Sunday Reading: Are You an Apatheist?

It may be an escape, but
it is a belief with severe
consequences for your world

 

For your afternoon reading this Sunday, we recommend an article by Jonathan M. Parker in The Worldview Bulletin Newsletter on Substack: “C.S. Lewis and Apatheism” (24 Jan 2026). The term may be unfamiliar, but the word apathy in it gives a clue what it’s about.

A theist believes that God exists; an atheist believes that God does not exist; an agnostic believes that we cannot know whether God exists; an apatheist believes that we should not care whether God exists.

It basically means indifference to God. If you share that attitude, or know someone who does, you might want to read this article. Apatheism is not harmless. It might make one guilty of acedia or misology (teaser: these terms are defined in the article). Those are bad and bad! We shouldn’t be like the one young person in the opening image who, instead of listening to Professor Lewis, is doomscrolling on her phone with headphones covering her ears.

In this article, which you can read in about 5 minutes, Parker gives four reasons for the rise of apatheism. One of them bears on what we do here at Creation-Evolution Headlines:

the advances of science, prevalence of secularism, as well as increased affluence and technology have created a sense of existential security that did not exist in earlier times in history—times when the irrelevance of God was unthinkable. As Charles Taylor explains, in the last five hundred years, there was a significant shift of focus to the “immanent frame” away from belief and dependence on what he calls the “enchanted world,” where God was believed to be involved and intervening in the world. Beshears continues, “The more a society feels safe and taken care of, the less important it finds God to be. And the less motivated people are to turn to God, the less likely they will find his existence relevant.” Apatheists share one commonality, according to Beshears: “A sense of existential security absent God.”

While today’s increase in apatheism may be understandable, it conceals societal risks underneath. Read Parker’s four reasons for shunning apatheism and teaching others (as we do) why “the Greatest Conceivable Being demands the attention of the morally and intellectually sensitive mind” including every responsible citizen.

As usual, C.S. Lewis provides some of the key ideas to refute another common societal malady.