Richard Wade is a retired licensed Marriage and Family Therapist living in southern California. At Hemant’s suggestion, in 2009 he began writing an advice column called “Ask Richard.” He publishes his responses to email letters from people of all viewpoints, not just atheists. These usually deal with challenges or conflicts stemming from believers and nonbelievers living or working together. He tries to reduce unnecessary conflict and suffering on all sides.
He has spoken as a “guest atheist” at several churches to dispel the misconceptions and false stereotypes about atheism and atheists. His goal is to prevent the same unnecessary strife and hardship in families and friendships that he has dealt with in hundreds of “Ask Richard” letters. With accurate information, loving and respectful relationships do not have to be ruined by this difference in beliefs.
He is the President of the Santa Clarita Atheists and Freethinkers, who provide a safe haven and support for non-believers in the area as well as participate in several community outreach activities, charity work, interfaith events, and political activism.
In May of 2013, Kile Jones launched a nation-wide project called Interview an Atheist at Church Day where he matched atheists and preachers for video-recorded conversations in their churches. I had immediately signed up as a candidate, but he was not able to find a match for me. Since then, he has continued to do interviews of his own and to pair up several more atheists with pastors. Finally, several weeks ago, he introduced me to Dr. Scott Colglazier, the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, and we had the interview last Sunday, June 28. (Thank you, Kile, and thank you, Dr. Colglazier.) Read more
There’s a widespread and pretty much true idea that everybody of my generation remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard that President John Kennedy had been shot. Yes, I do, in vivid detail. My eighth grade English class spelling test was interrupted by the school principal who had come in to tell us the terrible news. The word our teacher had just told us to spell was the word “extraordinary.” I saved that incomplete spelling test with that last word, but over the years I lost it. No matter. The memory is far more indelible than the ink on the paper. Since then, the precise moments of important historic events that were less shocking and painful I don’t recall as intensely unless I was somehow involved with them. I remember them if somehow I was taking part on the stage, even if only as an extra in the background, instead of just a passive observer in the audience. Read more
On their way to Hollywood to peddle their drug of addiction, hate, outside the Academy Awards Sunday night, half a dozen members of the Westboro Baptist Church paid a morning visit to my home town 50 miles north of Los Angeles. They targeted five churches in a series of brief picket protests for the sin of having female pastors and other doctrinal practices that they abhor. Armed with their typically vile signs and antagonistic rhetoric, they timed their demonstrations to be seen by the parishioners as they arrived for or left Sunday services. A few of us from the Santa Clarita Atheists and Freethinkers (SCAF) joined 200 to 300 members of the community to counter-demonstrate at each of the churches, despite the drizzle of much-needed rain. Groups from other churches and faith organizations, many students from Gay-Straight Alliance clubs at high schools and the community college, military veterans, and plenty of families and individuals turned out to overwhelm the little sidewalk bigot squad with a flood of harmony, acceptance, and love. Here’s a small sampling of the nasty and rather goofy messages of the WBC: Read more
Note: Letter writers’ names are changed to protect their privacy. Hi Richard, I’ve never actually come out and told my family that I’m an atheist, but it’s something of a poorly kept secret. They certainly know that I’m no longer a Catholic as I was raised, as I’ve refused to have my daughter baptized. But now my parents have decided that it is my lack of faith that has pulled my sister away from the Church, and now that my sister and her fiancé have set a wedding date, this has become an issue that must be immediately remedied. Both my parents have separately taken me aside and “requested” in the strongest possible terms that I try to persuade my sister to have a Catholic wedding. She doesn’t want to have a Catholic wedding, her fiancé doesn’t want a Catholic wedding, and I think that should be the end of the matter. But my parents want them to have a Catholic wedding, and his parents want a Catholic wedding, so somehow that’s my problem? I would try to talk to the parents about it, but frankly, I’ve never been able to have a rational and reasonable conversation with my parents. I’m tempted to just stay away from my parents for a while until they cool down, but there are two things that make me hesitant to cut them off. First is my daughter, she spends a day with them every week, and they are wonderful to her, and everyone would be truly crushed if they didn’t get to spend the day together. The second is that I don’t want my little sister to feel that I have abandoned her. She and her fiancé are capable of standing up for each other, and have been more honest with their parents than I have, even though they are much younger, and I don’t want them to feel that they have to make this stand alone. So I guess my question is, do I just walk away from the situation and hope things calm down? Or do I allow myself to get dragged into this drama and actively try to keep everyone calm in what appears to be a hopeless situation? Sandra Dear Sandra, Read more
As an unfortunate result of California’s Proposition 14, the so-called “top-two primary law,” California Congressional District 25, where I live, can only choose this November between two Republican candidates for our new U.S. Congressperson. No other parties are on the final ballot. They are former State Senator Tony Strickland and current State Senator Steve Knight. This is what they look like: Our district used to be more Republican-leaning, but it has recently become slightly more Democratic. This means that neither candidate can win unless they court both Republican and Democratic voters. Rick Wiggins, a member of my local atheist group, the Santa Clarita Atheists and Freethinkers, somewhat whimsically invited both candidates to come to speak to us separately at two of our monthly meetings. To our astonishment, they both accepted! Read more
