional talk or book club meeting.

“We found a local freethought group on Meetup about eight or nine years ago, went twice, and never went back,” says Rachel, a California agnostic whose partner is a Reform Jew. “[My partner] didn’t mind the religious critiques in the talks, we just both found it incredibly boring. Almost everybody in the group was an older white man. I’m a Latina in my 30s. The talks were preaching to the choir. I couldn’t wait to get out. But last year I saw an article in the local paper about the group doing some volunteering and decided to check it out again. I could not believe it was the same group! People of all ages, men and women and kids, and I wasn’t the only person of color. They have picnics, they volunteer twice a month. They have child care! I dragged him back in, and we never left.”

Holidays

You might think that holidays would present a major issue for secular/religious couples, but in fact it’s rarely a big deal. Not one couple I surveyed or interviewed mentioned the holidays as a point of contention. Part of the reason is the “one rulebook” advantage mentioned in Chapter 14. Partners from two established religions often bring two conflicting rulebooks to the table for holidays. But nonreligious partners don’t have a single set of essential rituals for any given holiday, so there’s less collision and more room for mixing and experimenting.

It also helps that most major religious holidays, like Easter and Christmas, have developed secular parallels, and that the secular and sacred have coexisted quite well for many generations. When I was young, our Christmas decorations included Santa, a tree, lights, stockings, … and a manger scene. Our music included “O Holy Night” and “Jingle Bell Rock.” I never quite knew how they fit together, but I knew what they all meant, and I loved it all. Like most kids, I just accepted it as the way Christmas is.

So it continues today, with a mishmash of symbols and traditions that all signify the warmth, love, and fellowship of that holiday season. That some of the same symbols and traditions have religious meaning to others is something I can easily respect as long as that meaning is not forced on me. In turn, I would never think of forcing a secular interpretation on someone else, despite the manufactured “War on Christmas” nonsense. Many mixedbelief couples attend Christmas services in addition to secular celebrations. Few find the mix difficult to achieve.

The same applies for other holidays with religious roots, like Easter, Thanksgiving, and Valentine’s Day. All can be deeply meaningful and important to believer and nonbeliever alike without the need to agree on the meaning or purpose of symbols and rituals associated with each.

Then there are holidays with natural roots, including the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Because Earth spins on a tilted axis, the days grow longer and the nights shorter for half of the year, then reverse for the other half. Deep poetry exists in feeling the swing of that planetary pendulum, and religious and nonreligious people alike can and do celebrate those moments as well.

The Bottom Line

If they don’t mind pursuing their paths separately, secular/religious couples should have little difficulty doing so. But those who are looking for shared experience and practices—attending church or a freethought group, engaging in prayer or meditation together, or celebrating holidays—have many options that can be meaningful to both partners. Know what you want and need (and which is which), be willing to reasonably accommodate what your partner wants and needs, and communicate openly and honestly about it.