Greta Christina spotlights The Clergy Project, an online support group for religious leaders who have lost their faith:
The project was inspired by the 2010 pilot study by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, “Preachers Who Are Not Believers” (PDF), which exposed and explored the surprisingly common phenomenon of non-believing clergy. The need to give these people support — and if possible, an exit strategy – was immediately recognized in the atheist community, and starter funding for the Clergy Project was quickly provided by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Founded in March of 2011 with 52 members, the Clergy Project currently has over 270 members – and since recent news stories about it began appearing, in outlets from MSNBC to NPR to the Religious News Service to CNN, applications to join have been going up at an even more dramatic rate.
The cascade of news stories began when Methodist minister Teresa MacBain came to the American Atheists convention following last March’s Reason Rally – and made a dramatic unscheduled appearance at the podium, to announce that she was an atheist.
David Watkins writes, “I’ve met a few such people, over the years, and they’ve suggested to me the ranks of clergy who fit that description are far greater than anyone realizes”:
Clergy have a set general tasks – counselor, community organizer, etc.–and their and their parishioners religious beliefs and commitments are one of the primary tools they’re expected to use in these tasks. This gives them a perspective on their faith lay people are considerably less likely to have–they see how it can work, but also how and when it doesn’t. There are a variety of ways to cope with that, and some of them, it seems to me, could have a significantly corrosive effect on faith.
Still, he wishes that Christina didn’t view the phenomenon “through the eyes of evangelical atheism”:
Conversion stories are old and familiar. I’m much more interested in those who chose to stay in their positions. Not the megachurch grifters and profit-takers, but the ordinary and decent people making a modest living and trying sincerely to do good and help people. Some of them, no doubt, are like Rumpole’s father: “a Church of England clergyman who, in early middle life, came to the reluctant conclusion that he no longer believed any of the 39 articles” but “as he was not fitted by character or training for any other profession” he soldiered on. Some of these people might appreciate the rescue Christina wishes to offer; others may simply be comfortable where they are. But it’s a third group that interests me the most: those who have ceased to believe but don’t see that as a reason they should leave their position. How do they view the positive value of the religious beliefs they teach and reinforce? How do they counsel or approach fellow doubters? For obvious reasons, such a perspective is very rarely stated forthrightly.
The Dish 