In Between New Atheists and Culture Warriors: Why We Need Translators Like Tom Krattenmaker

The most widely published book in human history tells us we are created in the image of God. If that’s true, then how we talk to one another across our deepest differences is not a side issue; it’s a test of whether we still recognize that image in each other.

On a recent episode of Created in the Image of God, I sat down with Tom Krattenmaker—a man who has chosen a very particular vocation in this turbulent moment. He is:

A self‑described secular person.
The author of Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower—which was named the #2 Religion Book of the Year by the Religion News Association.
And, intriguingly, the communications director at Yale Divinity School.

In other words, he lives right at the intersection that many people want to turn into a battlefield: religion, politics, culture, and secular life.

And instead of picking a side and firing away, he has decided to become a translator.

When the Top “Religion” Books Aren’t Religious

Tom shared a detail that says a lot about where we are as a society.

The year Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower came out, it was named the #2 Religion Book of the Year by the Religion News Association. The #1 book?

A title called Grace Without God.

The top two “religion” books that year were written by non‑religious authors.

They were not defending doctrine. They were not calling people back to church. They were wrestling with the same questions religion has always tried to answer—meaning, purpose, truth, character—but from secular vantage points.

Tom’s book asked:

What if you don’t believe Jesus is divine,
but
You still find his life and teachings so profound, so counterintuitive, so ethically demanding, that he “might as well” be divine in terms of his moral authority?

That’s how Tom put it to his Catholic father when he was a young man:
he didn’t believe in Jesus’ literal divinity, but he believed the teachings were so powerful they might as well have come from God.

The awards that followed tell us something. Large numbers of people—many of them religious journalists and scholars—recognized that a secular engagement with Jesus still belongs in the conversation about religion.

They were willing to listen to someone outside their camp.

In our current climate, that alone feels like a small miracle.

From Newsroom to Divinity School

Tom’s life path explains a lot about why he’s comfortable on contested ground.

He grew up Catholic in Minneapolis:

Devout parents,
A painful divorce when he was five,
A father whose alcoholism eventually tore the marriage apart,
A mother who was barred from communion because of the divorce—forced to sit while her children went forward.

There was plenty there to sour him on church. And to a large degree, it did.

But something from those years stuck: Jesus himself.

The stories, the teachings—especially the idea that what you do for “the least of these” is the ultimate test of character. That lodged in his mind and in his heart.

He became a journalist. Wrote for newspapers. Worked at the Associated Press. Eventually became a columnist and board of contributors member at USA Today, focusing on that volatile intersection of religion, politics, and culture.

Then he did something unusual for a secular journalist:
he enrolled in a master’s program at the University of Pennsylvania in Religion and Public Life.

He didn’t do it for credential‑climbing. He did it because he thought it was a good story. There was clearly something erupting at that intersection:

The Moral Majority and its successors.
The rhetoric about a “war on Christians.”
The rising backlash and the early stirrings of what would later be called the “new atheists.”

Tom wanted to understand it from the inside.

Over time, he moved from daily journalism into higher‑ed communications:

Princeton.
Swarthmore.
Lewis & Clark College.
And now: Yale Divinity School, where he serves as communications director.

He is surrounded every day by theologians, seminarians, pastors‑in‑training—the people many secular Americans assume they have nothing in common with.

And his job is to help them speak clearly to the wider world.

That’s where his word “translator” comes in.

The Translator’s Task

Tom describes his role as translation:

Taking dense, abstract theological ideas and rendering them in language ordinary people can understand.
Taking the questions and concerns of secular people and helping religious institutions hear them without immediately going on defense.

He’s not trying to sneak doctrine past secular readers. He’s not trying to deconstruct faith from within a divinity school. He is honestly secular—and honestly engaged with the best of what the Christian tradition has to offer.

He even used the language of translation in talking to his own daughter:

When she struggled with religious language, he encouraged her to “translate it”—to find ways of understanding concepts like grace, sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption that made sense from a non‑religious standpoint, rather than just rejecting them outright.

This is rare work in our moment.

The incentives run in the opposite direction.

The Business of Outrage

Tom and I share a concern that goes beyond theology: the business model of polarization.

He watched:

The rise of the Religious Right and its media machines.
The emergence of the “new atheists” (Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.) and their combative books and debates.
The way cable news, talk radio, and now social media realized that outrage is profitable.

You can build a brand around being that guy:

The atheist who mocks and attacks religion.
The Christian who frames every cultural disagreement as persecution.
The “thought leader” who survives on a steady diet of enemies.

It works. It drives clicks and donations. It cements loyalty.

It also deforms everyone it touches.

Tom put it plainly: he hates it when people are incentivized to do bad things. And stoking resentment and fear for money or influence qualifies.

He has no interest in joining either role:

The secular activist whose main identity is “anti‑religion.”
The religious culture warrior whose main identity is “anti‑secular.”

Instead, he’s trying to do something both more modest and more radical:

Articulate a positive vision of secular life that doesn’t depend on attacking faith.
Remind religious people that someone can be secular and still genuinely interested in Jesus, ethics, community, and the common good.
Hold open space where both can talk without immediately reaching for their grenades.

In my language: he is trying to act as if the image of God is still present, even in those who don’t speak of it that way.

Beyond Fighting Religion, Beyond Silencing Faith

Tom is clear that parts of the secular world still have their work to do:

There is legitimate need to guard separation of church and state,
To push back on religious encroachment into areas where conscience and pluralism should prevail,
To ensure non‑religious people have space to live authentically.

He doesn’t deny any of that.

But he also senses that staying in defensive mode forever—defining secularism mainly as “not religion”—isn’t enough. It doesn’t answer the deeper human questions.

So his own writing has moved from:

“Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower,” exploring what Jesus can still mean in a pluralistic, post‑Christian context,
toward
A new book in progress on secular purpose rooted in the natural world, asking what abundant life could look like for those who don’t anchor their values in traditional theism.

All the while, he works at a divinity school, amplifying the voices of people who still do.

That’s the space in between new atheists and culture warriors.

It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t produce viral clips. But it might be where the future is quietly taking shape.

Why This Matters for the Image of God

This show is called Created in the Image of God for a reason.

I believe that declaration has consequences for how we deal with:

People who share our creed.
People who don’t.
People who aren’t sure what they believe, but still care about truth and goodness.

If every human being bears that image, then:

The atheist on the debate stage is not raw material for your next “owned the libs” compilation.
The evangelical pastor is not automatically your enemy because he believes in revelation.
The secular writer who still takes Jesus seriously is not a threat to be neutralized or a trophy to be captured.

People like Tom Krattenmaker remind us of that.

He stands in rooms where people are tempted to retreat into their own worlds:

Divinity school classrooms filled with those speaking an in‑house language.
Secular publications where religion is often treated as either irrelevant or dangerous.

And he tries to translate.

That doesn’t mean we agree on everything. We don’t. He does not affirm the divinity of Jesus; I do. He identifies as secular; I do not.

But we share a conviction that is increasingly rare:

That the other side is not a caricature.
That there is something worth learning across the line.
That our shared search for meaning, ethics, and a livable future is more important than winning the latest skirmish.

That conviction, to my mind, is itself a faint but real reflection of the image of God.

We live in an age when the center seems to be collapsing. William Butler Yeats wrote a century ago, “The centre cannot hold,” and it feels more relevant by the day.

Whether the center holds will depend, in part, on whether we cultivate more translators:

People who can inhabit both religious and secular vocabularies.
People who refuse to monetize outrage.
People who are willing to say, “I don’t believe what you believe—but I take you seriously, and I’m willing to listen.”

That’s the kind of work Tom is doing. It’s the kind of work I hope this show, in its own way, is doing as well.

Because if we are truly created in the image of God, then our greatest calling is not to win the argument, but to become the sort of people who can inhabit that image together.

Sneak Peek: Next Week on Created in the Image of God

Next week, we’ll turn from the secular‑religious conversation to a different kind of complexity: the religious and spiritual lives of Latino/a communities in the United States.

I’ll be joined by Dr. Arlene Sánchez‑Walsh, a scholar who has spent years studying what Latino and Latina Americans actually believe—and why our usual categories don’t capture it.

We’ll explore questions like:

Why can’t Latino/a faith be neatly labeled “Catholic,” “evangelical,” “conservative,” or “liberal”?
What’s behind the rise of secular and “none of the above” identities among younger Latinos and Latinas?
And how does fluid, evolving religious identity shape the future of American Christianity and the broader culture?

If you’ve ever been tempted to think of “the Latino vote” or “Latino religion” as a simple block, this conversation will challenge you—in the best way.

Join me next week at 8:00 p.m. Central for Created in the Image of God with Dr. Arlene Sánchez‑Walsh.