Comments

Thanks for linking to that article. It does a very good job explaining some of the difficulties and joys experienced when a minister loses his/her faith. I went through a very similiar experience. I was raised as a missionary kid, earned graduate degrees in theology, was a minister in a conservative church for 12 years and then taught at a Christian university for 3 years. While at the university, I began to fully study some of the issues that had long troubled me and ended up studying myself completely out of Christianity. I resigned my position, lost my career and many friends, but thankfully kept my family. I think it is unfortunate that Christians are taught to see doubt as an enemy. Doubt is a friend of truth. Here is how Unitarian Robert T. Weston put it:

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth.
Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery.
A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error,
for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.
Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false.
Let no man fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it;
for doubt is a testing of belief.
The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing;
For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure.
He that would silence doubt is filled with fear;
the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands.
But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock.
He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge;
the work of his hands shall endure.
Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help:
It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the handmaiden of truth.

In Kentucky there is a bluegrass song to answer every question. In this case, Ricky Skaggs' "Seven Hillsides" does a pretty good job. I've also heard this scenario described when people are arguing against the concept of vocational clergy. As one speaker put it, "The vocational minister cannot afford to have a crisis of faith, as such a crisis would endanger his income."

The presence of doubt is clearly common even to the most dedicated of Christians. Some deal with it one way and some another. It may be that it is time for a "retreat" for a few days of thought and study. It may be that just staying focused on the service part of the ministry can get you through. Since my job is secular, I can usually just say that it is God's game and the rules that He chooses for us to play by are His rules--God's game/God's rules. Not my problem. This generally gets me moving again.

I do think that there is a difference in doubt (from depression or an emotional issue that God "failed" to take care of for you) and disbelief. If you conclude that you can no longer believe for some reason, it is time to seek a different job--because this one has clearly become just a job and not a calling.

Bennett

When I took The Gospels in seminary, the professor made a point of posing very difficult questions that raised all kinds of doubts in our minds regarding the truth. He said it was better that we deal with those doubts now then in the church. He was right. I went to an evangelical seminary and it certainly challenged my faith. But it was a very helpful exercise and one that I think many evangelical seminaries do not put their students through.

I agree that it is important to distinguish between disbelief, honest intellectual questioning, vs. doubt, a sense that God is no longer present in one's life. C. S. Lewis says that the battle is more often between Faith vs. Feelings than Faith vs. Reason.

Beginning swimmers know in their minds that the water will hold them up, but all their feelings tell them they can't possibly float and are headed straight to the bottom. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis has a senior devil, Screwtape, tell the apprentice tempter, Wormwood: "Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God's] will, looks round the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

David C. Downing

Larry Poston had an article (The Grownup Gospel) published in CT in the early 90s that examined the experiences of those who converted to Islam. Most of those he interviewed did so in their mid-30s, for a variety of adult reasons. Poston pointed out that most Christian conversions happen to children -- and their theological frame of reference is frozen at childish levels. Relational quandaries assume universal proportions, and a "he love me / he loves me not" theme dominates the "Jesus is my girlfriend" genre of CCM. As one whose spiritual life was rescued by "Calvinism on steroids," I am well aware of the dangers of proclaiming a gospel that is too small. A gospel that merely saves souls will all too often fail to do even that.

For the benefit of the church served by a pastor who has lost his or her faith, it is better if he or she resigns rather than hang on and be tempted to make every act of worship an act of hypocrisy. For that reason alone, it seems like it would be good policy to have every minister get educated in a field in which he can earn a living that can be sustained outside a ministerial context.

Nevertheless, I am interested in the fact that the Psychology Today article makes the doubting pastors all people who are in the closet until they come out as totally deconverted. They do not seem to have had a lot of resources available to them through their own churches to discuss their doubts or feelings and find out if there was a way to deal with them short of simply giving up and accepting the world's opinion of itself.

The article was honest in its quotation about the work required to keep the viewpoint of the world out of our own hearts and minds. It is a struggle that Paul's epistles deal with at length. But there seems to be little memory among the proud atheist ex-ministers about what it was that convinced them previously not only that God lived and that Christ was their Savior, but also that they specifically were called by God to work as a pastor. Is it that they have suffered a spiritual amnesia, a convenient one that does not allow them to acknowledge the insights, convictions, and feeling of being touched by the Spirit of God that motivated them to the sacrifices involved in ministry? Indeed, as self-proclaimed doubters, how can they be certain that they are not deceiving themselves NOW, that in their heart of hearts they know some truths about God but are simply unwilling to make the sacrifices entailed in living out that belief? After all, they went through a period of self-deception before; how do they know they are not still in one?

The foundations for a theistic worldview--and for those of us who are evangelicals--scripture inerrancy, must be based on logic, reason, and the facts of nature as discovered through science. Feelings ("God is real because I can feel him in my heart"), circular reasoning ("the Bible is true and inspired because it says it is"), and non-scientific beliefs ("the universe was created in six 24-hr days in 4004 BC")inevitably lead to seasons of doubt and often apostasy. As as volunteer apologist for a conservative, evangelical apologetic organization, I would be happy to share a set of cogent and defensible evidences that will support theism and biblical truth. bobdavis@centex.net.

Doubt is a very painful journey. I travelled it after Bible College and determined to have integrity. I came out the other side with greater faith and am now an ordained minister. Faith is not mindless, but neither is it to be equated with reason or feeling. The latter is so often the downfall of many on all sides of the Chrisitian body. I believe however that most of what is called faith was never true faith at all, and that is the crisis that the church is going through today. I recommend William Guthrie's classic "The Roots of True Faith". it may help some.

I wonder if pastors who defect out of genuine doubt really WANT to not believe? Given the enormous body of apologetic materials from science, philosophy, history, archeology, and many other disciplines, it's hard to imagine someone with an advanced degree NOT looking into apologetics to bolster their faith. Given that few seminaries make apologetics a mandatory and robust course of study, I think the best thing for pastors-to-be to consider is whether they should doubt the value of a seminary education that has a weak or non-existent apologetics training program. Shame on our seminaries for not emphasizing apologetics, especially today when science and philosophical apologetics have become such mature and effective disciplines. Shame on seminarians for not demanding such courses of study. Christianity is not just an emotional faith, it is a REASONED CONVICTION based on evidence. It's time for pastors and pastors-in-training to learn the evidence and how to use it. I feel for those who claim to "lose their faith" because of "doubt", but I wonder whether one can count as "serious about his faith" a pastor who refuses to learn and teach apologetics rigorously and persistently. It seems more like they didn't belong in the pulpit in the first place.

In reading the Psychology Today article, the one thing that kept going through my head was "bad theology breeds bad pastors". Discerning whether one is truly called into the pastoral ministry is a major problem I have seen. The other is theology that does not allow for questions, theology that is absent of God's grace. I came into the ordained ministry as a fourth career, and bivocationally. I never experienced the fear of how to feed my family if this "church thing" didn't work out. My faith has been tested greatly with the recent desth of my oldest son (5 yrs ago) and many, many other issues. Through it all, and with a 30 year college teaching career in human and animal physiology, my faith in our Triune God has grown stronger and any doubts I experience are my problem, not God's. My good Lutheran theology, mixed with the best of Roman theology makes my faith alive and vibrant. For the lay folks reading this, please know that by far, most pastors are devout believers, and know that they are privileged to share the Gospel with those they are called to serve. May our Lord God strengthen the faith of all Pastors, and may those who have lost the faith find productive lives outside of ordained ministry so as not to cause damage to the saints!

I think pastors should be allowed to change their theological views along with everyone else. Sheep change pastures many times throughout their life and pastors should to. Why stay if they no longer believe certain points and if not at least have the courage to not take a salary,retrack statements, books etc.

The findings of PT are interesting and our seeking to understand our own doubts as students, theologians and ministers is an interesting exercise but both the article and the current discussion miss the enormity of the real problem the clergy face. Whether or not pastors doubt a theological tennant or change their minds theologically is not as significant as the numbers of pastors who doubt practically by enlarging the gap between their errant private lives and public proclamations.

Because of personal, familial and systemic dysfunction pastors and churches teach a kind of theological purity which is purported to be the norm when tough habits, enslaving addictions and common human afflictions and failures are more the norm in pastors' lives. When the gap widens and covering up our private lives becomes "normal" it is time for disclosure. We can learn to believe, really believe, trust and really change when our secrecy is challenged by us or others. May God grant us the grace to seek help not just for our theological doubts but for our behavioral secrets.