Carl Benjamin: Why I changed my mind about Christianity
Listening to Carl Benjamin talk about why he changed his mind about Christianity stirred something deep in me.
I know what it’s like to live between skepticism and belief, to try on atheism the way you try on someone else’s oversized coat (love this analogy), wearing it for a while before realizing it just doesn’t fit. From the time I was a child, I’ve felt presences I couldn’t name, been drawn toward the unseen, and yet, also pushed back against the walls of dogma. So when Carl spoke about moving from hard atheism to agnosticism, and how he’s begun to value Christianity’s cultural and moral depth, I felt a strange kind of kinship. His point, that rational arguments alone can’t hold the human need for meaning, felt like someone echoing my own thought: it’s not about clever logic. It’s about a presence that moves beneath words, something you can feel before you can prove.
When he described standing at his children’s baptism and realizing he’d been robbed of a Christian heritage, it landed heavy in me. Not because my own longing is for Christianity exactly, but because I know what it is to miss a sense of spiritual inheritance. His yearning for old hymns and the richness of tradition reminded me of my own ache for those holy spaces that feel completely forgotten in the modern world.
I also understood his frustration. Carl spoke about the disappointment of modern church; pop songs instead of hymns, sterile buildings that feel empty of soul. I’ve felt that same letdown, the same disillusionment when religion couldn’t answer my big, aching “whys” about suffering and injustice. His longing for something rooted and authentic mirrored my own desire for a spirituality that’s not afraid of mystery, not afraid to make room for the mystical. And when he criticized the shallow arguments of the “new atheists,” I found myself nodding, because I've seen that dismissiveness too. There's an entire forest to be spoken about when people only want to acknowledge one tree.
Where Carl really touched me was as a parent. His choice to let his wife take their children to church, even though he still wrestles with belief, felt like such a quiet, generous act. I’ve done my own version of that. Choosing to be real with my daughters, to give them room to find their own language, to never shy away from difficult conversations so they can fully grow into themselves and their natural curiosity. His instinct to give his children the wonder and rootedness he feels he missed reminded me of my own commitment to pass on what beauty and meaning I can.
Carl wrestled out loud with the biggest question of why there’s something instead of nothing and I’ve been hurling that question at the sky since I was little. His openness to the possibility of a religious awakening, even if he hasn’t felt it yet, made me think of the times I’ve felt I've encountered that mysterious, loving presence myself. Oh, and when he mentioned CS Lewis, I smiled. Aslan has been one of my own guides, back before I even understood I was being guided.
When Carl said, “You’re more likely to be persuaded by Tolkien than William Lane Craig,” I felt a spark of excitement! Truth often hides in stories, symbols, and dreams. And yet, I also felt tension: Carl still holds firmly to a secular worldview, while I’ve let my spirituality spill over the edges into something older, wilder, and deep in the green world.
By the end, I was left with a bittersweet blend of hope and melancholy. Hope, because his story reveals a willingness to reclaim something precious, for himself and his children. Melancholy, because I know how difficult it is to stitch together a heritage once it’s been torn. His words about “something taken away” before he could grasp it brought me back to my own moments of closeness with the divine and the ways doubt and modern life can pull us away from that connection.
I’m hopeful that more people are beginning to hear those same whispers from the Universe that have guided me all along. There’s a lingering ache caused by how easily modern life cuts us off from the sacred and now we must piece ourselves together one garden, one hymn, one mysterious experience at a time.
I picture Carl standing just beyond a door that’s slightly ajar. A threshold to a Narnia that I know is real: wild, tangled, alive with magic and mystery. I’m here, patient and hopeful, waiting for the moment when that mystical experience reaches him, when the quiet whispers become a song he can no longer ignore.
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