There Is No God and Mary Is His Mother: Rediscovering Religionless Christianity

by Thomas Cathcart

Overview

Is the Western world really post-Christian, or does Christianity simply need a reinterpretation? What did Dietrich Bonhoeffer mean by "religionless Christianity"? Is it passé? Or was it perhaps ahead of its time? In an era of dramatically increased religious pluralism and the emergence of large numbers of people identifying as "spiritual but not religious," so-called "religionless Christianity" can speak to those who find both biblicism and "belief-based" religion irrelevant. In this personal, witty, and timely book, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Cathcart takes readers on a journey into belief and unbelief and leads them through to the other side. Drawing from deep philosophical and theological wells, There Is No God and Mary Is His Mother demonstrates the meaningfulness of being a Christian in a secular age. Cathcart shows that, even absent traditional theological formulas and doctrines, Christianity can be a credible, meaningful, and practical means of negotiating worldly existence and experience. For Christians, There Is No God and Mary Is His Mother offers encouragement. For ex-Christians, it presents a different way of being a Christian than the one they've rejected. For atheists, it shows how Christianity can be an ally in affirming the here and now. Religionless Christianity is possible and desirable wherever and whenever it awakens personal and social transformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506474168
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	09/07/2021
Pages:	140
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Thomas Cathcart is the author or coauthor of six books, including the New York Times bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar (2007), Heidegger and a Hippo Walk through Those Pearly Gates (2009), and The Trolley Problem, or Would You Throw the Fat Guy Off the Bridge? (2013). He has been a college instructor, a hospital administrator, a social worker with inner-city gangs, a hospice director for patients with HIV/AIDS, and a lay leader in many congregations. He lives in upstate New York.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

1 So What? 1

2 How Did We Screw This Up So Badly? 9

3 What's Wrong with You? (If Anything) 19

4 Some Terminology and Some Loose Ends 33

5 God Is Good? 59

6 Envisioning a Kingdom of God 67

7 How Holy Is the Holy Spirit? 91

8 The Gift 107

9 Christ in Me? 115

10 Bringing It All Back Home 125

Further Reading 133

Notes 137

Editorial Reviews

"Cathcart has written just the kind of book I have been trying to write for many years, but have only rarely succeeded. I know that I will recommend it." —Harvey Cox, author of The Secular City

"In a world swirling in supremacy culture, this book helps us navigate how to embody an ethics of engagement from a place of care of self and other." —Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, author of Activist Theology

"Warning! Handle this timely exploration of 'religionless Christianity' with care. Its potent medicine provides a wise and witty—yet deadly serious—antidote to mindless dogmatism, heartless moralism, and other forms of toxic religiosity." —Marvin Ellison, author of Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times

From the Publisher