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NeoGreen

(4,030 posts)
Mon May 29, 2017, 10:25 AM May 2017

Feelings of Guilt among Non-believing Clergy Part One

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rationaldoubt/2017/05/feelings-guilt-among-non-believing-clergy-part-one/?ref_widget=gr_trending&ref_blog=grails&ref_post=nonreligious



Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series on non-believing clergy guilt, inspired by a question put to blog contributor Bruce Gerenscer who had listed the many Christian organizations he had formed during his years as a fundamentalist minister.


Feelings of Guilt among Non-believing Clergy – Part One
May 29, 2017 by Linda LaScola

Today’s blogger, Clergy Project Board Member Mason Lane, worked with me to put a list of questions together and then graciously answered the ones that applied to his experience!

By Mason Lane

What are some of the things you regret, if any, about staying a member of the clergy after you no longer believed?
N/A –I’d left the city where I preached and moved to Phoenix where I had my freethought epiphany, so I never had the experience of trying to preach while not being a believer, which I’m sure I never could have done. If I was a liberal I could have tolerated it for a short while, but not as a fundie Evangelical Pentecostal.

What are some of the things you learned once you left the clergy?
How it felt to be on the outside of the cult/community (very good!) and how all the things I’d been taught, and taught to others about atheist, were absurd propaganda. How silly, childish, and creepy believers are when they talk about their irrational beliefs.

What advantages to yourself or to society do you see in staying in (or getting out of) the clergy?
Having a real life to think for myself, explore, learn, live and have Sundays, Wednesday, special revival times etc. etc. free.

6 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Feelings of Guilt among Non-believing Clergy Part One (Original Post) NeoGreen May 2017 OP
What was that crack about liberals? Was that a joke? gtar100 May 2017 #1
Looking at the context, I'm pretty sure he meant to say Mariana Jun 2017 #4
That stuck out for me too Cartoonist May 2017 #2
no I think it is pretty clear he was referring to liberal christian churches while he was a preacher Voltaire2 Jun 2017 #6
He could have said.... Bretton Garcia May 2017 #3
"Tis a gift to be simple, guillaumeb Jun 2017 #5

gtar100

(4,192 posts)
1. What was that crack about liberals? Was that a joke?
Mon May 29, 2017, 11:32 AM
May 2017

If not, he doesn't know shit about the meaning of liberal, which is typical of one with a conservative, fundamentalist upbringing.

Mariana

(14,849 posts)
4. Looking at the context, I'm pretty sure he meant to say
Sat Jun 3, 2017, 02:40 PM
Jun 2017

something like "if I was in a more liberal church, I could have tolerated it for a short while, but not as a fundie Evangelical Pentecostal.".

Voltaire2

(12,626 posts)
6. no I think it is pretty clear he was referring to liberal christian churches while he was a preacher
Mon Jun 5, 2017, 06:34 AM
Jun 2017

in a fundamentalist church, not to his political beliefs.

Bretton Garcia

(970 posts)
3. He could have said....
Tue May 30, 2017, 02:54 AM
May 2017

That liberal Christians are more accepting of atheists?

But he also wanted to suggest that even liberal Christians are still partly Christian. And therefore flawed. Possibly he hints, hypocritical?

So he rejects both conservative but also liberal ... Christianity?

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