Is the minster in your church an atheist?

[ianb321red]

Sounds like a daft question, but I was reading the below article over the Christmas break:

http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/EP08122150.pdf

It is a fairly long essay, so the below is a summary (adapted from wikipedia):

"....research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "Don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. That made unbelieving preachers feel isolated but they did not want to lose their jobs and sometimes their church-supplied lodgings and generally consoled themselves that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual"

It's quite a plausible summary I have to admit, and obviously a potentially dangerous one.

Anyone ever suspected something like this is their own church or one that they've visited or heard about?

I have one example - from my parents (now old) church.....

 

[Genersis]

It seems a very personal thing, especially considering what you've mentioned about their job being in the balance.

It is pretty saddening to read that it can cut off ministers from seeking theological help.
Perhaps it's better for people not to suspect such things...or at least not to report such to their Church.(Not that I think there's a proper channel for such)

 

[non-religious]

Apparently there are many pastors throughout the US that are still standing in front of their congregations week in, week out preaching god's word who have lost/abandoned their faith. I have listened to some interesting testimonies from ex-Christians who were pastors, and they recalled how difficult it was to leave, precisely because their whole livelyhood was intrinsically linked to their Church. So they merely went through the motions until such a time as when they could financially leave or because living a lie was just too difficult to continue doing.

Leaving your faith, especially when you're in a position of authority, would be an incredibly difficult thing to do. Many Christians have a hard time accepting such decisions (I speak from personal experience) and it makes perfect sense for someone to feel as though they have to live a lie, rather than feel ostracized/isolated. It's like coming out.

 

[MorkandMindy]

I have no idea where to start on this one, so I'll start here:


There is no 'Christian' position, there are countless theologies each with strengths and weaknesses but there is no Biblical theology that fits with the entire Bible. J.N. Darby came up with a radical approach and split the Bible into sections called 'dispensations' so where different parts of the Bible contradicted each other they could be placed in different dispensations each with their own theologies.

The Gospels extend the law of the O.T. and up to the death of Jesus are effectively part of the O.T., so where Paul declares that the Law brings death that is a different dispensation from the gospel and the Psalms where the Law is life itself.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Living with God is a dynamic thing, not a dead static one.

Initially I was told that salvation was the free gift of God

As I read the Gospel of Luke I found that the free gift would cost my entire life:

Luke 9 23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Luke 14
26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

 

[MorkandMindy]

I was also told that 'God has a wonderful plan for your life'

but then to find that plan I would have to read the Bible, using a suitable study plan, so I started a three-year plan,


and half way into the first year was told I was doing it wrong, that I really did need to learn Hebrew and Greek to get a grasp of what the words actually meant because the old languages had so few words to convert into English that it was entirely up the the 'translator' to chose which of many very different English words to use, and therefore based entirely on his own theology rather than the scripture itself.


So I should start with Strong's Concordance, for example 'spirit' comes from the Hebrew word pronounced 'ruwach'

Which translated into English means:

wind, breath, mind, spirit
breath
wind
of heaven
quarter (of wind), side
breath of air
air, gas
vain, empty thing
spirit (as that which breathes quickly in animation or agitation)
spirit, animation, vivacity, vigour
courage
temper, anger
impatience, patience
spirit, disposition (as troubled, bitter, discontented)
disposition (of various kinds), unaccountable or uncontrollable impulse
prophetic spirit
spirit (of the living, breathing being in man and animals)
as gift, preserved by God, God's spirit, departing at death, disembodied being
spirit (as seat of emotion)
desire
sorrow, trouble
spirit
as seat or organ of mental acts
rarely of the will
as seat especially of moral character

and so on


Basically that reading English interpretations would never get me to anything other than what the translator / interpreter (s) wanted it to mean, and in the case of a multi denominational version such as the NIV I was using, that meant just total confusion, because sometimes one theology was used and sometimes another.

 

[Willie T]

Why were you sent The Holy Spirit?

 

[MorkandMindy]

The Spirit of the Lord only comes to complete a task, not just for idle interest.


In the first years of my faith we were surrounded by a largely agnostic population studded with old churches which in the main were considered to be spiritually 'dead'.

I was one of the fresh intake of young Bible Believing Christians into the University Christian Union and some of us volunteered to go out and evangelise in the nearby city during the summer, I was based in a Methodist Church and was involved both in the summer 'Sunday' school and in visiting.

In the Christian Union we had 'Hall Visiting' and some of us tried to get around every room in the campus once every year. We didn't succeed because usually there were only two of us and we only went out once a week. We didn't have a huge amount of commitment and the others evidently had even less.

In addition I put a Christian bookstall out on Thursday nights and for a year I was the only attending it.

Where was everyone else?



If Christians really believed that the non-Christian was going to hell, and that God loved them enough to send his Son to die for them on the cross, then how would they behave? How many true believers are in the churches today?



Our Christian Union President was an inspiration to all of us, a firm believer and a well-balanced and fair leader. He is now in a fairly influential position in politics and was questioned about his life as a Christian. His reply was: 'it seemed real at the time'.

Well, since after ten years of banging my head against the wall I eventually left the Bible based Christian faith completely, and now it is being said that I couldn't have been a true born-again believer back then either, so how many true Christians were there? Most likely - none. Most people are hanging around to see what a real Christian life is like and what a real Christian is like, but we are only looking at each other; we are all faking it.

 

[MorkandMindy]

To summarise each of my posts:

4: Someone needs to decide what the Christian faith actually is.

Many have argued for centuries about what the Bible teaches and not resolved their differences and they never will because as the theologian J. N. Darby concluded, and that conclusion stands today and is the entire basis of Dispensationalism; a number of different conflicting theologies are found in scripture. If anyone had come up with a Biblical Theology it would be recognised. Instead we have Lutheran Theology, Calvinist Theology and so on, dozens of theologies all supported and in places in conflict with various scriptures.


6. The Old Testament can not be translated into modern English, it can only be interpreted because each ancient word has a zillion different possible meanings so what each section of the ancient text means is highly debatable. Many of the meanings would make the sections of the text totally trivial. We don't know if they should be.


5. What I was told by the Evangelists (Campus Crusade For Christ) turned out not to agree with much of what the Bible said, but then give point 4 there is no way they could have had an evangelising message that did not disagree with some of scripture. What a waste of time that all proved to be.


A) Salvation is free but it will cost you everything you have and everything you are

B) God has a wonderful plan for your life, but it will take you years to find out what it is, and most likely you never will.


I did my best for 10 years and got nowhere. Now people no one would have considered 'good Christians' take pot shots at me for giving up on my faith, and claim that theirs is real when I see even less evidence in their own lives of anything divine. I'm not saying it's their fault, far from it, just that I have never seen evidence of the Holy Spirit moving in anyone anywhere in my entire Christian or other life. How can something be real when there are no examples of it anywhere?

 

[MorkandMindy]

I'm hoping someone can tell me:

1. What the Christian faith is, and not just one highly disputed sectarian idea, but one supported by scripture and not disputed by other scriptures.

2. How the Bible in my hand can be linked to anything divine

3. In what way salvation is free

 

[ebia]

I'm hoping someone can tell me: 1. What the Christian faith is, and not just one highly disputed sectarian idea, but one supported by scripture and not disputed by other scriptures.

To every question there is an answer that is simple, clear, -- and wrong,
Some questions just don't have simple, unambiguous, finite answers.

2. How the Bible in my hand can be linked to anything divine

I'm not sure what your question is here.

3. In what way salvation is free

It's both freedom and slavery.

 

[savedbygrace05]

Sounds like a daft question, but I was reading the below article over the Christmas break:

http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/EP08122150.pdf

It is a fairly long essay, so the below is a summary (adapted from wikipedia):

"....research into clerics who are secretly atheists and how they rationalize their works. He found what he called a "Don't ask, don't tell" conspiracy because believers did not want to hear of loss of faith. That made unbelieving preachers feel isolated but they did not want to lose their jobs and sometimes their church-supplied lodgings and generally consoled themselves that they were doing good in their pastoral roles by providing comfort and required ritual"

It's quite a plausible summary I have to admit, and obviously a potentially dangerous one.

Anyone ever suspected something like this is their own church or one that they've visited or heard about?

I have one example - from my parents (now old) church.....

Hi, it is very common in the Church of Scotland to have unbelieving ministers, largely because they are appointed by congregations were liberals and unbelievers are in the majority!

 

[hedrick]

Hi, it is very common in the Church of Scotland to have unbelieving ministers, largely because they are appointed by congregations were liberals and unbelievers are in the majority!

This is a somewhat different question than the OP. The OP is talking about ministers who lose faith. It happens. Many ministers would find it difficult just to resign and move to another kind of job, even though that's what they should do.

This post is something else. It's about conservatives not recognizing liberal Christians as Christians. Just as serious a problem, but a very different one.

 

[WatchmansMoon]

Maybe this is where Matthew 7:16 should be carefully considered "You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?"

 

[savedbygrace05]

This is a somewhat different question than the OP. The OP is talking about ministers who lose faith. It happens. Many ministers would find it difficult just to resign and move to another kind of job, even though that's what they should do.

This post is something else. It's about conservatives not recognizing liberal Christians as Christians. Just as serious a problem, but a very different one.

Hmmm, you have a point. However, the title suggests atheists in our pulpits, they come in different disguises for varying reasons but they are still there. And any how, whose definition of 'atheist' are we using here?

 

[MorkandMindy]

Hmmm, you have a point. However, the title suggests atheists in our pulpits, they come in different disguises for varying reasons but they are still there. And any how, whose definition of 'atheist' are we using here?

Anyone who rejects the Roman Gods who have for long ensured the success and prosperity of Rome!

 

[ianb321red]

2. How the Bible in my hand can be linked to anything divine

What translation of the bible do you have ?

I'm not sure what the question is here - what is your understanding of divinity?
My definition would be that divine means something that is godly, godlike or indeed a god(s).

So are you saying that there isn't anything in the bible related to God?

 

[Cjwinnit]

Leaving your faith, especially when you're in a position of authority, would be an incredibly difficult thing to do. Many Christians have a hard time accepting such decisions (I speak from personal experience) and it makes perfect sense for someone to feel as though they have to live a lie, rather than feel ostracized/isolated. It's like coming out.

I can only imagine how that might affect someone and would offer them nothing but patience and sympathy.

 

[Cjwinnit]

To every question there is an answer that is simple, clear, -- and wrong,
Some questions just don't have simple, unambiguous, finite answers.

Some questions have very clear answers - making ambiguous answers wrong

 

[MorkandMindy]

...
Leaving your faith, especially when you're in a position of authority, would be an incredibly difficult thing to do. Many Christians have a hard time accepting such decisions (I speak from personal experience) and it makes perfect sense for someone to feel as though they have to live a lie, rather than feel ostracized/isolated. It's like coming out.

Not to mention painful - anyone who knows the gospel and rejects it is a dead cert. for eternal torment.