The New York Times publishes a weekly advice column in which their Ethicist (Kwame Anthony Appiah, author, philosopher, and New York University Professor of Philosophy and Law) responds to moral dilemmas described in readers’ letters.  The headline for his column this week reads, “Can I Go to Church When I Don’t Believe?”

The query begins, “I grew up in the Catholic tradition, but after obtaining several university degrees — including one in religion — it became clear to me that Jesus wasn’t divine…”

The writer adds, “But boy, oh, boy, do I love the artistic output of Christianity…The music ‘lifts my spirit’ and ‘there’s the lovely sense of community in a congregation.’”

He goes on to admit, “I’m lying when I turn up at a service and recite the Creed and sing the hymns as lustily as anyone else.”  So he asks, “Am I hurting anyone by doing this? Is it, for want of a better word, a sin?”

Appiah replies that “A church represents a confluence of practices, beliefs and community, and its congregants will be drawn for all sorts of reasons.”  He encourages the writer to continue attending Catholic services and to visit other churches, “like those of the Unitarian Universalists, that explicitly reject creeds.”

Appiah wisely adds, “There’s no saying what a service means to any of its participants. So your presence and participation can hardly be taken as a declaration of any particular creedal commitments.”

The Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship agrees that attending a Catholic, or any other, traditional religious service, is not harmful, and that it also can be helpful to visit more liberal churches, where congregants are welcome to think and speak freely about their evolving beliefs.