Geoff W. Sutton Blog

Coventry Cathedral 2002/ by Geoff W. Sutton On a cold winter’s day Sarah sat across from me in the restaurant and declared, “I’m an atheist.” We were at a conference and her friends had left to go somewhere—I forget where. Sarah is a brilliant young woman with a bright future. I don’t know her well but she made some good points during a conference presentation. She knows I write about the psychology of religion so I’ve asked her about her opinions. Sarah was raised as an Evangelical Christian—a bit on the fundamentalist spectrum, I guess. She doesn’t like the Old Testament—too much murder, too many rules. I ask about the “Sermon on the Mount.” She thinks that’s ok. She likes Jesus’ moral teaching. She’s left of center politically and socially. She’s about to graduate from a Christian university. Somewhere along the line she lost her faith. She’s not come out as an atheist—except to a few people. She’s aware of the risks. She can’t doubt outloud. Her litany of complaints focus ...

UNBELIEVING  CLERGY The clergyproject.org People convert to faith and people lose faith. But what happens when clergy lose their faith? Last year (2014) I posted an article about conversions, deconversions, and transformations . In December, Philosopher Daniel Dennett and Clinical Social Worker, Linda LaScola reported the results of their qualitative study of 35 clergy and seminary students who lost their faith. The title of the book, Caught in the Pulpit , captures the dilemma. Who did they study? All of the participants were Caucasian Americans.  Most were clergy with pulpit ministries (27) but some were in seminary (5 students, 3 professors). There were Jewish Rabbis but the rest were Catholic or Protestant Christian clergy. There were men (30) and women (5) from theologically conservative and liberal denominations. The authors use the word literal to refer to fundamentalist groups. By literal they mean religious groups that view the Biblical text as in...