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Are you curious about Christian Pastors who have lost their faith? You may not know this, but if you’re in a Christian church – whether it’s a traditional Roman Catholic church, Episcopalian, Southern Baptist, Independent-Bible-Thumping-Fire-and Brimstone-Fundamentalist – your priest/pastor may be losing his/her faith, or already lost it. And yet still be in the pulpit. There are some times when you might suspect something was up. Other times, you’d have no clue.
I’ve been there, on both sides of that equation. I won’t talk about the loss of faith on the part of pastors who were preaching in front of me every week. But I can say something about myself, in the pulpit, desperately trying to hold on to my faith, and seeing it ooze away from me while preaching every week on the radio. It’s not a pleasant feeling and can lead to massive confusion, self-doubt, self-condemnation, and uncertainty about what to do and where to turn.
My Journey
I was never a permanent ordained minister in any denomination. I was *trained* to be a minister. Many of my classmates at Moody Bible Institute went off, directly from there, to be missionaries and pastors, and are still serving the church now over 40 years later. Our education there involved not only Bible and theology classes, but also courses on preaching, Christian education, evangelism, and so on.
I myself was not sure what I would do when I graduated. Missionary? (I considered it.) Pastor? (Maybe?). More education? (Yup, went that route)? In my final year at Moody, I became a youth pastor in a church in Oak Lawn IL and led Bible studies, prayer meetings, and trillions of social activities with high school and college kids and young adults. I did it for three years (while finishing my degree at Wheaton.) Loved it. But didn’t think I wanted that to be my life.
Then I went to seminary. I had decided at that point not to go into ministry, but to get credentialed to teach at the university level. My idea was to have a different kind of ministry, in a secular setting, as an evangelical spokesperson with academic credentials. I had known a lot of professors teaching among the evangelicals; I wanted to be an evangelical among the (secular) professors. A Christian mission to the secular academic world.
My Ph.D. – Pastors Who Lost Their Faith
In the course of my seminary training I was not allowed to take only the topics I was really interested in – history of early Christianity, Old Testament, and New Testament. I had to take courses in preaching; pastoral counseling; church administration; Christian education, etc. I received the same training as everyone else, most of whom were training for lifelong ministry.
It was a Presbyterian seminary, so most of my friends from those days were heading to the Presbyterian ministry and are still there. I myself was active in an evangelical church in those days, running the adult education programs.
When I got into my Ph.D. program I continued on in the church. By that time we had moved to an American Baptist Church. It’s an interesting denomination – not as consistently conservative theologically or politically as the Southern Baptist church has now become. My church was certainly conservative in many ways, but it was in Princeton and there was a broad range of theological and political views there. I was at the time heading toward a more liberal view of things in every way, as I advanced in my education.
During the second year of my Ph.D. program, the pastor of the church left, and the governing board asked if I would serve as an interim pastor for a year. So I did. Preached most weeks. On the radio. Performed church duties and services (funerals were not high on my list of pleasurable pastimes….). Visited the sick and grieving. Organized and ran the whole thing.
Christian Pastors Who Have Lost Their Faith – That Was Me
…..and was losing my faith. I don’t need to explain why here. Just one very quick anecdote. One Sunday I gave a sermon dealing with how a certain passage of the Bible tried to explain why there can be such intense suffering in a world created by a good God. Afterward, a parishioner came up to me, a lovely man with a gentle disposition, with tears in his eyes, and gave me a hug. He and his wife were stalwart members of the church. Their seventeen-year-old son had committed suicide the year before, and they didn’t know how to handle it, how to make sense of it, how to have faith in the light of it.
This kind soul simply appreciated someone actually talking about the hard problems in the church, even if there were no obvious answers.
Pastors confront this kind of thing all the time. It really beggars belief what some pastors deal with, getting into the horrible lives that so many people have to deal with. And some of these pastors lose their faith. For a variety of reasons. It happens. All the time. These are humans.
….How Do Pastors Handle a Crisis of Faith?
But what do pastors do when they are losing their faith? How do they keep ministering to those in need? Keep preaching every week? Assuring mourners at funerals? Keep following the church rituals: baptism, communion, and so on?
In my case, it wasn’t so bad. After a year, the church found a pastor, and I left to go to another church, my slide continued, but I didn’t have to feel like a hypocrite standing in the pulpit preaching something I wasn’t as sure about anymore, let alone preaching something I didn’t believe and counseling people in a faith I wasn’t sure I held.
Others are not so lucky. It is very, very difficult to lose your faith emotionally and socially – what you have always believed is getting sucked away from you, and you have based your entire life on it. You may have a deeply religious spouse, kids, parents, and friends; everyone looks up to you for spiritual guidance and support; you are to be a model and the model is crumbling.
And one thing outsiders may not think about as much. If you leave the pulpit, you can’t just find another comparable job. You’ve never done or thought about another job and you aren’t trained for another job. You have a family that you are the sole or the main support for and your kids need a place to live, clothes, and food, and how are you, literally, going to survive if you lose your faith?
This is an Incredibly Tough Position to be in
It is a horrible situation to be in. Some simply gut it out and hold on to what little faith they have as best they can. Others feel forced to be a hypocrite for the good of everyone else, to continue to comfort and help those in need and doubt, to avoid destroying the emotions and lives of family and loved ones, and so on. Yet others realize they simply can’t live with themselves, and so they admit the problem, leave the church, and try to figure out a way to mend all their relationships and move on, somehow, but not always successfully. Some heartbreaking stories out there.
Clergy Project & Christian Pastors Who Have Lost Their Faith
Most of you will not know, but there is an organization that came into existence eight years ago to deal with precisely this problem. It is called The Clergy Project. You can find its public page here: http://clergyproject.org/. There is also a nice Wikipedia page devoted to it and a Facebook page. It’s worth checking out. It is designed to help clergy and other religious professionals who are either still active or who have left the ministry and have lost their faith.
It’s an amazing project. To join, one does have to have been a religious professional (not just Christian, but in any religion) who now does not hold supernatural beliefs. Applicants are carefully vetted. (No trolls!!)
People in this situation can join *completely* anonymously. The group is massively protective of identities: no one needs to know who you actually are unless you are ready to come out. The group provides lots of vital services. There is an online support group with others in the same boat, counseling services, and career development opportunities for retooling. Pastors actually have a lot of skills, well-honed, that are useful in other careers, if they can figure out how to redirect them. There are monetary grants for career transition and so forth.
The group is justifiably pleased just now that they have now reached a milestone of 1000 members. It’s a great accomplishment, as the numbers continue to grow. Members come from a large range of Christian denominations and groups, but not only there: it also has Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Scientologists, and others!
This Blog is a Source of Support for a Cross Section of Religious and Nonreligious People
I know a lot of people on the blog have also lost their faith. Others have started to have some doubts. Yet others are completely committed to their faith, as much as others. We represent a broad swath of religious and non-religious communities. And hopefully being together in this format is helpful to people, no matter what their commitments and views. Whatever our views, it is important to be supportive of one another, and to realize there are others in our boat with us. The Clergy Project does this in a very focused way. We do it in a different way. The goal for both is to help people think through matters of importance to their personal, religious, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual lives, both to help them come to what they really think is the truth and to support them as they move forward in life thinking and believing as they do.
You have mentioned this before on the blog and elsewhere; what about those ministers educated in critical approaches to the Bible who never breathe a word of it to their congregations? Are they afraid of alienating those without the ability to further pursue critical scholarship and make up their own minds? Are they afraid that they might be called into account and possibly lose their job if the assembled church board proves too conservative to persuade (lose their job at the church and possibly within the larger denomination)?
Yes, these tend to hold on to their faith at a more sophisticated level than they think their congregations are ready for.
I joined TCP ten years ago I guess. It provides the support people need in a difficult situation. Good organization. Fortunately I had a profession to fall back on.
That was really interesting Bart – out of interest what year did you consider yourself to be no longer a Christian and were any of your trade books released when you were a Christian?
I’m not sure what year it was. I suppose it was in the later 90’s??
Wow’1 Your more personal blogs are always, always, your best ones. I am still waiting to read your spiritual autobiography. Your journey is similar to mine except you have much more biblical and foreign language scholarship than I. Other than that, there are many similarities. My loss of faith had a lot more study of science and evolution in it.
They certainly are the most popular! But, alas, I’m an inveterate scholar/historian at heart, hence my main passions….
Did you have any use of your training as a minister when you began teaching? I think all teachers should have some training in public speaking, and some of my teachers at Uni *really* needed it.
Oh, yes — made a huge difference in my communication skills. Think I’ll post on that.
If the “Many Worlds” interpretation of quantum physics is correct there may be an alternative universe in which Bart Ehrman is a famous Christian apologist!
Why would a presbyterian minister hide it from his congregation, that’s the whole point its up to his congregation if they’re fine with him having doubts or even not believing there isn’t anything anybody else can do unless they want to commit spiritual fornication and go against the will of the congregation. You have humanist (clergy) for funerals already.
I was the Treasurer for an Episcopal Church for seven-and-a-half years. When I lost my faith I passed on the job to a successor and stopped going to church. I am still dealing with the guilt of being part of what I essentially regard now as a swindle.
I am a former clergy who left ministry due to a loss of faith. From the beginning of Bible College to leaving ministry was 20 years. My Bible College and first seminary (of three) were fundamentalist. Before I finished my first seminary, however, I had moved from fundamentalist to evangelical.
As my theology changed, I progressed through an evangelical denomination (seminary & ordained) and into a mainline denomination (seminary & ordination transferred). Bart’s post sounds so familiar to me. As my faith eroded, I realized I couldn’t continue to stand in the pulpit, saying things I didn’t believe. I think the hardest sermon I ever preached was my final Christmas Eve sermon. I knew what my congregation wanted to hear. But I knew I didn’t believe it. What to do? Should I say the story wasn’t true? Didn’t happen? Would they call the bishop and tell him to remove the heretic? Should I dig out an old sermon and just say words that I no longer believed? In the end, I tried to walk the line between our views. I used language I knew they would take literally, but which I could mean figuratively. It was the best compromise I could achieve. But it was very stressful.
As I thought of leaving, I experienced the “I’m only trained to be a minister” issue! What else could I do with eleven years of theological training? I felt stuck. I thought my only option was McDonald’s! And there were the family issues that Bart mentioned. My in-laws were all very conservative Christians. How would I explain to them why I was leaving ministry?
I sought help from a parishioner (!) who was a career counselor. She changed my life! She told me that I was failing to distinguish between my knowledge base and my transferable skills. Sure, a new career wouldn’t care about my knowledge of theology. But as a pastor, I had developed skills in communication, organization, administration, etc. Skills that I could transfer into a new career. I might need to add a new knowledge base (more school!), but I had options beyond McDonald’s!
After 9 years of pastoral ministry, I returned to grad school for 2 years and earned my library science degree. I’ve been an academic librarian for 22 years and I love it! Leaving ministry was very difficult—but it was the best career decision I ever made. As for my faith, eventually it totally eroded.
Thanks for the link to The Clergy Project! Contains a great resource list.
Thanks for sharing about the Clergy Project, I’ve heard many good things about it. When I left youth ministry nearly 30 years ago because of a church split, I was fortunate to get a sales job working for a friend of the family, as I wasn’t trained for anything else. Years later I was an interim pastor after the death of a pastor and now feel fortunate that the church ended up voting in someone else as pastor (they didn’t like my position that tithing wasn’t a New Testament requirement). It was difficult enough losing my faith as a former church leader, and have often wondered what it would have been like to loose it as a full time pastor. So glad there are resources out there!
I know my transition was hard enough; I can’t imagine how rough for someone whose livelihood and support of their family is also dependent on their religion. Question: do you think your training in preaching and counseling is one of the reasons you are so effective in reaching the general public, as compared to most scholars?
I’m gonna post on that I think!
I recall reading Farrell Till’s story of how went from minister in the Church of Christ to atheist and publisher of the Skeptical Review. It’s worth reading. His story can be found on exminister.org
“Religion does three things quite effectively: divides people, controls people, and deludes people”. Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney, “Why They Think I’m Crazy: Except When They Really Think About It”.
I think religion does its most damage by dividing people. Religion is divisive to its core: believers/non-believers, orthodoxy/heresy, us/them, sinners/saints, the saved/the damned, gays/straights, and on and on. Religion is riddled with these false and pernicious dualisms.
Then there’s the horror of the control that religious fantasies can have over believers:
“If I can convince you to believe absurdities, I can persuade you to commit atrocities” Voltaire (paraphrase).
And religious belief is the pathway to delusion:
“What a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power
To reason away.
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing.
Nothing at all.”
Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, Doobie Brothers (1979)
Didn’t realize Kenny Loggins wrote that. What a great songwriter he was. (Didn’t he do House at Pooh Corner when he was 16??)
Yep.
I’m always a bit baffled by the phrase ‘lost his faith.’ My father was sad that I’d lost my faith when I told him I believed Jesus was a man. To me, it was never that specific, so new information couldn’t threaten it. I knew Jesus was always there, telling us we could be better, and if he wasn’t perfect, so what? Nobody is. Life isn’t, so why would the source of life be? What’s so great about perfection, anyway?
Nietzsche said that religious faith was dying (actually he said it was dead–in the 19th century–and people were just pretending to still believe), and some would try to replace it with science, but science could never fill that gap in us. Just another god that would fail.
Frankly, I see more evidence people have lost faith in science, globally speaking, than in God(s). Given that science is actually succeeding in ending life as we know it (when God/gods just threatened), that’s understandable, no? But really, the problem is not what we believe but how.
My faith, such as it is, is fine. But I’d never make it as a minister/priest. Tough job. People looking at you like you must have the answers. Ask better questions.
Must be tough. A couple of JWs came my door the other day, as they often do at this time of the year. One merely preached at me and when I mentioned that the gospels were written anonymously, he opened his Bible and pointed triumphantly at Luke, which has as the title, ‘According to Luke,’ at which point I said there is no point in continuing the conversation and turned to the other one. He was interested in my questions and wanted to discuss a few wider things, such as metaphysics, science (physics and evolutionary biology mainly). He also asked me some very intelligent questions back about the nature of belief and spirituality etc. I felt that he was struggling to hold onto his faith but desperately wanted to, perhaps for all the reasons you have given. If I have given him a shove in direction of doubt or, possibly, agnosticism, should I feel guilty? My justification is that he knocked on my door with the intention to get me to see the world his way, so he should expect some push back. I have less sympathy than some, I suppose, because I have never known what it is like to believe.
My Mother-in-law was a devout atheist and old hippie before hippies were in vogue. One day she was as usual dressed in something funky and probably see through when the JW came to the door. She opened it and said, “Yes, let’s talk about Jeesus.” That ended the visits! I wish I had the nerve to try it.
Very intriguing – it’s hard for me to understand or relate to the gut-wrenching trauma some people experience when losing their faith. I was raised Catholic, had a brief encounter with “Jesus people” my freshman year in college (calling them Jesus ‘freaks’ is probably a bit anachronistic-sounding these days), but whatever faith I still had after I graduated was never tied to any doctrine or set of beliefs. I knew that what was really important in Christianity, or any religion, was far deeper, and had to do with living honestly and treating others with fairness, respect, and dignity. So, for me “losing my faith” wasn’t a traumatic affair at all (I don’t even remember how or when I did) – I think I simply always knew what was really important in life and what was not so important, and always had a strong inner sense of what was fundamentally right and wrong – and that this would always transcend any specific religion. And this continues to be enough for me now.
If you are preaching that nonsense about God taking all his anger and rage about sin out on His son on the cross which is then supposed to reconcile us all back to God then no wonder you have lost your faith. This idea is not only ridiculous but is actually offensive to God. God said human sacrifice was an abomination. Jeremiah 7:30-34, 32:35.
It is as ridiculous as saying that the Silver Cross mother is reconciled back to the Nazis after they capture and torture her son and then put him to a horrible death.
Spent some time today reading stories on The Clergy Project. As someone who lost their faith it was therapeutic to read similar stories from others, even though I was not clergy, just a lay leader in my church. Thanks Bart for bringing this to our attention!
This is a beautiful, sensitive, extremely helpful piece. I think you could write it so perfectly because of your own walk. It should prove valuable to a number of readers. As one who went through an extensive period of retooling my faith into something radically different from what it was originally, I know personally how painful and especially lonely the journey can be. The Clergy Project should assure those making a journey from a faith that no longer works that they do not need to make that journey alone. We are greatly indebted to you for making this organization known to your readers.
It seems, Muslims go through the same experience like Christians do when they loose their faith. Shows how we all share the same human feelings. Religion is what diverts one from their natural human behaviors. I am an Ex-Muslim turned agnostic. It took me over five years after the first spark to let go. I was a knowledgeable devout Muslim. Only my wife and kids know that I left the faith. It took my kids a whole day to give up the faith. When I asked my kids if they were convinced about leaving Islam, they told me that if I said the religion is false then it must be false. Whaaat? That’s it? It all hinged on me? I guess they figured that if their dad, this knowledgeable and devout Muslim, says its false then who are they to argue about it. My wife continued praying for a month just in case I changed my mind. After which she stopped.
You know, most Muslims and Christians hardly read any religious materials. If they did, they’ll figure out there are so many problems with their religion. Luckily, the internet is educating people and a lot of people are finding out the truth. I guess the internet not only killed Blockbuster and other brick and mortar stores, it’s also killing religion.
I can relate in part to that experience as I was a former Jehovah’s Witness. Leaving the Witnesses is really difficult because all witnesses you knew can not even say hello to you anymore and even your indirect family should (some do) not talk to you.
I’ve wanted to ask something about the texts found in Acts 5: 42, 20:20. The Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses) uses them as the base for their house to house preaching work but they also think that all first century christians were going in pairs knocking from one house to the next to preach.
Acts 5:42 says that the Apostles taught “from house to house” acording to the Watchtower New World Translation (NWT) in greek is “καὶ κατ’ οἶκον οὐκ ” (Westcott and Hort).
Acts 20: 20. Paul says that he taught “from house to house” (NWT) in greek “καὶ κατ’ οἴκους” (Westcott and Hort).
Luke 10:7. Jesus sends 70 by twos and tells them “do not keep transferring from house to house” (NWT) in greek “οἰκίας εἰς οἰκίαν” (Westcott and Hort).
I don’t know any greek, but in the 3 instances it’s not exactly the same greek words. Does it mean the same idea? I don’t think first century christians were systematically preaching from house to house, but can you point to reasons why this would be problematic?
No: Acts 5:42 means that taught and preached in private homes (not door to door); same with Acts 20:20 (they are talking to members of the community, not to strangers); Luke 10:7 is referring to where the disciples are supposed to stay on their journey: in one place, not from first in one house and then after a time in another.
About 20 years ago, the pastor of our Catholic church went through this painful process. One Sunday he delivered a homily on the ” loaves and fishes” and he exclaimed, “IT WAS NOT A MIRACLE IT WAS SHARING!” He left parish work and became a counselor for priests in the diocese. I think there may be even less options for RC priests than Christian pastors. His views actually got me thinking, which eventually led to the loss of what was left of my faith (not a bad thing for me).
Are you going to write more on this?
I sure as hell hope so…
Not sure. What more would you like to hear?
I’ve met lots of people who say they lost their faith. It always seemed to me they meant they lost faith in some institution, but…okay. So as a person who has not lost his faith, and doesn’t belong to an institution, and doesn’t believe God “allows” suffering but is trying to save us from it, all I can say to them is that living by faith is walking on water. Not like, is. But to walk on the water, one must first get out of the boat. So I guess what I would like to hear would be some getting-out-of-the-boat-and-walking-on-water stories.
I resonate with your statement. Losing your faith is not the end of the journey.
Thank you. For me it was the entrance to a much deeper, certainly much more interesting faith.Jesus said no one comes to God except by me, or through me. In no wise does he say to stop at the cross and set up camp (see “stumbling block”).
I had a friend who was a Presbyterian Minister for 15 years and for the majority of the time he became an atheist. He stayed because he wanted to help people and offer them comfort in their dark times, much like the couple whose son committed suicide.
Losing ones faith can be very traumatic and yet I know for some people becoming an atheist has been a freeing experience.
I believe I have run across a few of these people of God. One that I remember was a Catholic priest from Ireland. As those stories from Ireland go, a priest is abducted to hear the confession of a person the IRA was going to execute. After doing that confession he would probably have to hear the confession of the executioner. Such were the times in the fifties. Anyway he always seemed to be going through the motions of priesthood. My mother told me she believed he had girlfriend, at least my mothers sons were safe.
It’s been 24 hours. If you want to scratch this go ahead. None of my comments mean didly to me.
Just curious – is the Clergy Project only for Protestants? All Christians? What about rabbis who have lost their faith?
Ah, yes, I meant to say that: it’s for any religoius professional, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, whatever….
> And one thing outsiders may not think about as much. You are trained to do nothing else.
I had never considered this. As a late-teenager, losing my faith was difficult enough — it separated me from many of my closest friends and drove a wedge between my family and me. But it must be such a terrible burden to have a livelihood based on your faith, and to have a family depending on you. Thanks for sharing this.
Dr Ehrman
Thank you for sharing your experience. Have you read Stuart Kauffman’s “Reinventing the sacred”? He is an atheist and evolucionist that proposes a way to reconcile believers and non believers to find common goals.
No, I”m afraid I haven’t…
It seems to me that most Christians, including priests and pastors, are secular Christians and are living out their faith based on what they’ve been taught by secular Christians, and when they really THINK about what they’ve been taught they realize the many levels of lies they’ve based their faith and their lives on and become disillusioned. In one of your books you mention that some of the original churches, before Rome took over, were more spiritual, and then when the Roman Catholic Church came into being they gradually replaced the more spiritual bishops and priests with secular ones. If most Christians today were truly spiritual I wonder if what causes disillusionment in secular Christians could actually strengthen the spiritual Church? I for one believe so.
It is a very difficult transition indeed. I was a very strong and committed christian involved in a music ministry and have become what you can classify as agnostic. I find it hard, probably impossible for me to will a faith back into existence as I think that people are subject to what they believe, and it is such a hard pill to swallow for so many reasons. I still love the concept of God and christian worship music. Formerly, in my conservative circles, Bart Ehrman was seen as some sort of bad guy but I always found his arguments justifiable and persuasive. Now I cant get enough of his literature. I eat it up. My favorite is probably “How Jesus Became God”. I also thoroughly enjoy the blog and read almost every post.
Great post! Your understanding and compassion are evident. I’ll bet this post will bring great relief to someone.
Hey Bart, I wanted to ask, what stops you from calling Gospels “Historical”? Scholars agree with the basic outline of the gospels, they agree it contains actual history, and is the primary source for the biography of the most important person to have ever lived historically, so what is the hold up?
I understand that they are not historical in the modern sense, but by the standards of their time, do they not absolutely qualify as historical and their authors as historians?
I understand that the gospels have a theological agenda, but so do historians of the ancient times… For example, Josephus. I could go even further… let’s look at Plutarch. He wrote an entire biography about a person who probably did not exist (Romulus). Plutarch is regarded as a historian, and his writings as histories… What’s stopping you from concluding that the gospels are historical?
I do think they are historical records, and often say so. But I don’t think they are historically *accurate* or *reliable* — even though they do have historically reliable and accurate material in them. (If a person gives you bad directions 30% of the time, so in those instances you end up in the wrong place, you would not call them reliable; even if they are *usually* right!)
This is a very insightful (and disturbing) post. I frequently wrestle with how obviously sincere yet learned clergy propagate what they logically know to be a fallacy. I have always naively hoped they just knew something I did not.
I think these hurting and seemingly lost at sea people may be the most valuable people in our society right now. How can we help?
Donate to the Clergy Project!
Bart, saying you “lost your faith” is negative framing. That’s what a fundamentalist says about people who leave their religion “they lost their faith”. They even say that about people who simply change to a more liberal theology.
I completely reject the idea that I “lost” my faith. You should too. That’s negative and what a naysayer would say. The phrasing is designed to denigrate and stigmatise. There are areas of the deconversion experience of changing your beliefs that as you say can be traumatic, but that doesn’t make it negative.
The problem is, and this is articulated in “Caught in the Pulpit”, that people often don’t have the positive language to affirm what they believe.
I didn’t “loose” anything, and certainly not compared to clergy who lose their careers, or Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses who are excommunicated by their families. I haven’t lost “salvation” because I don’t believe the world was created perfect and fell into sin through Adam, requiring the need for redemption.
I’ve been freed from negative dogmas, matured and grown, and I’ve got a much greater appreciation for the world than is possible through the narrow, or wide, lens of religion. I embrace western cultural values that I believe are more meaningful and precious than outdated biblical ideals about the world – like freedom, democracy, common law, and tolerance. I used to be a very judgemental person, deconversion has allowed me to free myself from that. I’ve grown to appreciate academic biblical literature, something most Christians don’t embrace at all. All of that for me is possible because of deconverting – which means I’ve gained heaps and embraced the positive. I’ve not “lost” anything except attachments to negative dogmas. I didn’t loose my faith, I just replaced it with a value structure I’m happier with.
So please, stop with the negative phrasing – we didn’t “loose our faith”. We deconverted – that’s the most neutral way of saying it. If you want to say it positively we matured and have grown past religion, replacing faith with more firmly grounded ideas about the world.
Well, I also frequently say that “I finally saw the light”!
De-converted is also a negative way of putting it though. I think there are lots of ways to say the same thing. But in *some* contexts “lost my faith” is what makes best sense. Most of the time I actually think that I became an enlightened humanist.
Well, when we “lose our faith” we really lose a Lot, that is the point of the post. If we want that our “lose” to became a “win” we must rebuild our lives and nota everyone do
It succesfully,
Wow. I love your post. Especially the replacing “loosing faith” with “deconversion” and “we matured and have grown past religion, replacing faith with more firmly grounded ideas about the world.” Thank you for that.
I have never thought to re-frame my thinking in such a way. Freedom from negative dogmas and growth and appreciation, meaningfulness – all very powerful. Thanks again.
Dr. Ehrman, I don’t know why some Christians lose their faith & others don’t but I’m glad you’re not bitter. Some people become absolute enemies of all things Christian when they leave the church but you still talk about the Bible in an unbiased way. Plus I get more truth from listening to you than some Bible believing teachers. I may not agree with your conclusions but your reasoning is sound. Thank you sir & keep up the good work. I hope I see you in heaven (if Nebuchadnezzar can be saved, why not Bart Ehrman!)
Good read. The challenges people who are employed as religious leaders face when in a crisis of faith in their own lives is harrowing. Seems our systems, as good as they are, prefer those in business, politics, and religion whose belief systems are malleable, to say the least.
There was a moment about 19 years ago that stuck with me for a while. During a presidential debate, George W. Bush answered that his favorite philosopher was “Jesus Christ,” who people in a secular context might refer to as Jesus of Nazareth. His reply was of course wholly inappropriate because the questioner didn’t intend such a low-brow, uneducated response (Dubya, of course, is himself a Yale and Harvard man).
But he was right. Christianity is a philosophy in addition to being a religion. And you don’t have to worship in a Christian church to accept that a Christian church is a valuable asset to a community, or that celebration of Jesus of Nazareth’s traditional birthday is strictly a religious event.
Well I know what not to write about.
Ever since joining this blog a few weeks ago,it is the first time I actually read all the responses.The reason being that I,like most,have become a skeptic.I am not sure of what to believe.Most of the posts herein are the stories we have come to realize in our own personal journey.I know some use the word “Agnostic” and so do I at times.Bart I think you also called yourself that for awhile but may be leaning more towards non belief(Atheism) now.Agnostics,the meaning is one who claims neither faith or disbelief in God.Having this position I think, leaves the door open to both belief and non belief.It is like a couple signing a prenuptial in a marriage, the back door is left open for divorce,erasing all the love you may have had for this person.My point being, can someone revert back to belief after falling away? Some case of divorced couples have written about remarrying the first partner again after experiencing other partners and finding that spark once again.Bart,you are truly a wise Professor.Your dual experience as a Pastor/humanist is allowed people like myself, to confess and share these beautiful stories.You somehow bring that out in people.I can also appreciate why other scholars hate debating you.It also makes me think how much we need to be accepted and hear each other in times of despair,when we may feel alone in this journey.One thing I must ask.You have stated that the bible continues to be a very important teaching in your personal life, and you try and live to some extent by its message/teaching. Why is this bible story important to you,personally? I ask this because I tell people that some things are a profound mystery,we may never get answers.I also tell them,if I was on my deathbed,the Jesus story be more comforting and easier to accept than anything else out there!Your fan I remain……(You probably already knew)
Ah, I think of my self as both an agnostic and an atheist. But for kind of technical reasons. Search for atheist on the blog, and you’ll see my posts about it.
The Bible is important to me personally because I think at the heart of it is a message that I’m committed to, of loving others and helping those in need.
I appreciated your sharing some of your personal faith journey. You showed strength and courage in becoming honest with yourself and with others. “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.” I assume anyone who has all the answers is a fake. We all should have doubts because we don’t know all the answers. I have found through years of searching some basis for my own continued faith in spite of doubts. I believe God is, I don’t really know much beyond that. I believe that Jesus was a messenger, or prophet who had a special relationship with his creator. I don’t believe he was God, although his message was from Him. I believe there is something of God, something good to be nurtured, in each human being. It hasn’t been easy to find a church which believes as I do. I finally decided that I wanted to honor him by worshiping in my manner wherever I went. I attend a Quaker church out in the country on Sunday morning. Things are often said that I don’t believe, and yet, God knows whether they are true or not. I don’t. I attend a Roman Catholic church every Saturday evening. I want to receive communion which isn’t given in the Quaker church. When I receive communion, I feel that I am making a continued commitment to being a follower of Jesus whose teaching is my guide. I don’t believe some things said in that church either. That’s all right. God knows. This arrangement has given me peace and I will continue this arrangement until something better seems obvious. People in each church know about this arrangement, including the priest. God does not encourage us to lie, most certainly not for Him.
Good evening, Bart. Are there any attempts by the churches to reverse this problem? Does any denomination have a counseling program to try to help pastors who are struggling?
Good question. Not that I know of!
Well, when we “lose our faith” we really lose a Lot, that is the point of the post. If we want that our “lose” to became a “win” we must rebuild our lives and not everyone do It succesfully. Being enlighted not always is enough to be happy if You feel alone. We must do a Lot un order that the “lose” can became a “win” more frequently.
In my research, it appears that the American Psychological Association (APA) has become a church itself and what an immoral one! They have their own courts referred to as family courts, DCFS or juvenile courts. They are destroying regular religions like crazy. They act a bit like sharia courts in that they can mostly ignore rulings from the supreme civil courts and society is drinking their kool-aid in raising children. They require certain ways of counseling or they can put pastors and other teachers in jail. Their doctrine is antithetical to the teachings of the Bible and is mutually exclusive. They are deceptive in that they don’t appear to be a church, yet they can tell a person what to believe and reject Bible teachings. No wonder the faith of many is dwindling, yet the APA contains the doctrine of despair. It is the repository of this moral relativism where there is no eternal truth. It is like in the movie “Coraline” where they want to replace your eyes with buttons and tell you that you are more enlightened that way. There seem to be other idols and secular churches around that everyone assumes to be true, yet separates people from their faith and testimonies in God and the scriptures. Beware!
I’m not sure I understand your comment. I know many psychologists and psychiatrists are people of faith, Protestant and Catholic, Jewish and Muslim and religious patients are often referred to them as someone that shares their faith and can counsel accordingly. As a matter of fact, it has often been hard for Atheists to find Atheist counselors as they don’t want to be helped by telling them they should seek God or go to church. I’m sorry you seem to have had a bad match? It often takes many tries to find the right match between patient and counselor.
Unless you are a Scientologist…I know they demonize the profession.
I am not a scientologist and my church works with them so it is my own opinion with what I see. I have had to deal with psychologists as well. Their DSTM comes out every year and it is the driving force behind the special rights of alternative lifestyles. This is a problem because the birth rate in western society is falling and Japan already has a falling population. The nuclear family with a father, mother and children that has been the foundation of society is crumbling. I am not talking of individual members of the psychology and social worker field, but the profession as a whole. The normalizing of many issues once considered taboo is not good for increasing the population to healthy levels within families and all the alternative lifestyles have one similarity…they have few or no children. Before the psychological profession became pre-emminent, it was the churches that provided counseling in most cases. Now the faith of the religious is failing as the psych. profession is increasing. There are gods in society that are displacing the true God. Psychology is a major one. Beware that some things are not as they seem.
Just an aside – I watched the U-tube video of the ‘Defenders’ conference you recently attended. I think it’s fair to say they had a few logistical issues. I also learned that the most effective way to keep a scholar from giving his point of view is to take his microphone away. 😉
Belief in a transcendent “something/someone” seems to be evolutionarily hardwired into our human brains — which, of course, doesn’t prove the transcendent is real, it just suggests that such belief has long aided human reproductive survival. The church I joined decades ago is so much a part of my identity and the source of most of my relationships, that I’ve chosen to stay on the “inside” and just keep a low profile. Been doing that for nearly 10 years now. I feel I can recite the Nicene Creed in good conscience, since no part of it is testably unproveable. Being non-clergy has its benefits as well.
Yes, I’ve lost my traditional faith. But I still go to church because I believe we should serve and support one another.
a good site for ex-mormons or mormons going through a faith transition is mormonstories.org
often when a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints delves into the truth claims & history of the church they find out what they “knew” to be true is not true. it’s very jarring, & the healing/recovery process takes a long time. some convert to christianity, some throw “the baby out with the bathwater” & become atheists. it is a crushing blow to find out that something you once “knew” to be the truth is not true. it’s a problem of “emotional epistemology!”
Is anybody familiar with nonprofit(s) that are near-equivalents of “The Clergy Project”, but for the laity?
I’m very interested in supporting such an organization, largely because I was a layman who “lost my faith” after reading some of Ehrman’s books, and partly because I have mixed, complicated feelings about financially supporting more educated clergy who are losing their faith instead of their less educated, nonclerical counterparts.
I get asked that on occasion, and have actually asked the leaders of the Clergy project, but haven’t heard of anything — apart from the kinds of things Bart Campolo is doing. I’d suggest you contact him.
Shortly after posting my question (above) I discovered https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/ (i.e. RfR), which is the sort of nonprofit I was looking for. I mention it here in case others come across my question.
I’ve officially been a helpline volunteer with RfR for several months, although if I’m honest I haven’t done very much actual volunteering, even though I’ve stayed engaged with RfR. Like any organization RfR isn’t perfect, especially as it’s staffed by all volunteers. But I really feel RFR is doing a lot of good, and I hope that others who have a need to discuss their religious doubts with others are able to find RfR.