The faith trap

Q:What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination? Do clergy have a moral obligation not to challenge the sincere faith of their parishioners? If this requires them to dissemble from the pulpit, doesn't this create systematic hypocrisy at the center of religion? What would you want your pastor to do with his or her personal doubts or loss of faith?

At a lunch party I was placed next to a well-known female rabbi, now ennobled. She asked me, somewhat belligerently, whether I said grace when it was my turn to do so at High Table dinner in my Oxford college. "Yes," I replied, "Out of simple good manners and respect for the medieval traditions of my college." She attacked me for hypocrisy, and was not amused when I quoted the great philosopher A J (Freddy) Ayer, who also was quite happy to recite the grace at the same college when he chanced to be Senior Fellow: "I will not utter falsehoods", said Freddy genially, "But I have no objection to making meaningless statements."

Humor was lost on this rabbi, so I tried to see if a serious explanation would go over any better. "To you, Rabbi, imprecations to God are meaningful, and therefore cannot sincerely come from an atheist. To me, 'Benedictus benedicat' is as empty and meaningless as 'Lord love a duck' or 'Stone the crows.' Just as I don't seriously expect anybody to respond to my words by hurling rocks at innocent corvids, so it is a matter of blissful indifference to me whether I invoke the mealtime blessings of a non-existent deity or not. Non-existent is the operative phrase. In the convivial atmosphere of a college dinner, I cheerfully take the road of good manners and refrain from calling ostentatious attention to my unbelief - an unbelief, by the way, which is shared by most of my colleagues, and they too are quite happy to fall in with tradition." Once again, the rabbi didn't get it.

On the face of it, the disillusioned clergymen who form the subject of Dan Dennett's and Linda La Scola's study are less immune to the charge of hypocrisy. They are professionals, who accept a salary for preaching Christianity to a trusting flock. And what is true of atheist clergymen is scarcely less true of those who shelter behind Karen Armstrong-type apophatuousness, or 'ground of all being' obscurantism. That won't wash, for the simple reason that it wouldn't wash with the parishioners. To the trusting congregation, Karen Armstrong would be nothing more than a dishonest atheist, and who could disagree? You can just imagine the shocked bewilderment that would greet a 'ground of all being' theologian, if he tried that on with churchgoers who actually believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, and died for their sins.

These dissembling pastors might therefore be accused of betraying a trust when they continue, Sunday after Sunday, to get up in the pulpit and bemuse churchgoers who take seriously the words that the clergyman himself does not - and yet continues to speak. Are they not grievously culpable for deceiving their congregation and accepting a salary for doing so?

No, their personal predicament warrants more sympathy than that. They know no other way of making a living. They stand to lose friends, family, and their respected place in the community, as well as salary and pension. All the more praise to Dan Barker, who had the courage to throw over the whole nonsensical enterprise and jointly found the admirable Freedom from Religion Foundation. But even Dan preached on for a year before taking the plunge.

As Dennett and La Scola mention, one of the things I would consider doing, if my charitable foundation managed to raise enough money, would be to endow retraining scholarships for clergymen who have lost their faith. Perhaps they could retrain as counselors, teachers, policemen - or even join the hallowed profession of carpenter?

The singular predicament of these men (and women) opens yet another window on the uniquely ridiculous nature of religious belief. What other career, apart from that of clergyman, can be so catastrophically ruined by a change of opinion, brought about by reading, say, or conversation? Does a doctor lose faith in medicine and have to resign his practice? Does a farmer lose faith in agriculture and have to give up, not just his farm but his wife and the goodwill of his entire community? In all areas except religion, we believe what we believe as a result of evidence. If new evidence comes in, we may change our beliefs. When decisive evidence for the Big Bang theory of the universe came to hand, astronomers who had previously espoused the Steady State Theory changed their minds: reluctantly in some cases, graciously in others. But the change didn't tear their lives or their marriages apart, did not estrange them from their parents or their children. Only religion has the malign power to do that. Only religion is capable of making a mere change of mind a livelihood-threatening catastrophe, whose very contemplation demands grave courage. Yet another respect in which religion poisons everything.

Richard Dawkins wrote:You can just imagine the shocked bewilderment that would greet a 'ground of all being' theologian, if he tried that on with churchgoers who actually believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, and died for their sins.

These dissembling pastors might therefore be accused of betraying a trust when they continue, Sunday after Sunday, to get up in the pulpit and bemuse churchgoers who take seriously the words that the clergyman himself does not - and yet continues to speak. Are they not grievously culpable for deceiving their congregation and accepting a salary for doing so?

Will S wrote:
I suspect also that the common complaint, 'Dawkins et al. don't know the first thing about theology' is actually a coded way of saying, 'Heavens! The buggers are taking what we say seriously! What are we going to do?'

MattHunX wrote:Just the fact that there are literally thousands of different kinds of denominations of christianity alone should make every theist wonder about the credibility of their own. It is such a simple thought-process, even a child can quickly learn to question it. Like Dawkins' own experience,when he said he started questioning the whole thing after learning about the existence of other religions.

Why can't theists see this?

crank wrote:Bart Ehrman discusses in at least a couple of his books how in seminary theology class, the nature of how the bible was put together, the well known serious problems with sources, the mistranslations, the forgeries, the mis-use of the names of the gospels, much more, is taught, is known by all clerics save the fundies and evangelicals. This isn't discussed with the congregation, they are afraid of how it will affect their faith. Well they should be, that should shatter a reasonable mind's faith.

Will S wrote:

MattHunX wrote:Just the fact that there are literally thousands of different kinds of denominations of christianity alone should make every theist wonder about the credibility of their own. It is such a simple thought-process, even a child can quickly learn to question it. Like Dawkins' own experience,when he said he started questioning the whole thing after learning about the existence of other religions.

Why can't theists see this?

I think the horrible truth is that we humans have the most amazing capacity for double-think. Perhaps one of the advantages of having been a Christian is that you may learn this humbling truth about yourself.

The adjective Orwellian refers to these behaviours of State and The Party, especially when the Party is the State:

*The political manipulation of language, by obfuscation, e.g. WAR IS PEACE. Using language to obfuscate meaning or to reduce and eliminate ideas and their meanings that are deemed dangerous to its authority.

* Invasion of personal privacy, either directly physically or indirectly by surveillance.

* State control of its citizens' daily life, as in a "Big Brother" society.

* Official encouragement of policies contributing to the socio-economic disintegration of the family.

* The substitution of traditional religion[citation needed] with the adoration of state leaders and their Party.

* The encouragement of "doublethink," whereby the population must learn to embrace inconsistent concepts without dissent, e.g. giving up liberty for freedom. Similar terms used, are "doublespeak", and "newspeak"

* The revision of history in the favour of the State's interpretation of it.

* A (generally) dystopian future.

Paula Kirby wrote:Dan Dennett's and Linda LaScola's excellent study is fascinating - and rather moving - for a number of reasons. It is clear that the pressures and obstacles confronting a pastor who has lost his beliefs are even greater than those facing the rest of us when we need to make a major career change: if the very roof over your family's head belongs to the church for which you no longer feel able to work, the practical difficulties of changing direction are very great indeed. What's more, the church is all-consuming: not just a job, not just a home, but a whole life: it is always hard to make major changes, but how much harder when those changes will entail turning your whole life upside down, losing your closest friends, losing your sense of place in a community. Bad enough for an 'ordinary' churchgoer: how much worse for a pastor. It's terribly hard, and I empathize. I empathize, too, with their desire to persuade themselves that, by staying in their roles, they are somehow contributing to the greater good: it's an all-too human thing to do when leaving is such a daunting prospect.

What's more, I think it genuinely can be argued that these people are doing some good by staying in their posts, if only through the avoidance of harm. Even though, as Dan and Linda's report points out, they are mostly avoiding seriously challenging the most extreme of their parishioners' beliefs, at least they are not reinforcing them. There is no danger of these pastors exhorting their congregations to live their lives in joyful expectation of the Rapture, or to hate atheists or gays; no danger of them abusing young children with monstrous tales of hell, no danger of them opposing the proper teaching of science in their local schools, or exhorting the sick to seek their cure in prayer and repentance rather than the more reliable methods offered by medical science. If all churches simply reinforced people's natural impulses to be good and caring, and offered them a sense of being part of a kindly and supportive community, there would be far less to object to in them.

There remains the question of integrity, and.....

crank wrote:Bart Ehrman discusses in at least a couple of his books how in seminary theology class, the nature of how the bible was put together, the well known serious problems with sources, the mistranslations, the forgeries, the mis-use of the names of the gospels, much more, is taught, is known by all clerics save the fundies and evangelicals. This isn't discussed with the congregation, they are afraid of how it will affect their faith.

Well they should be, that should shatter a reasonable mind's faith.

Lazar wrote:I just don't know why every man and his dog is reporting on it. Seems strange is all.

Byron wrote:

Lazar wrote:I just don't know why every man and his dog is reporting on it. Seems strange is all.

Especially from an Anglican perspective! "Clergy in 'have doubts' shocker."

Lazar wrote:Is it just me or has this study been blow well out of proportion. By the authors own admission it is qualitative work with a self-selected sample of just five people who they had to search through hell and high water to find. It is not even good qualitative research at that. No discussion of analytical methods that I could tell and if ever there was a project screaming out for grounded theory this was it.

I just don't know why every man and his dog is reporting on it. Seems strange is all.

byofrcs wrote:This is not a scientific paper and God is not a bicycle. These are more like case studies of addicts rather than a measure of the penetration of drugs in society.

The last paragraph of the article is key. Good societies address drug abuse through seeing the victim as a person and helping their addiction not seeing them as a criminal and institutionalising them.

Secular society should be able to rehabilitate the clergy. I'm perfectly happy to pay for this in the same way I support drug rehabilitation program and decriminalising drugs. Human rights legislation has pretty well removed the criminal aspects of belief (in Western society at least though certain beliefs are still illegal in other countries) but we still have to cure the abused.

Lazar wrote:

byofrcs wrote:This is not a scientific paper and God is not a bicycle. These are more like case studies of addicts rather than a measure of the penetration of drugs in society.

"God is not a bicycle" there is something I am missing here I think.

I am sure the study is what it is, what I don't understand is why it is getting the traction it is.

The last paragraph of the article is key. Good societies address drug abuse through seeing the victim as a person and helping their addiction not seeing them as a criminal and institutionalising them.

Secular society should be able to rehabilitate the clergy. I'm perfectly happy to pay for this in the same way I support drug rehabilitation program and decriminalising drugs. Human rights legislation has pretty well removed the criminal aspects of belief (in Western society at least though certain beliefs are still illegal in other countries) but we still have to cure the abused.

Religion is drug addiction now and those who believe are the abused? What happened to it being a mind virus or a mental illness? I find it hard to keep up with the metaphors or are they metaphors, it is never quite clear. I also find it hard to understand how people can justify such vitriol in the face of real abuse and real mental illness and so forth.

If we take this analogy and take it further what this article is essentially doing is suggesting that we feel sorry for drug dealers who continue to push drugs to others even though they don't believe in it, because they don't know what else to do. I say this not because I think religion is a drug addiction but because I think the analogy is silly. I think RDs idea of starting up a charity to help clergy who no longer believe retrain is an excellent idea.

byofrcs wrote:
The clergy are more the mules in the business. They are as hooked as the end users. The clergy are forbidden to make up their own theology. The doctrine is supplied to them pre-cut and they deliver it to the masses.

MattHunX wrote:

Will S wrote:
I suspect also that the common complaint, 'Dawkins et al. don't know the first thing about theology' is actually a coded way of saying, 'Heavens! The buggers are taking what we say seriously! What are we going to do?'

Just the fact that there are literally thousands of different kinds of denominations of christianity alone should make every theist wonder about the credibility of their own. It is such a simple thought-process, even a child can quickly learn to question it. Like Dawkins' own experience,when he said he started questioning the whole thing after learning about the existence of other religions.

Why can't theists see this? And why can't they see the patterns, of how, for example their faith shifts? How the dogma subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, changes. Many evidence which their religion couldn't beat, have always been incorporated into it to be part of the dogma so (most) people wouldn't turn even just a bit skeptical. They're changing the rules and the lore as they see fit to accommodate and compensate for cases made, and evidence presented against it. Even a child, in an elementary school, can discern that it's man-made, self-serving, self-contradicting, immoral and irrational.

Too many theists are just too far gone, too afraid, too insecure to dare and think for themselves and search for anything that would go against their deeply-held childish beliefs. Too afraid to even make that first step. 5/6 of the world! Alarming and frightening.

Lazar wrote:

byofrcs wrote:
The clergy are more the mules in the business. They are as hooked as the end users. The clergy are forbidden to make up their own theology. The doctrine is supplied to them pre-cut and they deliver it to the masses.

So you are still saying we should feel sorry and sympathetic of drug dealers who supply an unsuspecting public with a drug they themselves are no longer addicted to because they have been trained as drug dealers and thus don't have anything else to do. There is problems with this metaphor I think.