Founder of Largest Atheist Group in US Shares Conservative Evangelical Background

[rug]

By Melissa Barnhart, CP Reporter
September 27, 2013 | 5:25 pm

Dan Barker, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which with 20,000 members claims to be the largest atheist organization in the United States, was once a self-described conservative evangelist who shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ before a five-year journey led him to become an atheist.

Barker, who no longer works to save souls but instead wages legal battles against perceived conflicts between the church and state, such as the national motto "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency and efforts to ban city councils from holding a prayer before meetings, recently spoke with The Christian Post about his evangelical past.

In his book, Godless: How An Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists, Barker describes his journey in detail, but told CP that most of his "movement from firm born-again Bible believing evangelical conservative Christian to atheist happened within Christianity."

Barker adamantly told CP that he "didn't just jump from 'oh, I have a doubt, now I'm an atheist,'" because he believes no Christian does that. But rather, he sees believers as shuffling "back-and-forth, one way or another, across a huge vast spectrum of Christian theology."

http://www.christianpost.com/news/founder-of-largest-atheist-group-in-us-shares-conservative-evangelical-background-105493/

Interesting interview. I didn't know he wrote this.

http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Had-Little-Lamb-Barker/dp/B001DSDWTE

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Many of us atheists have walked in those shoes.

It isn't as much a stretch as you might think.

[rug]

2. Were you at this point?

One of the first things Barker said he questioned was the historicity of Adam and Eve. Before he had his ministry, Barker was a traveling evangelist, and it was in that role that he attended a church where the preacher confided in him that some members of the congregation didn't believe Adam and Eve were literal historical people.

"To me that was horrible; that was heresy," Barker said. "I know a lot of liberal Christians don't have a problem with that, but I was a fundamentalist, taking everything literally. And when it donned on me that there were other Christians with other points of view, it really bothered me."

[Curmudgeoness]

4. Personally, I did not even question it.

Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on earth, created by God and living in the Garden of Eden. And Noah built an ark because God told him to, and God flooded the world. It never occurred to me to question these things at the time.

And actually, it was when I was the most fervent that I started to think, mostly because I was actually reading the Bible all the time instead of just hearing the stories. And yes, it was a slow process to get from "this is truth" to "this is not truth".

[rug]

5. That is a mindset I find difficult to grasp.

Going to Catholic school, we were not taught the literal truth of the words. These were Dominican nuns.

Politically, at the height of the Cold War, we were told many things about communism and the Soviet Union that scared the shit out of me. I suppose that's the closest experience to what he described. That, I pretty much got over by high school.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. That is the same sort of thing. Find holes, look for more holes.

I was raised Presbyterian, and got into the Evangelical movement (or whatever they called it in the early 60's). We were trained in church with the stories of the Bible. We were encouraged to read the Bible. I had some many problems with the teachings in the Bible that I could not reconcile them with reality.

BTW, we were also taught in church that Catholics would all go to hell, since they were idol worshippers, among other things. That also did not jive with reality to me. In fact, that was one of the issues that caused me to question "religion", since I felt that there was no way that my church was the only right one, and all others would go to hell. Questioning "religion" lead to questioning everything else, including the existence of God.

[longship]

3. Dan Barker is a real gem.

He is a very soft-spoken person and is a co-founder of The Clergy Project, an organization which helps non-believing clergy come to grips with being in the pulpit while rejecting the theology which they are preaching.

This is apparently a big problem as when one really studies the Bible -- assuming a Christian sect -- one can easily be drawn to disbelieve. Also, the apologetics seem to grate against some pastors' sensibilities.

But many pastors have no other education and have no other livelihood. The Clergy Project exists to help them with support. Those who join remain anonymous.

That's Dan Barker. He's one of the good guys.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. +1. For real entertainment you HAVE TO watch Dan quote the Bible better

than his Christian brethren during a debate. He got the chapter and verse and verbiage ready to go.