I started feeling the tug toward agnosticism sometime during my PhD program.  I remember clearly a particular moment, and it was, somewhat ironically, while I was serving as the pastor of the Princeton Baptist Church.

Even though I was incredibly busy at the time (I was taking a full load of graduate seminars, preparing to take my PhD exams, serving as a Teaching Assistant for a class taught by Bruce Metzger, AND serving as the pastor of the church) I enjoyed the ministry very much.  Well, parts of the ministry.  I have never enjoyed transition rituals very much:  baptisms, weddings, funerals, and the like.  And of course pastoring a church involves doing such things.   And I wasn’t thrilled with visiting the sick – I was a bit out of my depth on that one.  But I did very much enjoy interactions with the people I worked with in the church, and I especially liked preaching nearly every week.

I remember thinking at the time, though, that …

Only Members can read the rest of this post.  If you don’t belong yet to the blog JOIN!!  It doesn’t cost much, all the money goes to charity, and you get tons for your money — 5-6 posts a week!