{"id":1162,"date":"2010-08-05T15:45:49","date_gmt":"2010-08-05T15:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/clergy-who-lose-their-faith--james-howells-reflections.html"},"modified":"2010-08-05T15:45:49","modified_gmt":"2010-08-05T15:45:49","slug":"clergy-who-lose-their-faith-james-howells-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/clergy-who-lose-their-faith-james-howells-reflections.html","title":{"rendered":"Clergy who Lose Their Faith— James Howell’s Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"abba.JPG\"<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

CLERGY
\nWHO HAVE LOST THEIR FAITH<\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>While I can feel sympathy for clergy who have lost
\ntheir faith, I do have a few questions for them, more for their
\nprofessors in seminary, a handful for Daniel Dennett, and a couple of
\nvery basic ones for Solange de Santis.  <\/span>It was the
\njournalist, de Santis, who has just now covered the publication of
\n“Preachers Who Are Not Believers” in the journal Evolutionary
\nPsychology<\/i>, co-authored by Dennett.  <\/span>Five
\nclergy are studied, and a high percentage of them silently carry an
\nawful secret that would destroy their careers or families. 
\n<\/span>Privately they nurse a shocking disbelief that causes them
\nimmense agony and loneliness.  <\/span>To one, God is a
\npoetic human invention.  <\/span>For another, seminary
\n“blew apart” his faith, when he realized there were diverse viewpoints
\nabout God.  <\/span>One discovered that what he learned
\nabout the historical origins of the Bible doesn’t fit what was taught in
\nSunday School.  <\/span>Another read a little, and
\nstumbled upon the fact that there are variations in the ancient copies
\nof the Bible, and he wonders if they picked the right one.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>I know the loneliness and pain of the clergy, and
\nhard questions that riddle the life of the soul.  <\/span>But
\nI am totally puzzled by this report of de Santis, and these five
\nclergy.  <\/span>Who trained these clergy in seminary? and
\nhave they done any reading since seminary?  <\/span>The
\nquestions they raise are old, and wisely reflected upon, and profoundly
\nhandled by our best (and even our middling) theologians. 
\n<\/span>The Church has always known, for 2000 years, that there has
\nalways been diversity within Christianity – which is its beauty:  <\/span>God’s work isn’t a straitjacket, but God is flexible,
\nand doesn’t mind being apprehended a bit differently by me and my
\nneighbor, much less a Terra del Fuegian or a Russian Orthodox priest.  <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>Sunday School has never done a brilliant job of
\nprobing historical origins; but Christianity has always known its
\nhistorical origins, and its mixed heritage of beauty and embarrassment.  <\/span>We have always known there are variations in the
\nearliest manuscripts we possess.  <\/span>But this is true
\nof everything in history:  <\/span>we have divergent
\nversions of the Gettysburg address, and Shakespeare’s plays; encounters
\nbetween Julius Caesar and Cleopatra are notoriously difficult to specify
\nwith historical accuracy – but they certainly were tight. 
\n<\/span>I have personally looked over hundreds of textual differences
\namong early manuscripts, and can’t find a single one that raises the
\nslightest question about the heart of what we believe Jesus said or did.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>Bart Ehrman, who has sold more books in this zone
\nthan anybody else, acts as if historical questions and textual
\nuncertainties have just been discovered, or that the Church has locked
\nthese truths away in secret vaults in order to prop up a bogus
\ninstitution.  <\/span>But every great theologian in every
\ncentury has known about, grappled with, and understood what these five
\nclergy somehow missed in their education and reading.  <\/span>I
\nfeel for their ache, but I could have recommended a couple of books
\nthat could have resolved their intellectual dilemmas.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>I’m a bit startled by the superficiality of de
\nSantis’s review of Dennett.  <\/span>De Santis works for The Religion News Service<\/i>, and their web site claims they
\nare “devoted to unbiased coverage” of things religious.  <\/span>Were
\nI reporter on any other subject, I would ask a question like “Who is
\nthis Daniel Dennett who has conducted this research?” or “Is five a
\ndecent sampling of clergy?”  <\/span>Five is admittedly a
\nsmall number of people to interview, but you see immediately that the
\nlow number implies masses:  <\/span>we asked five, and
\nWhoa! look what we found!  <\/span>What if we’d
\ninterviewed hundreds?<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>Dennett is indeed a social scientist, but if you
\nsimply Google him, you will discover he’s a social scientist with a
\npointed, hostile agenda when it comes to faith.  <\/span>He
\nhas written often, blasting faith, and hardly in the “just the facts,
\nma’am” vein.  <\/span>I never buy conspiracy theories.  <\/span>But Dennett is one of quite a few authors who have
\njumped on a runaway bandwagon, and now they feed off one another’s
\npopularity.  <\/span>I stumbled upon de Santis’s article
\nin my local paper’s “Faith” page; clearly the “faith” story we gobble up
\nnowadays is the loss of faith.  <\/span>In a country
\nwhere candidates for office pander to the religious sensitivities of
\nvoters, the bestselling books in America are Sam Harris’s The
\nEnd of Faith<\/i>, Dennett’s own Breaking
\nthe Spell<\/span><\/i>, Christopher
\nHitchens’s God is not Great<\/i>, and above all else, Dan
\nBrown’s The DaVinci Code<\/i>, in which the eminently learned
\nLeigh Teabing unveils long hidden truths about the manufacture of the
\nBible, political maneuvering on the divinity of Christ, and a hush
\ncampaign about the sexuality of Jesus.  <\/span>The
\nproblem is The DaVinci Code<\/i> is fiction, and much of what
\nTeabing claims in the novel and movie is simply, historically, and
\nverifiably (even to atheist historians) false.  <\/span>And
\nwhat is true in what these authors write is, as we have noted, old,
\nutterly familiar to undergraduate religion students, regurgitated
\nknowledge but cast in a sensationalist spin.<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>To me, de Santis might
\nhave done a bit of interviewing to understand Dennett’s sampling of
\nfive – not to find five others who <\/span>would declare “I really do
\nbelieve!” or “Profound theology is identical with Sunday School!” or
\n“Doubting is evil,” but to inquire into Dennett’s agenda, and methods.  <\/span>Did the five clergy at some point miss something, and
\nso instead of the implied deduction, that if even our clergy are hiding
\ndisbelief, why would those who rely upon them as guides believe? so how
\ncould there be a God?  <\/span>De Santis might have
\nnoticed the way texts and history and science are regarded as great
\nfriends of the vast majority of us in Christianity, not perilous foes to
\nbe feared and silenced.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

     <\/span>Dennett, Harris, Hitchens and Ehrman are wrestling
\nwith a straw man, a simplistic, twisted version of Christianity only
\nfools would believe.  <\/span>David Bentley Hart (whose Atheist Delusions<\/i> humorously dismantles the absurdities of
\nDennett, Harris, Hitchens and Ehrman) wishes
\nChristianity’s detractors “had the good manners to despise Christianity
\nfor what it actually is” instead of a silly, trivialized, watered down
\nversion no one has ever espoused – and so do I.  <\/span>We
\ndo not mind hard questions, or sharp critique, or even disbelief – but
\nat least make your assault on whom we really are, and refuse to believe
\nin the Christianity that has withstood the test of centuries, for we
\nwant to know more, to have any and all illusions dispelled. <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span>   
\n<\/span>Being disillusioned about God or what we may have been mistaught
\nin Sunday School is always a good thing, for to be dis-illusioned is to
\nshed illusions.  <\/span>Most critics of Christianity
\npoint to the problem of suffering, and conclude “If God is good, how can
\nthere be suffering?”  <\/span>But we have always known
\nabout suffering, and the Church has not only caused our share of it, but
\nwe have also shared with those who suffer:  <\/span>we
\nsee them up close, in hospitals and in shelters we operate, on the
\nmission field and in orphanages, and we would not have anyone labor
\nunder the illusion that God fashions some sort of protective bubble
\naround us, or is a rapidly functioning magical salve when something
\nhurts.  <\/span>Our story is about a God who actually
\nsuffered, and suffers, and we miss the true God then if we never figure
\nout how to pair up God and suffering, for they are very close, and that
\nis our comfort and redemption.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/span>Or the critics
\npoint to the great harm Christianity has done in history. 
\n<\/span>Indeed, we are ready to confess every sin; but have atheists
\nushered in peace?  <\/span>Hitler loathed Christianity,
\nand Stalin wasn’t exactly a pious man.  <\/span>Are the
\nmockers of a made up Christianity getting organized around this world to
\nalleviate human suffering?<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/span>I just
\nreturned from a mission trip to Brazil, where I spent time with someone
\nDennett didn’t interview, and would never understand.  <\/span>Marion
\nWay grew up in South Carolina, and his childhood heroes were Methodist
\nmissionaries.  <\/span>He learned Portuguese and offered
\nto try to help hurting people in Angola.  <\/span>A civil
\nwar erupted, and he was thrown in jail and beaten within an inch of his
\nlife.  <\/span>When they finally let him go, instead of
\nscurrying to safety back in the United States, he asked “Where else do
\nthey speak Portuguese?”  <\/span>So he and his wife Anita
\nwent to Rio de Janeiro, to live in the poorest favella in the city – in
\n1962.  <\/span>They are still there, 48 years later,
\nhumble, working, feeding children, providing medical care and job
\ntraining, and all because they believe in God.  <\/span>But
\nthey would not even say much about their faith.  <\/span>This
\nis the real issue:  <\/span>the five Dennett listened to
\nspoke of “my faith.”  <\/span>Have I lost my faith? Does
\nmy faith work?  <\/span>Marion Way would be a bit
\nmystified by this thought.  <\/span>He is a person of deep
\nfaith, but for him the real reality is God.  <\/span>It
\nis God who saves, God who is always there, God who motivates and loves,
\nGod who survives faith or unfaith or doubt or piety or viciousness or
\nany other turn in the history of the world.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/span>Marion Way
\nwould know what to do with these five clergy, and even with Dennett,
\nHarris, Ehrman, Brown, and de Santis:  <\/span>he would do
\nwhat he does with the Brazillian children.  <\/span>He
\nwould smile, and hug them, and offer them a bite to eat, and say a
\nprayer for them.  <\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLERGY WHO HAVE LOST THEIR FAITH      While I can feel sympathy for clergy who have lost their faith, I do have a few questions for them, more for their professors in seminary, a handful for Daniel Dennett, and a couple of very basic ones for Solange de Santis.  It was the journalist, de Santis,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nClergy who Lose Their Faith- James Howell's Reflections - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/clergy-who-lose-their-faith-james-howells-reflections.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clergy who Lose Their Faith- James Howell's Reflections - 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}