Why Are Preachers Leaving the Ministry?

[Music] [Music] hi I'm Dan Barker I'm co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation just like that music he just heard Freedom From Religion and welcome to FFRF ask an atheist on Facebook live Annie Laurie Gaylor the other co-president and usual co-host of the show she's bowing out of today's show because she's still recuperating from a broken heel that happened down in Peru but she'll be back with us soon the Freedom From Religion Foundation works to keep state and church separate and we work to educate the public about the views of non-theist so we had the show all ready to go but we have some breaking news just this morning just a few minutes ago we've learned that we won our lawsuit against the governor of Texas governor Abbott you might recall that Governor Abbott took down our winter solstice display from the State Capitol there in Austin Texas and you know we had a permit for it it had been approved we had congressional sponsor for it but he didn't like it he thought it was a ridiculing Christmas so he took it down it was wrong it was unconstitutional it was a breach of his authority and we went to court and sued and we had won but we were waiting for the final decision and this morning we just got that final decision the governor Abbott broke the law violated our free speech the free speech of non-believers by taking down our winter solstice signs so you'll hear more about this you can read more on our website later today as we get all the story back together that's really fun news if you have a question during today's show you can ask it right here on Facebook or you can send an email to ask an atheist at FFRF dot org our topic today is why are so many preachers leaving the ministry and to help us answer that question I'm going to be joined today by two members of the clergy project the clergy project is an organization formed specifically to help ministers priests rabbis Imams and other religious professionals and some nuns who no longer believe in the supernatural first we have John compared John compares there on the left speaking to us from Chandler Arizona hi John hi Dan John is a former Southern Baptist minister he's a founding member of the clergy project and he's very active as the vice president a vice president on the board and chair of the screening committee which is a very important committee so welcome to ask an atheist John thank you it's delighted I'm delighted to be here I hope you're back feeling better I know you had a doctor appointment this morning and we're also joined by lon Oh stronger he's a former Wesleyan Methodist minister if I remember correctly he's currently the president of the clergy project and LAN has been working in Mexico these days so we're actually talking with him from across the border from Pachuca Mexico is that right John at lon that's right so be careful when you come across the border law not to bring your grandchildren with you you know they might get separated as you cross into our country okay I wasn't planning okay so before we talk about the clergy project that means it's a fascinating story goes back to 2011 I first want to ask both of you you were you were ordained ministers and you preached and you read the Bible and you studied the Bible you were authorities on all the scripture I want to ask you what you think of Attorney General Jeff Sessions recent remarks about why the Bible justifies the Apostle Paul justifies tearing families apart let's look at his remarks that he made just recently subject to prosecution if you violate the law you subject yourself to prosecution I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to Oh BAE the laws of the government because God is obtained ordain the government for His purposes orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves our policies that can result in short-term separation are not unjustified and then the white house followed it up Sarah Sanders then actually supported what Jeff Sessions had said where does it say in the Bible that his world to take children away from their mothers or what he would be referencing I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law that is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible so there we go we have the Attorney General and we have the White House itself saying it's biblical to do what we're doing they're using they're using the Bible for public policy what do you guys think about their use what do you think Lon about using Romans chapter 13 as an excuse to actually tear children away from their parents well I've got a couple verses for Sarah Psalm 137 not happy she'll be taken and dashes by the ones against the stones in Isaiah 1516 their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished my comment would be if the Republican theocrats don't want to be just as lukewarm cherry-picking hypocrites perhaps they should work on their follow-through so if they if they were to actually take the Bible seriously it would be even worse than what they're saying is that what you're saying Wow so what do you think John is this is this justified to quote the Bible all right there - two responses to that the first is the laws of the United States are not based on the by the Tripoli convention of 1797 by first president George Washington approved unanimously by the Senate and put into place by second president John Adams said the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion we are a secular nation so whatever the Bible says should have nothing to do with any action that the United States takes no matter where you find it my second response is if you're gonna quote Romans go back a couple of verses ahead of the 1st of the 13th chapter who said where it says if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him drink do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good and then a few verses later in romans 13 it says you know the commandments you shall not commit adultery shall not kill shall not steal do not covet but any other Commandments and all of them are summed up in this sentence you shall love your neighbor as yourself love does no wrong to a neighbor therefore love is the fulfilling of the law pick and choose you ought to go a little bit further you sound just like a preacher the first time I started teaching in college after I left the ministry and got my doctorate when I finished I did like this to my car to the students it's like you're dismissed like I used to do in church do we have Bruce do we have a picture of John when he was doing a revival service back in back and there we go Reverend Johnson here that was I think I was 1952 you were like a revival preacher at the time yeah so so I guess what you're both saying is that even though quoting the Bible contradicts our Constitution it even contradicts the Bible what he was saying it doesn't even make any theological sense right absolutely it's just horrific misusing of the scriptures and I think I heard from you that a whole bunch I mean just Jeff Jefferson Beauregard sessions is the United Methodists the last I heard and didn't a bunch of Methodist ministers come out with some sort of protest I just read this morning religion news service that six hundred United Methodist ministers sent a letter or communicated with Jeff Sessions that he was misusing the Bible to to harm children so even his own denomination is disagreeing with him absolutely good for that I feel sorry for Sarah Huckabee Sanders she has the most difficult job in the world trying to justify this White House yeah yeah and she has to do with a straight face so so you were Southern Baptist John and before we get to the clergy project last week vice president pants spoke he invited himself to the Southern Baptist Convention and I understand about a third of them did not want him to come but he showed up there to give what really amounted to a political speech I think but John let's look at what he said and then well then I'm going to ask you what you think about his comments this is Mike Pence the president I want to say thank you thank you to the Southern Baptist Convention for the essential and irreplaceable role you play in America and I'll make you promise this president this vice president and our administration will always stand with you so John you would have been in that audience right if you'd stayed in the ministry I would have yes and the reality is a Southern Baptist Convention two or three decades ago after I left the ministry actually turned very sharply rightward there used to be some decent intelligent Southern Baptist ministers but the fundamentalists decided to take over they didn't like what was being taught in seminary and actually for good reason because seminary taught us to look at biblical criticism how the Bible came to be and how it contradicts secular history etc and anyway they didn't like any of that so they turned sharply rightward and the more intelligent ministers and many of their churches left the Southern Baptist Convention to form up the Baptist Convention that is much more like the best United Methodists and Presbyterians and Episcopal not as much like the very right leaning fundamentalist saw the Madison Convention now and Mike Pence of course himself is a dominionists he is looking forward to Christians taking over and ruling for a thousand years whereupon then Jesus will come I guess he's a post millennialist which is what that is but he would like to see a theocracy so if if something were to happen and the administration changed and Pence became president it might might even be worse than what we have now I think what we have now is atrocious so you think that's why most of the convention was comfortable with inviting someone like him to speech yeah I do wow that's pretty scary so well thanks so the clergy project so long you are the current president of the clergy project can you briefly explain to our viewers what is the clergy project what's its purpose and maybe a tiny bit of the history of it clergy project is basically an online community who gives support to clergy who find themselves not believing in more and God where the authority of the Bible and many of them are still in the pulpit and so it's a difficult situation so were you one of the original founding members or when did you join in no a little later the grantee project was launched in March of 2011 and nitramene in November and I was screened by Anna man yeah that's a good name so you were in the first year yes so Adam man was a pseudonym of one of our secret he was in the pulpit still but he was working secretly as a member of the clergy project and then he came out his name is real name is Carter worden now and he came out a couple years ago publicly so you were screened by Adam man so John you're the the chair of the screening committee right so explain what is the screening committee how does somebody get into the clergy project how do you how do you even know they're legit or any of that okay I'll do that but then after that I want you to come on since you and Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett and Linda La Scala were the original four founders I want you to say a word about how you came up with the idea and how it got going what happens is when somebody applies to the clergy project and by the way we do not advertise some people think we ought to advertise more our reluctance is we want to be sure we avoid the idea that we're trying to get anybody to leave the ministry or the faith we absolutely are not so we screen for two reasons when somebody applies finding out about it however they do usually by word of mouth we screamed to be sure the person is who he or she say they are and not somebody trying to get on to cause mischief we've had only about a half dozen cases of people who've tried to get on for nefarious reasons and we are able to ferret that out very easily the second reason however is to be sure that the person himself has come to his own what we simply called deconversion and if they haven't if they're still struggling with that we refer them to some other online and and other groups that they can get into continue raising those questions about whether they still believe or not everybody in the clergy project has to be very clear I no longer believe in God any kind of God anybody's God I once did and every one of them say the same thing I was truly committed it was my life I loved doing it but the more I learned about it primarily from reading and studying the Bible and realizing how I don't think the Bible is a holy book I think it's a horrible book with a few beautiful passages but in any event they have to affirm that they do that then we give them a chance the screeners do to tell their story for many of them it is a very impactful experience to tell their story because even some who've been out for some time say this is the first time I've ever told my whole story to somebody who understands what I've been through many of them break down in tears as they talk about that especially if they're newly a member of the D converted group so how many how many screeners are there there are now nine yeah we have almost every denominational grouping represented some and we tend to ferret them out to someone who would most a Southern Baptist I usually take yeah and we you know others we have a nun who takes all the X nuns and etc so what we don't have is a screener who is a Muslim our former Muslim well there's only just recent only two or three I understand that joined right correct and the most recent one I think I was trying to get in touch with him and did but somehow that fell through and my hunch is that he decided it was too dangerous one of the Muslims we did screened said if I were to be found out as an atheist I wouldn't just lose my job I'd lose my head so if a liberal clergy contacts the clergy project you would assign that person to a more liberal type for Southern Baptist calls you you talk the language you know you know how to tell if they're authentic or not because there's some things a Southern Baptist would never say if they were faking it right or a Pentecostal fundamentalist evangelical cause you have different different former clergy members of the clergy project who are ex ministers themselves actually talked to that person to screen them to come in correct yeah now Dan will you tell us how you came up with the idea with Richard Dawkins of starting the clergy project well began in March of 2011 so yeah it started in 2011 when a few years before that Daniel Dennett in Lindell escola it did a project about preachers who no longer believed and that article appeared in evolutionary psychology and in order to do that project they had to find preachers in the pulpit who no longer believed so how do you find someone like that you can't just walk up to church and ask are you a fake you know so one of the things they did was they she called me and I've been in touch with a number of them over the years because they've read my book godless or sometimes I get phone calls that are whispered phone calls from I'm still a preacher but I don't believe and I've never told anybody so anyway I was able to give Daniel Dennett the philosopher and Lindell escola the researcher his colleague I don't know maybe six or eight names and they'd use two or three of the was in their study which was sort of a seed study they sense came out with a follow-up study and during that same period of time back in 2006 seven eight nine Richard Dawkins and I had talked especially in Copenhagen we did a conference and he brought it up he said what about all these preachers that are in the pulpit that don't believe anymore how can they find a new job it must be tough how can they how can they transition what happened what about their family could we maybe raise some money so in January of 2011 representative from his organization and Lindell escola and I we met at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC we had a discussion and we decided let's start a group we didn't even have a name yet but let's start a group to help these former these former and active clergy and Richard Dawkins foundation put up a lot of money to start with the website and do all of that then it was mostly volunteers you mentioned atom man mostly people within the project ironically Dan Dennett Linda Lou Scola and Richard Dawkins can't be in the project because they are not clergy they're not former clergy I'm the only one who was a former ordained minister so I can be in the project but they're very happy in fact you can go on our website and look at the history and it the whole background of how this came to be so lon what does what does the clergy project do how does it actually help one of these people why do they come and what resources do we offer to them well they can share what they're alike through on their forums and get some advice from others in the community a transition rant they'd help redoing their resume it's their way in temptations and to recovering from religion we also have a program that offers up to twelve thirty sessions that no cost to them if they qualify so we have a number of number of resources and personal a big list of books clergy project participants have written and they're helpful in themselves can we show some of those books Bruce do you have some of the titles they're from some of the clergy project members this is Jon's book John Campea who's we're talking with right now his book outgrowing religion which that tells your story Jon right basically and then why he changed yes and then it also has updated way and then here's Jerry DeWitt Jerry DeWitt is one of the early members we used to call him a graduate but that's not quite the right word cuz we're not like a school but he was the first member of the clergy project to actually come out publicly from the pulpit while he was a member of the project and he wrote a book called hope after faith I remember talking with Jerry he's one of the guys who called up with a whispering voice I'm still in the pulpit and then we were looking at John Loftus there John Loftus is a former preacher why he became an atheist these are resources that are available and thence Steven Ewell a back seat this studio is the Steven you'll friendly atheist studio Steven Ewell a former priest wrote a book called out of God's closet talking about escaping Roman Catholicism and then in Ireland Patrick simple was with the Church of Ireland the Anglican Church in Ireland it wasn't Catholic the rector who wouldn't pray for rain this is a good read we had him on our radio show one says it's a just a good story about how he got left in ministry a nun Mary and connealy and I know John you wanted to get her on our show today but she was not available there are women involved and she tells her story being a monk none and then Mary Johnson's book an unquenchable thirst as of one of the resources who else do we have who oh well then Catherine Dunphy wrote a book called from apostle to apostate which not only tells her story but also gives some background on the clergy project with the foreword by Richard Dawkins drew Becky is a former president of the clergy project his pretty new book I think it's a year old now the rise and fall faith they God the godless story Greta Vosper up in Canada she's up in the Toronto area she stayed in the ministry even though her congregation knew she was an atheist that's quite a story they didn't want her to leave it's a great story and then also from Canada Bob Ripley he was he's pretty famous personality there I thought he called the book Believe It or Not Bob Ripley but he's calling it life beyond belief a preacher's deconversion another really good story and then here's the book we talked about earlier Daniel Dennett and Linda La Scala's book which is the follow-up to their initial study called caught in the pulpit see that preacher with his hands fingers crossed behind his back there leaving belief behind Chris Hyland wrote a book called life after faith a former clergy who has left and he found that the true path spirituality with God by Jey Forest any more books that we can show Oh Carolyn Fairless the God presumption another another woman in the group and then Jason Eden coming out as an atheist on Facebook that's me in the corner and most of you will know the lyrics to that song losing my religion that's me in the corner losing my religion Robert Crompton's book leaving Gilead yeah so and then there's more resources available many of them have blogs and podcasts in that so if you if you are a former if you are a minister former or active who doesn't believe in God and you want to be involved how many members are there now John there are 888 as of last count and you were mentioning about the women by the way we it's from all the 50 states plus Puerto Rico 42 countries are represented and of our membership about 14 percent or women that's not because we discriminate against women it's because the church religion has so they just weren't many except for nuns in the Catholic Church some other denominations nowadays are allowing women to be ordained but back when that wasn't the case so the 14% of membership being women is because of how religion has treated them not how we do and of our current membership about a hundred and fifty are still currently employed as a religious professional for a variety of reasons some because like one man said to me I was he said I'm 58 how am I going to continue change careers at this stage of my life and that's understandable and some others for variety of reasons think I need to stay where I am for now until I can figure out a path that makes sense for me to do to leave so about one in five of our members are currently still employed as religious professionals and even in the clergy project we encourage them to use pseudonyms so that there's no risk that they might be outed only one or two of us actually know the real person's name and then they join with a pseudonym like a damn man did so and we encourage them not to reveal too many personal details in case because it could be damaging if they were outed in their community in some cases they were thrown out on the streets and they they the locks were changed and they didn't have a job so they have to take it easy they have to find a good exit strategy lon John told us a little bit about why he left the ministry can you summarize very quickly what reasons you had for leaving oh well the number one reason at the time was I went back to industry to make a living I actually claim the label atheist until six years later but I had issues with the Bible I saw the kind of addictions and the hairs and with my fundamentalism I need Bible to work it was pretty obvious it didn't matter so I think we can take some questions from viewers John you said there's and eighty-eight members now is eight eight eight a more second a number than 666 do you think it it absolutely is but we sometimes have fun with the 666 number just to get people upset about the demon in the numbers so we have a question from Aaron Freeman wanted to know from each of you briefly why did you join the ministry in the first place why did you want to be a preacher okay so first I was at a church Keenan and officials of the district were giving a treasurer's report and I was not paying attention didn't interest me in the least but for some reason out of the who I had the very big feeling that God was tapping me on the shoulder and yes calling me to go into the Christian ministry was the ferry to visit and so I went home and I told my wife that she was bored overjoyed and then I followed up with the district officials and began taking courses through Indiana Wesleyan he took all 26 courses and reached only for about six years and then I was out so did you actually believe did you pray did you think you saw answers to prayer or miracles or did you get a written in inner witness of the Holy Spirit or was it just something you were just talking about but no I actually believed and I certainly prayed there was certainly assured answers to prayer but my default position was always that I believed in God so John you were raised in it right your fifth generation Southern Baptist preacher was that part of the reason or did you have your own personal conversion I don't actually remember I remember going down to the front of the church when how quote became saved and shaking my father's hand I was eight or nine or something like that but then religion was not just something we believed in the my family of origin religion was our life I mean we didn't even celebrate birthdays because that wasn't religious celebrated Christmas but only in the religious sense so religion it was my the food I eat and the water I drank in the air I breathed I didn't know anything different and I didn't rebelled against it because it was all I knew and because in church I began speaking up in Sunday school and other things and everybody said to me all you're gonna follow your dad and be a preacher just like him it's just all I ever I never considered anything else so I was ordained at 18 when I was in college and began serving a country church I had already gone to Alaska with a whole mission board of the southern matters convention to work among you Eskimos for one summer and I went for subsequent summer so it's just I was all in until the first doubts struck when I was already ordained and already serving as a minister so you say you were all-in were you actually feeling like you were really talking with this God character who was talking with you in some form and and relating to your life in some way or were you just preaching what the Bible said I was preaching what the Bible said and I also was preaching out of a sense of guilt I didn't know why I was such a worm as I but I knew I must be so you know I I did my dog on this to try to be as good a person as I could be you know for instance I had no teenage rebellion years I never touched a drop of alcoholic beverage until I was well out of the ministry I just it was all I knew and I don't I do remember thinking God has never spoken to me if he's spoken to these other people that must be in a language I can't understand I was sincere and genuine and worked my hardest but the main thing was I was good at it it came naturally to me and people said oh this you you won't be the next Billy Graham you're wonderful well I've seen you give some talks that are pretty if I can borrow a word inspirational you have that what do you call the stage charisma thing of a minister so somebody here is asking a Bryan's asking Brian Anderson what was the reaction we only have a few minutes left but from both of you was there a reaction from your flock in your community when you announced that you were leaving LA and you go first yeah I mentioned that I had already left my fly years before I actually mainly I had to deal with my reaction from the family and my wife is still not coping with my new perspective very well and it's been 11 years well when I left three years before I left I was in my second pass straight after seminary and I knew I didn't believe in the virgin birth I didn't believe Jesus was God's Son I didn't believe his death had anything to do with whether there was a heaven or hell I knew I didn't believe in heaven or hell but I just hadn't figured out how to do it yet and the church was growing and they were happy as can be and the money was coming in etc so when I finally resigned I didn't tell my church I no longer believed I thought that would be cruel it was a fairly conservative Baptist Church even though I was not a conservative Baptist I said to them I'm doing a lot of counseling I had taken clinical pastoral education and I need to be better at it and so I'm going back to school to try to become a more effective change agent that was the truth it just wasn't the whole truth I didn't say to them I no longer believe they now know many many years later and I've gotten emails and phone calls and so forth from a ton of them most of them being supportive and saying we can understand how you came to this position even though we don't share it and some of them saying we also share it it has happened to me also so I'm not surprised that it happened to you but I did not say at the time I have become an atheist in fact Dan you are the reason I became comfortable using the word atheist really I would I would use agnostic I had read a book by Leslie Weatherhead I think out of print called the Christian agnostic and he said Christian diagnosis is someone who is immensely attracted to the Christ story and who says about anything that hasn't validated itself in his experience I'll put that in a mental drawer labeled awaiting further light well I kept doing that until that mental drawer was so full it wouldn't close but when I thought of the term atheist I saw that meant somebody who could say I'm 100% sure no God exists and you told me that's not what a theist means a theist simply means I have no belief in any God figure and okay if that's so that's me I have no belief in any supernatural being at all so because of you I'm comfortable using the term atheist well don't blame me you did your own thinking you didn't yourself so both of you are saying that in most cases and I think I think this is true with the members of the clergy project you need to find an optimal or comfortable exit strategy you need to find some way and some of them go into nonprofit work which tells their church and family hey I'm still doing good work for the community or like you John went into counseling or maybe maybe they go into philosophy but you need to find some way to ease out or get out of the ministry and land on your feet right that kind of basically what most of the members are dealing with in the clergy project most of them because most of them are already out but those who are still in that's exactly what they're dealing with how do I do this in the least costly way you were going to say something long you know one of our most recent participants had the foresight to go back to school and study so he could become a special education teacher so while he was still serving the church he was getting educated and planning for another location Wow well I suppose that works too and it shows that he cares about humanity we have a question from Janice Greene who's watching the show do you feel it has become significantly more common for religious leaders to leave the pulpit and you foresee this trend to continue what what do you guys think I think the trend will continue my thought is that it will increase if we were to advertise the clergy project widespread I'm sure we would get a great abundance of more applications as I said earlier the reason we don't is we want to be sure we don't cross the line of trying to influence anybody to leave his or her faith we're not going to do that we're just going to be here for them when that's happened to them but more and more young people are signing up as nuns in Oh NES I don't have any religion and and the mainline churches are suffer and even the fundamentalist churches the great huge churches they are beginning to lose some of their members so I think increasingly that the more educated ministers become the more they will see this really does not go here and I can't keep doing this without risking being publicly phony and privately cynical which is what happened to me so we know from experience that there are pulpits across America around the world right now that are filled by non believing clergy they used to believe but they don't anymore they're standing up there well I used to do that I for four or five months I used to be a total hypocrite and some of them are in the pulpits they don't know what to do they're stuck do you do either if you have a rough estimate about what percentage of pulpits across the country might contain these agnostic or non believing clergy at least 25% you think so maybe more but at least 25% among the well-educated ministers now those who've only gone to Bible School and are just fundamentalists and have no other education don't have a scientific bent it's not that high there but among well-educated mainline ministers in fact this is from a a Jewish rabbi who said in answer to the question how will my congregation react if they find out of an atheist he said they won't care he said they won't give a because they say I'm an atheist too I'm just s Nikoli a Jew and I love all the ceremony and stuff but I don't care if you don't believe well you know the old joke what do you call a Jew who doesn't believe in God a Jew but so are you saying that if I'm driving down the average street in America and I pass a number of churches a quarter of them might have non-believers in it or just of the educated ones I would say of the edge of the well-educated a seminary educated ones that would likely be true and many of them would not say as I was reluctant to do for so many years I'm an atheist they would just say well do you you ask them do you really believe there's a hell where everybody who hasn't quote been born again into Jesus is gonna fry like a sausage for eternity and they'll say no of course not no intelligent person believes that so they may not be all the way through to saying Jesus was not risen from not raised from the dead but although many of them knowing how contradictory all the scriptures are about that many of them would say that but I think at least a quarter of the well-educated ministers are somewhere along the agnostic line yeah but if there's no God who pops up the next Kleenex have you ever thought of that when you pull out the Kleenex where does it come from they must they must have some answer to that question who made everything how did it all come into existence if there's no good so we ever want to take that now that was just a dumb question sorry no I wasn't done let me respond to that the reality is if you think God if you believe in God where did he come from or he didn't come from anywhere he was just eternal why not where did the universe come from it didn't come from anywhere it's just eternal it makes just as much sense in fact more because we know the universe exists at least one of them does yeah so I guess I'll ask lon this is a question from Gretta Eames even though you are no longer a religious leader do you still have any residual beliefs in any of the Church's teachings what do you think about that you okay I guess we're losing some kind of a bandwidth here connection I don't have any residual beliefs and the true teachings that dick to my own yeah so lon we're having trouble with the transmission of your video here so we're only got about half of what you just said but I think you said you don't no longer have any residual beliefs in any of that it John is there any is there any verse of the Bible I could name one or two but and you verse the Bible that you would still find useful today though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love I become a sign all of first Corinthians 13 is gorgeous there's some places in the Sermon on the Mount that are good but love your neighbor as yourself I mean that's not that is not unique to Christianity by a long shot but it's the guiding principle we need to use do not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good and in this regard let me just tell you about how your family reacts my family absolutely my mother and father both of whom were they as Integris believers as I have ever met they refused to believe that I no longer believe my mother said John you can't be an atheist you're such a good person in her mind atheist met bad person and I finally quit discussing it with them and when I would go back to visit they lived in Mississippi and when I would go back to visit and my dad would be going to deliver a scripture memory he memorized the whole Gospel of Mark all 16 chapters and he would deliver as much as it does sit still to listen to and he would want me to go with him and sing I walk today where Jesus walked and I would do it enough that I believed a word of that but I believed in him and I was honoring him and so that was it was that way until their death yeah because don't you think most believers are good people in spite of their Bible most Christians and Jews and Muslims are basically just good people and they want the same percentage as in the normal population probably no more maybe no less yeah well thank you I think we're at a time here long Oh stronger is the current president of the clergy project and John Campea is a vice president on the board and the chair of the screening committee for the clergy project can you tell us quickly how someone can contact the clergy project if they want to there's a public Facebook page as well for non-members to join but how how could somebody get involved in the clergy project if they want to just project.org which is a public site and it has a place to click there if you are a clergy in you would like to apply you click on that and follow the forum and we'll get it and respond to you within 24 hours we're all volunteer by the way we have no money to pay any staff so if anybody wants to decide to make a contribution we would appreciate it we have to pay some insurance bills and other things and those of us remembers contribute most of us do on a monthly basis to pay what few expenses we have but if we continue to grow which I think we will eventually we'll need to hire some staff and so we'll have to have some funding for people who believe in what we're about well thank you long and in in John it was really fun and thanks for all the good work you are doing maybe welcome you Dan for starting the clergy project we owe it all to you and in fact I had an application that I sent you a brief copy of that says right here in utter exhaustion from the fundamentalist bickering about the trivial and because of my secret doubts about the whole thing called god I didn't cross the line of deconversion until a year later that I downloaded dan Barker's godless Wow you talk about solving haha but seriously it was like Dan was detailing my journey if I could point to the moment I saw the light it was the watershed moment of my D conversion I was so relieved no more guilt no more mental anguish and he goes on Wow so we're all still evangelists aren't we but this time this time we truly have some good news to tell don't we we do well thank you la muchas gracias por estar con nosotros learn on the show see they're not of my pleasure okay so and thank all of you for watching FFRF ask an atheist you can check out our other weekly show it's called free thought matters which is a broadcast TV show as well as ask an atheist on FFRF youtube channel you can find this current show it'll be up later today sometime and don't forget about our convention coming up in San Francisco on November 2nd through 4th some of the speakers include the eminent writer Sal masti the former director of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards Mythbusters host Adam Savage John de Lancie there on the right he's of Star Trek Fame the actor X Muslims of North America co-founder Sara hater the irreverent actress Saturday Night Live alum Julia Sweeney and they're in the middle the award-winning stand-up comedian Liane Lord will also be there and then also appearing will be in safe hide are the activist wife of a Saudi free thinker whose persecution and imprisonment have caused global outrage it's a very packed convention the rooms are already getting booked the registration is almost full so if you want to go please sign up you can register online today at FFRF dot org slash outreach slash convention and if you want to receive FFRF text alerts on your smartphone you can send the text FFRF send that text to five to eight eight six and data rates might apply to that again that's text FFRF two five two eight eight six will send we'll see you next week for another episode of FFRF ask an atheist [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: FFRF

Views: 18,514

Rating: 4.9045997 out of 5

Keywords: The Clergy Project, Vatican, FFRF, Freedom From Religion, Dan Barker, religion, atheism, atheists, lies, power, abuse, bible, reason, science, facts, Preachers leaving religion, why do preachers leave the ministry, religious leaders not believing in god

Id: NWXbNb_UwoI

Length: 50min 24sec (3024 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 20 2018