Pretending to Be Christian

This is a fascinating but brief account of a family in the South who fakes Christianity for social reasons:

“We are agnostics living deep in the heart of Texas and our family fakes Christianity for social reasons. It’s not so much for the sake of my husband or myself but for our young children. We found by experience that if we were truthful about not being regular church attenders, the play dates suddenly ended. Thus started the faking of the religious funk. It seemed silly but it’s all very serious business down here.”

I wonder how often this faking goes on.  I also wonder how much the reverse happens, i.e., how often the faithful have to dissemble in a more secular crowd.  I’m guessing not very much, given that non-believers still represent a fairly small minority in American society.  There probably aren’t very many communities where atheists and agnostics outnumber the religious enough to make them uncomfortable.

-Aaron Bekemeyer