Kurt Vonnegut: Jesus-Loving Atheist

I’m going to give this blog thing another try. My kids say, make it short, make it long, make it shallow, make it deep, but the one thing you must do, if you are going to blog at all, is make it regular. So I’m shooting for twice a week, even if it’s only “here’s what I read and thought briefly about five minutes ago.”

Dan Wakefield has an article I enjoyed in the latest IMAGE journal (a publication I highly encourage you to look into—no, subscribe to) about his long-time friendship with the tolerant atheist (the words don’t always go together) Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut, it seems, insisted he was an atheist but he admired the heck out some aspects of Christianity. Like many people, he liked Jesus a lot but didn’t have much time for Christ. He complained to Wakefield “they had to make him a God.”

I understand Vonnegut’s complaint. Keeping Jesus fully human is much tidier—rationally and otherwise—and allows him to simply be another figure in the “Pantheon of Good People”—men and women we can tip our hats to and perhaps even try to emulate a bit when it’s not too much trouble.

But I think Vonnegut has it backwards. It isn’t “they had to make him a God,” it’s God had to make himself a man (in pre-inclusive language). Of course, it’s “chose to” not “had to” (don’t want to rile the neo-Reform guys—and they are mostly guys—by suggesting God might have been forced into anything that compromised his sovereignty). For my money, it’s the Incarnation—God with us—that gives Christianity its only significance and uniqueness. Otherwise, we’re just a Jewish (and secular) heresy.

But I like Vonnegut’s willingness to speak up for religion a bit amongst his fellow naysayers. Writing to a composer with whom he was collaborating, Vonnegut said, “I’m not a Christian either, but you have to admit it’s one hell of a story.” He and I agree on that, and I’m trying to live it best I can.