For clergy, lost faith can lead to lost family, jobs

[bijou]

BETHESDA, MD – As coming out parties go, this was a big one.


As the American Atheists convention here wound down in March, a woman with short dark hair and a dark suit took the stage.

Standing under the projection of a large capital "A," she told the crowd of several hundred that she was a pastor who, for the last several months, had been questioning her beliefs online under the pseudonym "Lynn."

Then she took a deep breath and said, "My name is Teresa. And I am an atheist." As the room exploded with cheers, Teresa MacBain wiped away tears.

MacBain, 44, is the latest "graduate" of The Clergy Project, an online support network for pastors who, like her, have lost their faith and found atheism.

The goal of the project is not to pull pastors from the pulpit, but to provide those who have already lost their faith with a safe place to anonymously discuss what comes next. The hope is they will, like MacBain, eventually feel strong enough to put their families, friends and careers on the line and announce their atheism.

"When you leave the ministry, you can lose all of that," said Dan Barker, a former minister, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and a founder of The Clergy Project. "You have to ask yourself, 'Who am I now?' … The Clergy Project is a place where their self-respect is restored."

Barker traces the origin of the project to conversations with struggling pastors and a meeting with Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist. All felt the need for a place where active clergy could make the transition from Sunday mornings in the pulpit to Sunday mornings in bed.

That need was given new urgency in 2010 when Daniel Dennett, a Tufts University professor and another prominent atheist, and Linda LaScola, a qualitative researcher, published an article outlining their work with five active clergy — all Protestant males — whose faith had crumbled.

These men, they found, had much in common — all went into ministry to help people, all began questioning their seminary training, and all let go of their faith gradually. And all expressed confusion and frustration about how to live and work as atheists.

"They have early doubts that they do not act on," LaScola said after the convention. "Then they keep quiet. They don't tell their colleagues. It is a slow process from belief to lack of belief."

The 2010 study garnered a lot of attention among atheists, and The Clergy Project was launched in March 2011 with the help and support of FFRF and Dawkins' foundation.

Today, Barker says the project has about 200 online members, including active and former clergy from Protestant, Catholic, evangelical and Pentecostal backgrounds. There are also a couple of rabbis and a lone imam. All choose pseudonyms and share only as much as they feel comfortable with each other.

Mike Aus, 48, pastor of a Houston Lutheran congregation of 150 people, found The Clergy Project last year after years of solitary doubt. The day before MacBain's appearance at the convention, he announced his atheism on MSNBC's Up With Chris Hayes.

After addressing the convention — which also greeted him enthusiastically — he said he felt like a burden had been lifted upon connecting with The Clergy Project.

"The most important thing to me was knowing I wasn't alone," he said. "It was that fundamental sense of community with people who were experiencing the same things I was. It let me know it was not the end of the road, that there was life after this calling."

MacBain, too, said her doubts started years ago. When she came to the Maryland convention, she was pastor of a 200-member Methodist church in Tallahassee, Fla. She decided to go public, she said, because she could not go on.

"When I stepped up there, I knew I was finished," she said later. "I could only live so long doing a double life. I think any person who has any integrity, it eats away at your soul — or lack of soul."

The cost was high — something MacBain realized fully only after returning home. Some friends cut her off, and some family members said she is unwelcome in their homes. She received hate mail and became afraid to leave the house alone.

But emotions run high in both directions. MacBain's congregation apparently felt so blindsided that they locked her out of the church, she said. Her husband, a police officer, had to go in and pick up her things, which were already packed, she said. ...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-04-30/clergy-lost-faith-atheist/54651236/1

[Porfiry]

The atheists are doing the church a service, it seems.  No one wants a secret atheist preacher, do they?

[Eupher]

I guess like "coming out of the closet", it's become fashionable to turn your back on vows, core beliefs, and entire lifestyles - to betray the trust that has been given, whether freely or with uncertainty, all in the guise of "being true to oneself."

Gag me. 

[Big Dog]

I guess like "coming out of the closet", it's become fashionable to turn your back on vows, core beliefs, and entire lifestyles - to betray the trust that has been given, whether freely or with uncertainty, all in the guise of "being true to oneself."

Gag me. 

Doubting is natural. I think of it as the conflict between faith and reason. I've known a couple of clergymen, Catholic and Protestant, who went through it. It even has a name- the dark night of the soul. St. John of the Cross wrote about it 600 years ago.

I figure some come through it with strengthened, renewed faith. Some lose their sense of God, and don't regain it. And I suppose some fake it, but I can't understand how.

I'm just a regular Joe, but I have many of the same doubts. For me, reason trumps faith. I just can't let go of it and give in.

*****

I just realized how many times I said "I" in this post. It's really not all about me! 

[obumazombie]

I guess like "coming out of the closet", it's become fashionable to turn your back on vows, core beliefs, and entire lifestyles - to betray the trust that has been given, whether freely or with uncertainty, all in the guise of "being true to oneself."

Gag me. 

A scripture comes to mind regarding false leaders. "Let not many of you preach, for you will be held to a higher standard". I'd hate to be Jim Jones, or Koresh or anyone like that on judgement day.

[MrsSmith]

Reason lead me to my knowledge of God.  So many "reasonable" things atheists cling to just don't make much sense in the real world.  For me, clinging to atheism was just unreasonable.  I have faith...not that God exists, that is knowledge, not faith...I have faith that His word is true, His promises are true, and that I can trust Him.  Someone that "lost faith" obviously never had any.

[Eupher]

Well, I'm just a regular joe too, so I put the whole thing in a very simple context that even I can understand, and it really boils down to this:

There are simply too many unexplained events that have occurred in my life that have turned out for the betterment of others close to me -- not just me, though that part is also true.

These events have occurred often despite my wishes and, in fact, I fought long and hard against some of them before I realized that despite my herculean efforts, there is a force that transcends anything I can even possibly imagine.

That force is God.

I find that the less I struggle, the better off I am. The more accepting I am (still very much a struggle, btw), the more peaceful I become. The more tolerant I am (whoa, now THERE'S a REAL struggle), the happier I am.

But all of that creates turmoil and uncertainty, despite my reasoning. I liken that to the fallibility of the human experience, and I am comforted in that is a universal condition that afflicts all of us.

I agree with Mrs. Smith -- if there are clergy who have "lost" their faith, I just don't see how they had it to begin with.

[BlueStateSaint]

A scripture comes to mind regarding false leaders. "Let not many of you preach, for you will be held to a higher standard". I'd hate to be Jim Jones, or Koresh or anyone like that on judgement day.

Like the Obamessiah?

[Zeus]

I guess like "coming out of the closet", it's become fashionable to turn your back on vows, core beliefs, and entire lifestyles - to betray the trust that has been given, whether freely or with uncertainty, all in the guise of "being true to oneself."

Gag me. 

I can understand shaken faith but I for the life of me can not wrap my mind around the idea of a man/person of God transitioning to atheism. From the ultimate expression of faith to the ultimate rejection. 

[Eupher]

I can understand shaken faith but I for the life of me can not wrap my mind around the idea of a man/person of God transitioning to atheism. From the ultimate expression of faith to the ultimate rejection. 

Agreed. I liken this to someone who can talk themselves into and out of anything. No core, no center, no soul.