Psychologists think they know why ministers become atheists. According to Psychology Today – my favorite bathroom reading material – pastors can’t talk publicly about what they read in the bathroom and that’s what makes them atheists. OK, I’m paraphrasing. Here’s what they actually said in an article titled Atheist In The Pulpit.
Charles Templeton, the late Canadian evangelist turned journalist, argued that a disjunction between what clergymen say publicly and what they believe privately is so common that serious cognitive dissonance comes with the territory. “Most intelligent clergymen preach to the right of their theology,” Templeton wrote…”They are more conservative in the pulpit than they are in private conversation or when counseling a parishoner.”
The article hurls loads of anecdotal evidence at us but none of it supports the theory that this cognitive dissonance is the reason some pastors deconvert. The evidence instead points to a dissatisfaction with the way they’ve been treated by Christians and with various social/moral positions taken by their denomination.
Still, poor argument making aside, they’re right about one thing: The beliefs held by some (many?) pastors are to the left of those they lead and keeping that a secret can jack one up.
I could blog for a week about this, but I won’t. I’m more interested in what you’re thinking.
I would say that this holds true for almost every pastor I know. I’m a pastor in the south and yeah… I just know better than to say what i really think all the time. I sure as heck won’t be talking about who I’m voting for at church or on my blog… I’d catch hell for it I’m sure. Fortunately, it’s not a secret… I have other good pastor friends who know me really well but as for most people at church… yeah, I definitely put myself out there as more to the right than I really am… and I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not the preacher though… just on staff.
I would tend to agree with this.
I grew up a Pastors kid and my Dad did not fall into this category, but many of the Pastors he worked with did. My Dad lived and preached conservative. But I watched many Pastors feeling they needed to live up to some standard that in my opinion was most often man made. In doing so, they were one person in a suit on Sunday and another the rest of the week.
I remember specifically an associate Pastor that my Dad worked with, he had a son I was friends with and I had just heard him give a sermon on drinking(which in the Baptist church was almost as bad as pre-marital sex…but not near as bad as dancing…) I went over to their house for a sleep over and they had an alcohol closet, and quite a bit of it and drank while I was there. I was so confused.
I think there is some sort of man made standard that Pastors feel they need to live by, which places them under an uncommon pressure that is not healthy and often it is down right misleading and hypocritical.
This is one thing that ‘burned’ me in missions/christian leadership.
My dad was an evangelist. I worked for a missions organization. And I got wrapped up into that culture of ‘Friend Raising’ where you show people what they want to see, so as not to offend them or make them not really want to support you.
The problem I had with it= is all the leaders are portraying a false christianity/false life to their members/donators. And these people feel ‘I cant do that cause i dont live up to that standard’. Thing is, their leaders dont either, but the leaders dont let the people know.
Instead, Honesty/Transparency is such a greater policy.
It’s not just pastors. The rest of us wear a few masks as well. Some are fine, even necessary for living together in peace. The problem is it becomes a way of life where the automatic question to answer is, Which mask do I wear in this situation?
We all know which mask goes on as we get out of the car on Sunday morning in the church parking lot. Even if you’ve yelled at the whole family, and “saluted” a few other drivers on the way, everyone’s all smiles as we walk in.
It’s ok to have a testimony about how messed up I used to be, but a confession of how messed up I still am is usually followed by a lot of silence (except for the crickets) and everyone staring a hole in the carpet til someone changes the subject.
Is there really any great mystery why we lack real community?
It sounds to me like these pastors aren’t completely buying what they are selling themselves. I mean they must not completely believe what they are preaching. Is that the churches fault? Is that the denominations fault? Sounds to me like a lack of integrity.
I think it’s usually as simple as: We are sinful creatures. We are. To say we aren’t would be a lie. I want and ought to live my life better than I have been, as I’m sure do many of you. Pastors are no exclusion from this. You can know the truth but what if you lack perseverance? I’m not a preacher, but I do talk to many of my friends about many things I read in the Bible. I can tell them and teach them the truth, though I don’t always live it. I’m not saying this is in any way ok – we are supposed to model ourselves off a perfect being – but sometimes we mess up. Now, my response only deals with those people who don’t live what they teach; how someone could preach the word of God and be an atheist, I do not know. In fact, I can’t see how anyone could be an atheist.
I’m not so much seeing this as a preaching but not living it thing. In my own I’ve drifted over many years to the left of center…or is it the right…I think it’s so far right it’s perceived as left. I’m not a Republican anymore. I’m against the use of violence in almost all instances. I’m not patriotic in the least. I don’t America can be “taken back” by Christians because I don’t believe it was ever ours. I believe women should be called ministers and deacons and elders. I don’t care what the government says a marriage is and I’m not hot and bothered when they defined it differently than scripture. I don’t believe salvation is solely about me getting to heaven and I don’t it can be gotten by following a three step prayer. I don’t believe “going” to church is for everyone. I believe a Catholic is just as likely as a Baptist to go to Heaven. I believe healing still happens, as does speaking in tongues. I believe drinking alcohol is fine, and actually quite Jesus-like. I smoke a cigar from time to time and I don’t believe in a literal six day creation and a resultant young earth.
Now, if this drift had happened while I was in a church, preaching every Sunday, I’d have a problem on my hands. Luckily, I’m a blogger and singer guy and so my drift is entertaining to a degree and only scares off a few folks. But, to be honest, if I were a pastor, I’d keep most this drift to myself. I’d assume, I think, that the congregation wants a pastor who thinks like them and aren’t interested in discussing these issues on the whole. Would I be right?
I think it would depend on if the church already held some of those beliefs. But yes, if you were had been a pastor that held your previous beliefs at a church that did too and then changed, you might be relunctant to show it. And if you showed it, you might be asked to resign if the board felt it was too much of a threat. Of course, it would probably also depend on if the church was ok with everyone having some different thoughts about those sorts of things.
I think it would be great if churches could just stick with their basic statements of belief (Jesus is God, man is sinful, etc.) and truly let everything else be a matter of discussion. Some of the things you mentioned above I don’t have an absolute opinion on, and would be happy to chat about with anyone who was interested in talking about it and not just trying to change the way I think.
It’s hard to stick out from the rest of the church culture and it’s not surprising that some pastors find themselves trying to live up to something that they think they should be, rather than what they truly are.
What’s going on in the Church ghetto now-a-days? You’ve got Christian’s climbing over the walls we’ve built to keep us “safe” or more than likely ignorant of what’s going on outside of the world. You get someone who climbs over the walls and realizes oh hey we’re watering down the gospel to make it less offending and so this person comes back and says Hey church we’re not doing our job. Well bodies who are comfortable don’t like the sound of that so what happens…bingo Crucified pastor/youth minister/educational director/secretary/deacon/janitor and ta-dah you have someone who’s mad at God because they tried to convey absolute truth to people who profess they believe in absolute truth but really are lying to themselves and want to go with relativism.
Fear of what the church COULD be has a lot of “Christian’s” running scared I think. “You mean I have to love my next door neighbor even though they didn’t buy me a stinkin’ 5 dollar can of worthless stale popcorn in a giant round tin for Christmas this year?!” Yes “Inconceivable!!!”
I’m not sure this is entirely a bad thing. I know that I can speculate in ways that are wildly conservative and wildly liberal about the same issue–and not be sure what I believe about it. If I were a preacher in, say, the PCA I would have made a commitment to preach a certain message, and would do so until I feel pretty confident that what I say is wrong. In less confessional denominations, things get a bit more complicated–but I would hope this would be an issue actively and overtly under consideration by the body of Elders. (I wonder, sometimes, if this isn’t partially the result of the “personality cult” in pastor-lead churches.)
Really, I doubt everything, and ask God for faith–but if I were a preacher, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have some responsibility to build faith rather than photocopy my doubt through pure “honesty.”
My husband and I are not pastors. We are worship leaders, though, and we definitely feel affected by our drift. I’m glad we’ve drifted and I think our Christianity is more whole and actual than it’s ever been before. We work for a doctrinely semi-liberal denomination, but the church we work in leaves us feeling hopeless about our work there more often than not.
Women are supposed to be encouraged to be pastors in this church, but people complain whenever a female preaches. The time of silence was too long, denim is distracting, that song had too many chords. My husband brought his electric guitar to the contemporary service once and was almost fired. It just feels like no one cares about being the Church; as long as their church can stay closed off and isn’t threatened with change, they’re happy.
It’s no wonder to me that church staff across the board, and especially pastors, tire of the minutia, and as a result have their eyes opened spiritually to things that leave them completely alone in their Consumer church.
I recommend reading “A New Kind of Christian” by pastor Brian McLaren. Horrific quality of writing, but some really helpful thoughts and processes for his life as a pastor and IMO anyone in ministry with or around churches.
I suppose that most Sunday morning church attenders would want the preacher to think the same things about those issues as they do, but Saturday night, now that’s a different story! I’m all for discussing issues of those sorts.
I am a pastor, and as accurate as labels are, I serve in a conservative church in a liberal denomination. Statically, pastors as individuals and as a group are more liberal than church members. Keeping a good balance can be a challenging task. The things I learned as fact in seminary are shocking and even faith-shaking to church members. My biggest challenge is to teach with integrity, but not to be a stumbling block to my brothers and sisters.
I do not find that this affects my own faith overly much. I trust the collective wisdom of the theologians and historians and scholars from whom I have learned, and because the folks in the pews have not learned this does not make it untrue. I do not feel as though I am being deceitful or dishonest by omitting some bit academia from a sermon or class, but that I am teaching what is appropriate for the level of spiritual maturity of the congregation, and hopefully helping people to grow at a their own pace.
No one will learn anything if they are unable to hear the message. Jesus knew and understood infinitely more than we can imagine. But he taught using stories about farming and sheep herding because that is what his audience knew. Shouldn’t we all follow his example, even if it means talking to other people in a way that is different that the way we talk to ourselves?
I’m not a pastor, but my best friend is. I’m currently part of a church plant team where my pastor friend often talks about my increased role in the new church.—He, although become a bit more socially liberal, is as “sold out” as they come. I personally, after a life time of adherance, am so far from the central beliefs of the group, that there really is no choice but for me to step out of the group.
I am becoming more and more sympathetic to the “deconverted”. I can’t speak for pastors, but I know why some people deconvert. I don’t think it’s about secrets. I think its about being honest with the constant nagging questions about life – my life – that don’t line up with the promises of scripture.
Life circumstances that can’t be reconciled – A cutter who you pour your life out for, pray for, support and give everything– walks away for someone else and realizes the dream you’re looking for. A 26 year old with 4 kids under age 5 gets life threatening melanoma. You pray and nothing happens, or worse, the exact opposite happens. You drift from one dream to the next navigating the shipwrecks along the way, all the while hearing, believing cute Christian euphamisms that pretend to be encouraging. “All things are in His hands” or “All things work together for good” or “God is still good” or any number of other postitive hope inspiring spins that do not tell the truth.
I think the reason people deconvert is simply that when you answer your own “why?” questions with easy answers long enough, you eventually begin to realize you’re lying to yourself. It is what it is and that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Bleak? sometimes, but there’s a surprising amount of power in coming to the realization that maybe, just maybe, it’s not all up to the cosmos. Maybe there’s something I can do for myself to make things better – for me and others. Maybe it’s possible to be good, just because I choose to be.
Thanks for letting me rant…