I have been thinking a lot lately about the pastors of the churches I attended over the years before freeing myself of religious superstition. Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian — they all had little idiosyncrasies in their personalities that made me feel as if they were like many common Joes…just doing their job (and almost all of them grudgingly even though most get a free house, car allowance, free benefits, and lots of celebrity-type admiration from members of the congregation.)While browsing the web I ran across this article published in 2005 that contains some interesting food for thought about the subject of pastors and belief. The source is an Xian one so can’t blame the atheists for making shit up! The research is from the UK, and it would be interesting to find a study done of pastors in the U.S.A.
–Out of the 9,000 pastors surveyed, one in 33 doubt the existence of God, meaning that within the 9,000 strong clergy, there could be as many as 300 Church of England clergy who are not entirely convinced of the existence of God.
As the author of this commentary pointed out, some say that the U.S. is about 20 years behind the UK in the secularization of our society. Maybe we will begin to see a trend here of skeptical pastors coming out of the closet, too…in time. We can only hope!
2 comments:
I'll bet a lot of pastors have doubts about the existance of God and all that, but repress them or ignore them because their self-image and livelihood depends on them at least giving the outward impression of certainty.
Wow, what a sticky position that would be--a pastor with no faith in God.
I highly recommend John W Loftus's blog, Debunking Christianity. There you will find serious, in-depth, respectful debate and discussion. The deconversion stories of these ex-ministers and ex-apologists are quite interesting and their blog is one of my daily reads.
Thanks for stopping by, John.
Post a Comment