NPR has a story about Teresa MacBain, the Florida minister who attended the American Atheists convention in March and announced that she was an atheist, thus ending her career as a pastor. It’s interesting to hear her talk about how difficult it was, which I can only imagine.
“I’m currently an active pastor and I’m also an atheist,” she says. “I live a double life. I feel pretty good on Monday, but by Thursday — when Sunday’s right around the corner — I start having stomachaches, headaches, just knowing that I got to stand up and say things that I no longer believe in and portray myself in a way that’s totally false.”
MacBain glances nervously around the room. It’s a Sunday, and normally she would be preaching at her church in Tallahassee, Fla. But here she is, sneaking away to the American Atheists’ convention in Bethesda, Md.
Her secret is taking a toll, eating at her conscience as she goes about her pastoral duties week after week — two sermons every Sunday, singing hymns, praying for the sick when she doesn’t believe in the God she’s praying to. She has had no one to talk to, at least not in her Christian community, so her iPhone has become her confessor, where she records her private fears and frustrations.
“On my way to church again. Another Sunday. Man, this is getting worse,” she tells her phone in one recording. “How did I get myself in this mess? Sometimes, I think to myself, if I could just go back a few years and not ask the questions and just be one of those sheep and blindly follow and not know the truth, it would be so much easier. I’d just keep my job. But I can’t do that. I know it’s a lie. I know it’s false.”
I know many ex-ministers and I can only imagine how tough it is to walk away from their career.
14 comments
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Spanish Inquisitor
May 5, 2012 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Why doesn’t she just apply Pascal’s Wager and keep on believing? That’s a win-win , I hear.
Cuttlefish
May 5, 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Heh. My uncle, decades ago, walked away from the ministry.
… and walked away from his family…
… with a Catholic priest.
My suspicion is, even that is easier than a minister coming out as atheist.
Phillip IV
May 5, 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When looking for a new career, she should definitely exclude anything even vaguely to do with marketing. It would just be the same thing all over again.
netamigo
May 5, 2012 at 11:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This article made me wonder what ever happened to the “God is dead” theological movement. When I was a college student back in the ’60s, I attended a lecture at my University by one of the “God is dead” theologians and intellectuals. I can’t remember now who it was but I do know he was one of the leading proponents of that era. I guess the movement died out.
Johnny Vector
May 5, 2012 at 11:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A FB friend posted this, and several people chimed in with various forms of “she didn’t handle it very well” and assorted “I feel bad for her but…”. I diatribed at them a bit, asking if they didn’t have some level of empathy for someone whose entire life would be destroyed by coming out atheist.
I am happy to say that I actually changed at least two minds. Well, probably not “changed” in a serious sense, just nudged into the column of “yeah, that would be really hard; there really wasn’t a better way for her to handle it”. These people (my friends) are good people, but they were somewhat blinded by the standard religious privilege. I only had to point it out (and not as politely as I might have), and they realized it and changed their thinking. Happy to see speaking out having a positive effect.
I would also like to point out that given Barbara Bradley Haggerty’s previous work, it’s likely that when she writes “Job interviews were canceled” she means “ALL job interviews were canceled.” I’d bet money that it’s worse than the story portrays.
reverendrodney
May 5, 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There goes another one. Damn that critical thinking!
Michael Heath
May 5, 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
reverendrodney writes:
Which is the subject of an article recently published in Science: “Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief”.
Rip Steakface
May 5, 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My grandfather was a Pentecostal minister up until around the early 70s, at which point he found that sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ rock and roll are more entertaining. Nowadays he’s an avowed atheist. I’m not sure how difficult it’s been for him, but the fact his daughter (my mom) and grandson are also atheists should help.
llewelly
May 5, 2012 at 7:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
wow. That made blood run cold. No smart phone is as private as a traditional diary (unless you use encryption … quick, name a quality encryption product for the iphone …) ; the systems have numerous security design flaws, neither Apple nor your service provider has much interest in preserving your privacy … I could go on.
KG
May 6, 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On Easter Sunday, 9th April 1950, the death of God was announced to the congregation at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris in the following words (but in French, presumably):
A bit Nietzschean for my taste, but undoubtedly with more truth to it than any sermon ever preached.
Matrim
May 6, 2012 at 9:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@llewelly> that assumes you would be particularly inconvenienced by someone getting access to the information or that the people breaking in would care either. Odds are there wouldn’t be much reason for someone she knows to break in to her iPhone or for the people involved to have the knowledge to bypass even the basic security (granted, they could still look at her pictures with no difficultly, but I doubt that she’s taken a picture of herself while holding her atheist membership card or wearing her secret atheist decoder ring). If some random person breaks into her phone, it’s probably to commit ID theft, and they wouldn’t give two shots about her struggles as a closeted atheist.
So for it to bite her the person would first have to either acquire her phone or be technically savvy enough to hack it remotely, find said information, care about said information, know her, and be in a position to use it against her. The fact is that, despite the security risks, the stuff people put on their phone usually doesn’t end up anywhere nefarious, there’s too much information out there and too few people who care enough to go after it.
stumbledin
May 7, 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
At risk of appearing suicidal, which I don’t believe I am, my limited ability simply does not allow me to find more absolutes in aethism than in Christianity, however broadly or succinctly one defines either. Agnosticism, I get. It expresses “You know better than me. Perhaps. What are your ideas on the matter.” Using Hitchens as example (Yep, his abilities were well beyond mine) his stunning ability to manage mind-numbingly complex and often contradictory notions and his willingness to think outloud about them seemed to me more an admission of “I don’t know yet, and neither do you” as “I know and you don’t”. As for the free will thing, anyone who doesn’t see that as very real and very much a mixed “blessing” ain’t been screwing up enough to be considered a valued member of humanity.
dingojack
May 7, 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
stumbledin –
allow me point to a useful tool to help cut through the religious nonsense.
Hope that helps*
Dingo
—–
* if not, we’ll be thinking for you!
Michael Heath
May 7, 2012 at 12:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
stumbledin writes:
You give far too much credit to Mr. Hitchens on this matter. Hitchens is merely following the wise example set by Socrates about 2400 years ago.
stumbledin writes:
I suggest boning up on the evidence for free will. You’ll find the evidence points to its non-existence. Sam Harris’ new mini-book [my review] is a cheap and easy method to get the necessary citations, brief overview of those cites, along with his own argument on what it means if no free will exists.