7.1.13

Disbelief in the pulpit: On Faith at washingtonpost.com

Disbelief in the pulpit: On Faith at washingtonpost.com

THE QUESTION

Disbelief in the pulpit

What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination? Do clergy have a moral obligation not to challenge the sincere faith of their parishioners? If this requires them to dissemble from the pulpit, doesn't this create systematic hypocrisy at the center of religion? What would you want your pastor to do with his or her personal doubts or loss of faith?

Read "Preachers who are not Believers," a study by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.

Posted by Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham on March 15, 2010 2:04 PM
FROM THE PANEL

For Judaism, doubt is not hypocrisy

Too much is made of the divide between believers, doubters, and non-believers. For Jews, doubt is not hypocrisy. Instead, it is a necessary ingredient of faith.

Posted by Steven Wernick, on March 23, 2010 5:01 PM

If a pastor loses faith? Resign first.

If a pastor loses his/her faith, or a rabbi or imam for that matter (though it's a bit different), they must offer to resign and perhaps should do so,and then work out how they wish to take their changed faith, or lack of faith, or agnosticism, forward personally.

Posted by Julia Neuberger, on March 22, 2010 11:19 AM

The faith trap

The singular predicament of these men (and women) opens yet another window on the uniquely ridiculous nature of religious belief. What other career, apart from that of clergyman, can be so catastrophically ruined by a change of opinion, brought about by reading, say, or conversation?

Posted by Richard Dawkins, on March 20, 2010 6:51 AM

Ending the pretense of faith

For some reason when it comes to religion, there is a general feeling that it doesn't really matter what people believe, provided they believe something, and that this belief, no matter how ill-founded, must be cherished and protected at all costs. What clearer evidence could there be that religious faith is not particularly interested in truth?

Posted by Paula Kirby, on March 19, 2010 1:39 PM

Doubt, truth and wonder in ministry

It is the great mistake of the age to think that the believers are the ones invested with certainty. We are people of faith and living by faith is sure evidence that we don't claim to know, if by knowing one means being beyond doubt.

Posted by John Mark Reynolds, on March 18, 2010 2:46 PM

God, yes; organized religion, no

Of course there are pastors who lose faith in the church. Organized religion has pushed my idea and ideal of God to the side and replaced it with human desires and interests. Organized religion has denigrated my idea and ideal of God.

Posted by Susan K. Smith, on March 18, 2010 9:43 AM

Preachers who don't believe: The scandal of apostate pastors

Some theologians and denominations have embraced a theology so fluid and indeterminate that even an atheist cannot tell the believers and unbelievers apart. Will it take a report from an atheist to awaken the church to the danger?

Posted by R. Albert Mohler Jr., on March 18, 2010 9:09 AM

Good pastors are not parrots

A religious teacher, or any other kind of teacher, should not simply be a parrot. Those for whom I have the greatest respect are individuals who teach what they have experienced and realized, not what they have read and memorized.

Posted by Ramdas Lamb, on March 18, 2010 5:13 AM

Non-believing clergy: Now what shall we do?

Is there a problem of deep hypocrisy separating many pastors from their flocks? What is it like to be a non-believing preacher? How do they reconcile their private skepticism with the obligations of their position? And how did they get into their predicament?

Posted by Daniel C. Dennett, on March 17, 2010 1:21 PM

None of us now possesses the whole truth

Pastors have a responsibility to pursue truth, not to enforce institutional propaganda. The pastor needs to help believers grow, not to affirm them in their Sunday school security systems.

Posted by John Shelby Spong, on March 17, 2010 12:49 PM

Afflicting the comfortable comes with the call

If seminary has done its job, the difference between the pastor and the sincere faith of his or her parishioners begins the first day. It is a dilemma every ordained minister faces. It is the duty of pastors to challenge the sincere beliefs of their parishioners and help our flocks to separate assumptions about "the way things have always been done" from the truly defining beliefs of our faith.

Posted by Janet Edwards, on March 17, 2010 12:41 PM

A dilemma worthy of literature

The dramatic quandaries presented here show the systemic problems with an institution, religion, which forces people to choose between intellectual freedom and loyalty to community.

Posted by Rebecca Goldstein, on March 17, 2010 12:00 PM

The fine line between hypocrisy and reform

The dividing line between hypocrisy and reform is drawn by silence. If you silently go along with what is wrong -- however you define wrong -- then you are verging on hypocrisy. If you speak out, you are inciting reform. And attracting hostility at the same time

Posted by Deepak Chopra, on March 16, 2010 9:58 PM

A crisis of faith is one thing, a rejection of faith another

Doubt keeps us honest; it protects us from naïve arrogance. Faith, likewise, protects us from despairing unbelief. It's not dishonest for someone who is struggling with a particular theological point to still affirm wholeheartedly the Creed of his tradition because he has continued to identify himself with that tradition and in a sense to submit himself to it as he works through his difficulties.

Posted by Jason Poling, on March 16, 2010 3:47 PM

Disbelief or just different beliefs?

Contemporary seminary education -mainline Protestant and Catholic - leads to a different understanding of what it means to Christian than what much of "common Christianity" affirms.

Posted by Marcus Borg, on March 16, 2010 3:16 PM

Honesty the most faithful policy

Most evangelical ordinations require a new pastor to state publicly if his views change. The hypocrisy comes from one who accepts money from parishioners who believe, when the receiver no longer believes.

Posted by Cal Thomas, on March 16, 2010 2:29 PM

Many kinds of faith, many kinds of doubt

Some congregations may want as preachers some wind-up robots who are never assailed or enriched by doubt, people who can spout the "defining doctrines" and go hunting for and purging others who they think deviate a bit. Millions of others like to be ministered to by real men and women who share their doubts and faith and see God working through both in a world where the lines are never totally and unwaveringly clear.

Posted by Martin Marty, on March 16, 2010 12:20 PM

Say what you believe

If one discovers that belief has changed, it is a simple obligation to explain that to the congregation. A person of conscience and probity will take the repercussions.

Posted by David Wolpe, on March 16, 2010 12:05 PM

I'll be writing in the sand if anyone needs me

I'm sorry, but we all seem to be armed to the teeth with rocks, ready to stone each other to death. So if anyone needs me, I've decided that I'll be trying to figure out what Jesus was writing in...

Posted by Matt Maher, on March 16, 2010 11:28 AM

Pastors must relate to their congregations honestly

Differences of opinion do not destroy a congregation; they may even strengthen it. However, a lack of communication between people with different opinions can be seriously destructive. Dishonesty can be damaging beyond measure.

Posted by Welton Gaddy, on March 16, 2010 10:58 AM

Pulpit disbelief is nothing new

Since the early 20th century the unspoken secret festering at the heart of most American mainline Protestant churches has been the yawning gulf between what ministers learn in their seminaries and what church members believe in the pews.

Posted by Tom Flynn, on March 16, 2010 10:01 AM

Doubt is a part of faith

Doubts and questions are vehicles for clarifying one's faith and for maintaining personal integrity. If one's faith is nothing more than a source of static answers, it quickly becomes a mindless rhetoric with God as its footnote. That is hardly what most of us who subscribe to any faith believe in.

Posted by Brad Hirschfield, on March 16, 2010 9:46 AM

Integrity vs. job security

Congregational pastors are faced with a different set of circumstances. In most cases their livelihood depends on "pleasing" their congregation (a major flaw, I feel, in the "hireling" ministry!), and flying in the face of orthodox religious, social, or political belief is a recipe for unemployment.

Posted by Max Carter, on March 16, 2010 7:53 AM

Pastors' professional integrity

Think of the COURAGE it takes to pastor: one aspect of your job is to confront, even at times to cross the interests of, your employers, the members of the congregation singly and collectively! No one should be surprised to learn that long pastorates are extremely rare, or that the courage of some pastors fail.

Posted by Willis E. Elliott, on March 15, 2010 10:31 PM

Honesty is the best policy

I respect people for being honest, whether I agree with them or not. And how does a skeptic like me decide when clergy or politicians are honest? When they say something that is more likely to hurt than help their careers.

Posted by Herb Silverman, on March 15, 2010 6:23 PM

Don't fake faith

First of all, don't fake faith. The great Medieval mystics teach us that the journey of doubt, what they sometimes called "the dark night of the soul," is part of the mystery of faith. When you stand in the pulpit and look out at the congregation, you need to know that many of those sitting in the pews are struggling with doubt.

Posted by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, on March 15, 2010 5:32 PM

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FEATURED COMMENTS
lepidopteryx: I don't accept every single scra of doctrine espoused by my denomination. Why would I expect my minister to do so?...
edbyronadams: This is just one of the problems with a professional clergy. "Keeping the faith" is a problem for every believer and, as such, it is a pro...
WmarkW: This has been a problem for a long time: there are many professional theists but few professional atheists. ...
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Preachers who don't believe: The scandal of apostate pastors - R. Albert Mohler Jr. - On Faith Panelists Blog:

On Faith Panelists Blog: Preachers who don't believe: The scandal of apostate pastors - R. Albert Mohler Jr.


President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Preachers who don't believe: The scandal of apostate pastors

 

Q:What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination? Do clergy have a moral obligation not to challenge the sincere faith of their parishioners? If this requires them to dissemble from the pulpit, doesn't this create systematic hypocrisy at the center of religion? What would you want your pastor to do with his or her personal doubts or loss of faith?

Are there clergy who don't believe in God? That is the question posed by a new report that is certain to receive considerable attention -- and rightly so. Few church members are likely to be disinterested in whether their pastor believes in God.

The study was conducted by the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, under the direction of Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola. Dennett, of course, is one of the primary figures in the "New Atheism" -- the newly aggressive and influential atheist movement that has gained a considerable hearing among the intellectual elites and the media.

Dennett is a cognitive scientist whose book, "Breaking the Spell," suggests that belief in God must have at one point served an important evolutionary purpose, granting an evolutionary advantage to those who had some belief in an afterlife as compared to humans without such a belief. The reality of death, Dennett surmises, might well have been the precipitating factor. In order to make life meaningful in the face of death (and thus encourage reproduction), Dennett suggests that primitive humans invented the idea of God and the afterlife. Now, he argues, we have no more need of such primitive beliefs.

Interestingly, Dennett also proposes a new interpretation of theological liberalism. Noting that many modern people claim to be Christians while holding to virtually no specific theological content, Dennett suggests that their mode of faith should not be described as "belief," but rather as "believing in belief."

Given Dennett's own atheistic agenda, we can rightly assume that he would be thrilled to see Christian ministers and believers abandon the faith. Indeed, the New Atheists have made this a stated aim. Thus, this new research report, "Preachers Who Are Not Believers," should be read within that framework. Nevertheless, it must be read. This report demands the attention of anyone concerned with the integrity of the Christian church and the Christian faith.

Dennett and LaScola undertook their project with the goal of looking for unbelieving pastors and ministers who continue to serve their churches in "secret disbelief." Their "small and self-selected" sample of ministers represents a microcosm of the theological collapse at the heart of many churches and denominations.

In their report, Dennett and LaScola present case studies of five unbelieving ministers, three from liberal denominations ("the liberals") and two from conservative denominations ("the literals").
Wes, a Methodist, lost his confidence in the Bible while attending a liberal Christian college and seminary. "I went to college thinking Adam and Eve were real people," he explained. Now, he no longer believes that God exists. In his rendering, God is a word that "can be used very expressively in some of my more meditative modes" and "a kind of poetry that is written by human beings."

His church members do not know that he is an atheist, but he explains that they are somewhat liberal themselves. His ministerial colleagues are even more liberal: "They've been de-mythologized, I'll say that. They don't believe Jesus rose from the dead literally. They don't believe Jesus was born of a virgin. They don't believe all those things that would cause a big stir in their churches."

Rick, a campus minister for the United Church of Christ, perhaps the most liberal Protestant denomination, was an agnostic in college and seems to have lost all belief by the time he graduated from seminary. He chose ordination in the UCC because it required "no forced doctrine." Even as he graduated from seminary, he knew, "I'm not going to make it in a conventional church." He knew he could not go into a church and teach his own theological views, based on Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann. He did not believe in the doctrinal content of the Christian faith from the beginning of his ministry. "I did not believe the traditional things even then."

He does not believe "all this creedal stuff" about the incarnation of Christ or the need for salvation, but he remained in the ministry because, "These are my people, this is the context in which I work, these are the people that I know." In the pulpit, his mode is to talk as if he does believe, because "as long as ... you are talking about God and Jesus and the Bible, that's what they want to hear. You're just phrasing it in a way that makes sense to [them] ... but language is ambiguous and can be heard in different ways."

He doesn't like to call himself an atheist, but: "If not believing in a supernatural, theistic god is what distinguishes an atheist, then I am one too."

Darryl is a Presbyterian who sees himself as a "progressive-minded" pastor who wants to see his kind of non-doctrinal Christianity "given validity in some way." He acknowledges that he is more a pantheist than a theist, and thinks that many of the more educated members of his church hold to the same liberal beliefs as his own. And those beliefs (or unbeliefs) are stated clearly: "I reject the virgin birth. I reject substitutionary atonement. I reject the divinity of Jesus. I reject heaven and hell in the traditional sense, and I am not alone."

Amazingly, Darryl is candid about the fact that he remains in the ministry largely for financial reasons. It is how he provides for his family. If he openly espoused his beliefs, "I may be burning bridges in terms of my ability to earn a living this way."

Adam ministers in the Church of Christ, a conservative denomination. After years in the ministry, he began to lose all theological confidence. After reading a series of books, he became convinced that the atheists have better arguments than believers. He has moved fully into an atheist mode, yet he continues to lead his church in worship. How? "Here's how I'm handling my job on Sunday mornings: I see it as play acting. I see myself as taking on the role of a believer in a worship service, and performing."

This "atheistic agnostic" stays in the ministry because he likes the people and, "I need the job still." If he had an alternative source of income, he would take it. He feels hypocritical, but no longer believes that hypocrisy is wrong.

Jack is identified as a Southern Baptist minister who has primarily served as a worship leader. He was attracted to Christianity as a religion of love, but his pursuit of Christianity "brought me to the point of not believing in God." As he explains, "I didn't plan to become an atheist. I didn't even want to become an atheist. It's just I had no choice. If I'm being honest with myself."

He is clearly not being honest with his church members. He rejects all belief in God and all Christian truth claims out of hand. He is a determined atheist. Once again, this unbelieving minister admits that he stays in the ministry because of finances. Amazingly, this minister even names his price: "If someone said, 'Here's $200,000,' I'd be turning my notice in this week, saying, 'A month from now is my last Sunday.' Because then I can pay off everything."

Early in their report, Dennett and LaScola point to a problem of definition. Many churches and denominations have adopted such fluid and doctrineless identities that determining who is a believer and who is an unbeliever has become difficult. Their statement deserves a close reading:
The ambiguity about who is a believer and who is an unbeliever follows inexorably from the pluralism that has been assiduously fostered by many religious leaders for a century and more: God is many different things to different people, and since we can't know if one of these conceptions is the right one, we should honor them all. This counsel of tolerance creates a gentle fog that shrouds the question of belief in God in so much indeterminacy that if asked whether they believed in God, many people could sincerely say that they don't know what they are being asked.

In other words, some theologians and denominations have embraced a theology so fluid and indeterminate that even an atheist cannot tell the believers and unbelievers apart.

"Preachers Who Are Not Believers" is a stunning and revealing report that lays bare a level of heresy, apostasy, and hypocrisy that staggers the mind. In 1739, Gilbert Tennett preached his famous sermon, "On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry." In that sermon, Tennett described unbelieving pastors as a curse upon the church. They prey upon the faith and the faithful. "These caterpillars labor to devour every green thing."

If they will not remove themselves from the ministry, they must be removed. If they lack the integrity to resign their pulpits, the churches must muster the integrity to eject them. If they will not "out" themselves, it is the duty of faithful Christians to "out" them. The caterpillars are hard at work. Will it take a report from an atheist to awaken the church to the danger?

By R. Albert Mohler Jr.  |  March 18, 2010; 9:09 AM ET Save & Share:  Send E-mail   Facebook   Twitter   Digg   Yahoo Buzz   Del.icio.us   StumbleUpon   Technorati  
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ON GAROTH:
Gargoth stated, "The atonement is such a doctrine, requiring a God who is vengeful, who must have someone to kill, to serve his own justice. The doctrine, although having seeds in the Gospel of John, was not fully developed until the second and third century. It was never proclaimed by Jesus. Nor was his deity, for that matter. The oldest layers of scripture, reflecting what he actually said, such as in Mark and the Q source, neither declare him to be God or the Messiah."
Jesus' words which proclaimed His purpose and mission:
Matthew 20:28 "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
John 3:14-15 "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
Mark 8:31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Mark 14:21 "The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born."
Luke 9:44 "Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men."
Matthew 26:53,54 "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?"
On His Diety:
John 10:30 "I and my Father are one."
Matthew 16:15-23 "He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then char
Mohler became seminary president after serving as editor of The Christian Index, the oldest of the state papers serving the Southern Baptist Convention.
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