Last time we covered why it’s important to come out as an atheist in general. It’s too let people know that we’re here and that we are good people. Odds are pretty good that your parents distrust atheists as much as everybody else in the country. So I ask you this, would you want your parents to distrust you or even hate you and not even know it? Knowing that your parents love you and hate you could easily create cognitive dissonance, something that should be avoided at all costs.

Your parents love you, want to be involved in your live, and want to actually know you. If they are very devout in their faith, they will likely project that on you unless you set them straight. If they assume that you’re a believer then there will undoubtedly be awkward conversations where you are either really silent, passively lying (such as nodding in agreement/understanding but keeping your mouth shut), or actively lying to them about your beliefs or lack thereof.

By you’re silence, something you let slip, something you post on the internet, or through word of mouth your parents may already know you have lost your faith. Eventually the truth will come out and it’s best if it does on your terms.

In my case, I didn’t want to talk to my parents about losing my faith. I had struggled with it long enough, I just didn’t want to think about it. I had put a few posts on my MySpace blog that alluded to the fact that I had lost my faith and was quickly losing faith that I could get it back. I blogged very regularly about my travels in the Middle East and the lead up to and start of the evangelistic series I went to Mexico to preach. Then I went silent. All they knew for sure was that I had quit the seminary, but my silence spoke the volumes that my words didn’t.

It was warm Southern Oregon evening in September 2007 that my mom asked to have a chat on the deck. I knew it was the conversation I had been dreading. She acknowledged that she knew that after more than five years of preparing for the ministry I called it quits, but was curious about what else I may have quit. I told her that I was no longer a Christian, that I was a deist. I wasn’t surprised to find out in her mind I might as well have already been an atheist, but I hadn’t reached that point yet. She asked lots of questions about how I came to that position and how I would live my life now.

She tried to link it to the financial troubles that I had while putting myself through the seminary. We went back and forth with that one for a while until I firmly stated that my loss of belief was the product of years of study and that even if money had not been an issue that I would have still quit. In the end she chocked it up to a delayed teenage rebellion. That’s right, she thought that her 23 year old son with a BA in Theology and who had been putting himself through the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary was experiencing an adolescent rebellion. The conversation was over right then.

I don’t know when I first described myself as an atheist to my parents, but since they had already accepted that I wasn’t a Christian it was a non-issue. However, we didn’t really talk about it again until my parents finally viewed me as an adult, by which time I was a manager.

The average person doesn’t have quite so dramatic of a deconversion. This would make it much easier to quietly slip out the back door, something that I would have liked to have been able to do. As I’ve already said, if your parents are serious about their faith then it will come up. Your choice isn’t whether or not to tell them, it’s how and when. If you do it at a time of your choosing, you can control the conversation. I gave up that control by waiting for a time of my mom’s choosing.

I covered how to come out to your parent’s pretty well in my Guide to Coming Out:

Step 5 – Come out to your parents. IF YOU ARE FINANCIALLY DEPENDENT ON THEM AND YOU SUSPECT THEY WILL CUT YOU OFF THEN WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE INDEPENDENT. If they are Christians and they love you then this conversation will not go well, at all. It may start with them trying to understand you, but in the end hurtful things will be said on both sides. When emotion takes over, end the conversation. Just leave the conversation knowing that the reason it went so bad was because they love you and care about what they consider to be your eternal well being and they have the wrong idea of the life of an atheist. If your parents want you in their lives then they will accept you. In the off chance they don’t accept you, then good riddance, move on with life and find a new family.

Now, in that kind of coming out, the conversation would begin with something along the lines of, “Mom and Dad, I want you to know that I’m an atheist.”

Is there an easier, more passive way to do it? There might be, you could try to just gradually work your way there. Don’t go to church with them when you visit and casually let them know that you don’t attend church when you’re at your own home. Talk about issues that are important to you and be sure you include ones that you know they don’t agree with you on, such as gay marriage, evolution, or the secular founding the US, but be sure that you can back it up with sound logic. On some topics they will likely try to quote Bible verses, and you can tell them that you don’t think it’s relevant today or show them places where their own views don’t match the Bible (such as slavery). If you go this route then you can show them that you are a decent rational non-religious human being before you finally let the “A” word slip. This approach would lessen the shock a little, but it runs the risk of giving up control of the conversation when it finally comes.