Daniel Dennett has published this wee report on American Christian preachers who don’t believe in Christianity. What a sad and tragic state of affairs. I know it is the territory of John Updike novels, but it still is hard to imagine the utter despair that must be met daily by these men.
In his report, which is sadly predictably ideological, Dennett concludes that these people are victims. Perhaps this is not the place for me to clumsily unpack my amateur epistemology but I don’t think belief is an accident and I don’t think it is pre-ordained. We are responsible for the things to which we assent. Our story may be shaped by others but it is ours. He makes an excellent point that the relatively low wages of clergy and the apparent brilliant perk of a parsonage is actually a kind of gentle trap. It is the most compelling argument I have ever heard for pay rises for clergy.
Here’s my off the top of my head remuneration proposal: Track the national average for families, peg the salary below that by a point or two, add a few percentage points for each child and adjust housing allowances for different regions. Sell all manses.
More astounding than the fact that a nu-atheist interprets data to read that religion has poisoned these mens’ lives is the way these men quite openly admit, each and every single one of them, that money is the reason why they stay in the clergy. Or rather, the lack of certain comparable lifestyle outside the church. They don’t have the guts to be honest that they must engage in mental gymnastics every time they recite the Creeds and they can’t imagine a life without a certain monthly salary.
I wonder which came first.
This detail has hit me especially hard because for months and years wife-unit and I have wrestled with the way in which our relative financial ineptitude limits our options. We are slowly exhausting ourselves fighting that idol. But we can choose to fight and I hope we never to choose to stop.
The real tragedy of course is the poor blighted people who are going to turn to these men when they are diagnosed with cancer or when they read a passage in the Scriptures and it just swallows them whole and makes them want to turn around and transform everything that has come before for them. The kids who grow up being taught that education inculcates scepticism, a very dangerous and unsceptical idea, are the tragic ones. The people who don’t know the Gospel and don’t have a preacher to tell them: they are the tragedy. Their story ends badly.
But the reason this badly written report grabbed my attention on Monday was my Monday. I have been struggling since forever with the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. I have self selected into this movement. I am not naive about its flaws and it historical idiosyncrasies. That’s a polite way to say its sin. Yet its sin and my sin have really met and created an unholy storm over the last few months. Filled with discontent and restlessness and pride disguised as idealism I’ve been throwing an internal and not-so-internal temper tantrum. For weeks my wife has thrashed it out with me. Last Monday I thrashed it out with a wise young friend and then this Monday I thrashed it out with a wise older friend and now its all thrashed out.
Well, obviously its not since I’m being all lame and confessional here. But its almost beaten down into submission. I think.
To be a member of a church, nevermind a leader, nevermind a minister, is to be caught in a tradition that will at times be deeply uncomfortable. Institutional religion is bad, just like they say it is. It crushes and it exhausts. It is a despair machine that is able to feed itself endless self reinforcing bullshit and call it wisdom. I don’t need to point fingers at any one particular in institution Ireland. We’re all at it to some extent.
But this is not the end of the story. The church is the most powerful and beautiful and flexible and life transforming entity in the world as well. Your local church is your only hope. The local church is the hope of the world.
And each and every one of those men were aware of this triangled tension: their will (they speak in the report in terms of fulfillment), their institutions’ will and the grace that overflows when people gather to worship Jesus and be shaped by his Spirit. Somehow that glorious pinnacle arises from the foundation of their individual sin and incompetency and the sin and incompetency of their tradition. But Christ is the kind of God who likes to raise rotting things.
Unbelief didn’t just happen to these men. The difficulties of working within a denomination did not come as a surprise to these men. Maybe these men have no one in their church to talk to (although I don’t believe that) but surely its their responsibility as the pastors to shape the community so that it encourages questioning in the most awesomely liberating way; honest and humble and broken and expectant? Their “tragedy” is no accident.
Our holy fathers have renounced all other spiritual work and concentrated wholly on this one doing, that is, on guarding the heart
– St. Symeon the New Theologian
Your Correspondent, Whoring his sermons to the highest bidder.
>>Unbelief didn’t just happen to these men.
thought you said it didnt exist… anyway
>>We are responsible for the things we ascent to.
This is a dynamite statement. I’d love you to do a post just on this. perhaps with reference to
-parental influence (only 1 in 12 disagree with the beliefs/non of their parents)
-access to good information
-mental/intellectual capacity
-influence of hope/wishful thinking & fear
‘Maybe these men have no one in their church to talk to (although I don’t believe that) but surely its their responsibility as the pastors to shape the community so that it encourages questioning in the most awesomely liberating way; honest and humble and broken and expectant?’
and women of course:)
I think you’re right.
I’ve said it many times to my other better half, but there is far too much expected of ministers, pastors,vicars and the like.
There is too much pressure, too much responsibility that if you guys don’t get things right, things in the church will like fall apart. Its like the minister is the capstone of the church, the person that holds it together. Not Jesus or the Holy Spirit or God, but the student who has been in The Union for a few years.
So you have to hold it together or rather be seen to be holding it together as that is what the people who pay you a monthly wage need and expect. Its like working for a company or an insitution.
But that can lead to the way of the Pharisee, wearing a spiritual mask of being clued in with God and having all the answers (you guys are paid to provide the answers, right?), the movers and shakers of the church.
Everybody does it of course but I suppose if the teaching elder is there to teach us how to follow Jesus they should be like the tax collector pleading to God for mercy, that they should be full of grace and truth, they should be broken and humble.
And of course that cuts both ways. We as the congregation need to realise that the man/women in the pulpit is a bit like us. If we have doubts and many moments of unfaithfulness, if we lust and are worried about money why should we expect the man/women in the pulpit to be any different?
We need to give them room to doubt and grace to be who they really are. We need to lift the pressure of them and give them room to breathe.
The priesthood of all believers = good idea
PS
You left your shower gel here I think, thanks for the whiskey as well
QMonkey,
Are you equating hope with wishful thinking? If so, that’s absurd. Christian hope has its basis in history, namely the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus. Nobody wished Jesus into existence, nor did people wish for a crucified Messiah who would then come alive again. Such things happened despite the wishes of men and women, and such past events is why there is hope for the future. Christian hope shouldn’t initiate; it should always be a response. If it does initiate, chances are it is wishful thinking that needs to be corrected.
your almost throwaway line “The local church is the hope of the world” has just become my quote of the week. Should have added… “Discuss…”
LN.
if its not the place for ZT to ‘clumsily unpack my amateur epistemology’ it certainly isn’t mine. vaguelly speaking, if the Hope / wishful thinking thing is blocking the rest of my point, im happy to accept that there is a difference, of at very least, scale.
>>.Christian hope has its basis in history, namely the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus
Okaaaaay but can we at least agree that it is disputed in some quarters?
and to be a Christian (in a lot of peoples view) one must ascent to that the truth of that literal claim.
ZT typed a huge throw-away line saying that ‘We are responsible for the things we ascent to’. which i thought was very interesting. maybe it would help to see it in the context of another faith/religion to which you don’t subscribe. Islam/hinduism/ or even young earth creationism. What are the factors that lead to ascent to these beliefs. was my list fair?
its pretty harsh to hold someone ‘responsible’ for ascent to a historical/scientific/philosophical claim until he is in receipt of ALL relevant facts and the best possible intelligence and free of cultural/parental baggage.
IF your jesus claim is true, then you must have more info than me, and/or are smarter (or just lucky). should i ascent anyway? even though i think its nonsense? should i do the same with the claims of the islamist?
QM,
Your list was quite fair. My point was simply that for the Christian, the order is Event–belief/present experience–hope, not wishful thinking–belief. No Event, no Christianity.
Of course what makes one “believe” the event? I think the most common answer is a relationship with another Christian/a community of Christians who not only believe the event, but re-enact it. To paraphrase Paul, the church becomes an epistemic reservoir from Christ, written not on paper but on human hearts.
Also, a couple of other things I would add to your list are the influence of pride and selfishness. In my experience, these have a significant impact on what I believe at a given moment.
well, if not the most common answer, the most honest perhaps is…i was taught it as fact from an an early age before my critical intellect was fully formed… then all my friends and family/culture believed the same so why would i question.
but i think you’re right about the next most common… re ‘a relationship with another Christian/a community of Christians who not only believe the event, but re-enact it’
of course you’ll agree with me that the degree to which others believe something isn’t proportional to its actual truth. how ever nice the people are, and how ever much to enjoy the community. it doesnt stand up to analysis though… one presumes that the dali lama really ‘live it’ in terms of his faith.. but you still dont believe he’s right in regards to reincarnation
not sure i really understand your pride and selfishness point. not sure how that impacts on your acceptance of proposed facts/events. ‘im feeling quite selfish today so i don’t think the battle of waterloo happened’. ? do you honestly start to doubt the resurrection when you’re feeling proud?
Certainly my selfishness, while remaining ambivalent to the battle of Waterloo, opposes the resurrection. Jesus’s resurrection, if true, is a big fat “No” to selfishness and a “Yes” to selfless love. My selfishness of course doesn’t like this, and so it wants me to think and act as if the resurrection (and all that comes with it) is untrue.
I’m not saying I walk around all day with my thoughts oscillating between “The resurrection is historically factual” and “the resurrection is a lie”, but I hope you see my point. It’s in there somewhere, I think.
There is, especially when it comes to things of god, a moral dimension to knowledge that simply can’t be ignored. It makes things rather messy, but it keeps things human.
ps – Im NOT saying you can’t be selfless if you don’t think the resurrection is true, etc etc.
Canalways, I meant only the men in the study- there were five men, no women. I would never forget the ladies. 🙂
And LN, I don’t think I know who you are, but you are surely a better writer even than Paul:
“To paraphrase Paul, the church becomes an epistemic reservoir from Christ, written not on paper but on human hearts.” 😀
Apologies. My comments here always seem to be unintentionally shrouded in mystery.
I’m the guy who thinks our pastors and theologians aren’t hot enough!
ahaaaa…..must have been on mid morning auto pilot. Of course you would never forget the women:)
I like all these comments. Unlike the commenters, I don’t have the gift for remembering what my original point was and can only ever manage to understand what the other person means. I also think ministers are amazing, and I think Zoomtard will be one of the best, if God is willing. But I forget that they are just like me. It’s actualy kind of weird thinking that ministers don’t have it all sorted. Is this a cultural thing? It’s definitely a ‘me’ thing anyway. How would you go about educating/encouraging the many people like me, at an organisational level?
Before I read your last three paragraphs, this caught my eye because of…well because of where I work: “The people who don’t know the Gospel and don’t have a preacher to tell them: they are the tragedy. Their story ends badly.”
Oh, and I’m with jimlad above me, at least on the first point. I’m not sold on the whole ‘ministers are great thing’ yet.
Jimlad: we could all fail catastrophically and then people would have a more realistic view of church leaders.
Oh wait, the European church has been trying that for centuries and its got us nowhere. BADUM TSSH!
‘I also think ministers are amazing, and I think Zoomtard will be one of the best, if God is willing.’
heya Jimlad:)
I guess I find it hard to agree with you completely, not because I don’t think Zoomtard would make a good minister(or is a good minister) but because what would make him one of the best?
For example if we were to take the ministry students that are in my wifes year could we devise them into good, better, best etc? (I’d be up for that some morning for a bit of banter)
Can we really make a call on what makes a ‘good’ minister in the same way as we can grade who would make a good manager in a company or who makes a good footballer?
I suppose I find it hard because the idea of the best,or movers and shakers implies a spiritual elite, like the SAS or green berets of ministers. There are the guys who have their fingers on the pulse and those who don’t.
But they are just like us, sinners.
Thats not meant to dis Zoom and pastors or to be judgemental, its just reporting facts.
And I think it would take some of the pressure off ministers to put on spiritual performance if they knew that we knew that they were sinners. They would know that they didn’t have to put on some type of spiritual mask, that they could be themselves because we the congregation are expecting them to be full of unbelief and hypocrisy.
As rough rule of thumb I suppose you could imagine your worst sinful moment in the past week or month then imagine your spiritual hero doing that. Or even worse.
Why would they not be as tight with money as I am?
Or why would they not struggle with lust?
Or why would they not be selfish?
Its not that I don’t respect ministers or think that they have an important role to play, they do. But everybody has an important role to play.
It pissed me off in my old church when we had prayers for others and pretty much every week the minister and his wife would be prayed for, then the other church leaders, occasionally the church caretaker and Sunday school teacher.
But not the house wives or shift workers or nurses or managers.
sorry,I’m ranting a bit now.