Camp Quest is atheists’ answer to Bible school

A dispatch from atheist summer camp.

At Camp Quest Chesapeake, 34 campers have been asked to create, in the name of self-governance, a list of five rules that they think everyone should follow for the week.

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“Be friendly to everyone.” Camp director Sarah Menon reads an item from one picnic table’s list before moving on. “Have your water bottle filled with water.” “Don’t attempt to fight telepathic bears without a helmet.”

The goal of the exercise is to get campers to think about the democratic process: What is the purpose of creating and following rules? What if a rule passes that they don’t agree with? Are they obligated to follow it anyway?

“We have a rule over here,” Menon calls out cheerfully, “about worshiping.”

The camper whose paper she has been reading looks affronted. “That,” he says, in an exasperated verbal eye roll, “was a joke.”

Perhaps one should begin with what these campers believe in. They believe in critical and creative thinking. They believe in mutual respect and living ethically. They believe in arts and crafts. But here in a wooded national park south of Manassas, under shade trees and American flags and the mosquito haze of a swimming hole, they do not believe in God.

Camp Quest Chesapeake is a summer camp for atheists. Or the children of atheists. Plus: agnostics, secular humanists, freethinkers and other self-identified members of the non-religious community. This summer is the camp’s first appearance in the Mid-Atlantic — the second-largest launch in Camp Quest history.

The first Camp Quest opened in the Cincinnati area in 1996, founded by Edwin Kagin, a former Eagle Scout who was annoyed with the religious overtones in modern Boy Scouting. Camp Quest had about 20 campers. In 2002, it incorporated, launching a branch in Tennessee. A few years ago the organization hired its first paid employee. There are now 10 Camp Quests in North America and a few more in Europe.

At the picnic tables, the campers are asked to come up with a cabin cheer. Someone from one cabin — which the campers have named Chocolate Rain — elatedly suggests, “We Don’t Believe in Cheers!”

“I don’t have any freethinker friends at home,” says Jake Monsky, thoughtfully. He’s 11, with blond hair damp from spending his free time at the lake. At some of his friends’ houses, the families pray before dinner. Jake says he bows his head because he doesn’t want to be rude. He likes these friends a lot, but sometimes, he thinks that if he told his friends that he isn’t religious, “then they might not be my friends anymore.”

Which gets at one of the camp’s main purposes: It’s the first chance that many attendees have ever had to be around people who will listen to their beliefs — or lack of — without fear or ridicule. In the most recent American Religious Identification Survey, 15 percent of Americans claimed no religious affiliation, with nearly 2 percent specifically identifying as atheist or agnostic.

“I was a believer,” says Amy Monsky, Jake’s mom, who is a volunteer counselor at Chesapeake. She grew up Catholic. When she left that faith, “I feel like I lost that village that a lot of religious people have.” Next year, Monsky wants to launch a Camp Quest branch in South Carolina, closer to her home.