The
Oxford English Dictionary (2007) does not have an entry for
nontheism or
non-theism, but it does have an entry for
non-theist, defined as "A person who is not a theist", and an entry for the adjectival
non-theistic. An early usage of the hyphenated
non-theism is by
George Holyoake in 1852, who introduces it because: This passage is cited by
James Buchanan in his 1857
Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws, who however goes on to state: Spelling without hyphen sees scattered use in the later 20th century, following
Harvey Cox's 1966
Secular City: "Thus the hidden God or
deus absconditus of biblical theology may be mistaken for the no-god-at-all of nontheism." Usage increased in the 1990s in contexts where association with the terms
atheism or
antitheism was unwanted. The 1998
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics states, "In the strict sense, all forms of nontheisms are
naturalistic, including atheism,
pantheism,
deism, and agnosticism."
Pema Chödrön uses the term in the context of
Buddhism: {{quote|The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God.[...] Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold [...] Non-theism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves [...] Nontheism is finally realizing there is no babysitter you can count on.{{cite book ==Nontheistic religions==