What percentage of the clergy don't believe?

[Bloodblister Bob]

I know it's unanswerable, kind of like the age-old question of how many $20 bills can fit in a collection basket, but I have to think that a fairly sizeable percentage of priests, reverends, pastors and popes know that what they're selling is just sweet-smelling bullshit.

I mean, how can a person go through years of seminary training, often after having already earned a secular degree, and still come out believing in the contorted "teachings" of the Bible? The more one really examines the Bible, the more nonsensical it appears -- and they examine it for years on end!

Yes, there are "seminaries" that are little more than a mailbox in front of a Mississippi double-wide, and "graduates" of such might well be true believers. I'm talking about insitutions and people who are a step or two up from that down-home scenario. Can they really be serious?

[goddess40]

1. I think you're right about it being a high number

I had a professor that had his doctorate in theology and he said that quite a few don't believe in god but they continue as religious leaders because they feel that people need to believe to help them through life.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. That's a good question

Obviously there are charlatans in the field because it is so lucrative.

On the other hand, I am certain that many faithful men and women of the cloth have their "desert" times when doubt takes over. Usually these times are made better by periodic experiences of renewal. It's an up and down trip.

I disagree with you about studying the Bible and finding it more nonsensical. If you are looking for historic truth, sure. You are not going to find it there. But you can study the most inscrutable zen koan for years and find it endlessly fascinating. It is in our human capacity to find and refind meaning and nuance and variations on verses as they apply to our lives, because our perspective is always changing and our lives are always changing.

Notice I have not said a single word about whether or not I feel the Bible has wisdom or not. So I'm not here to defend it. I don't want to waste time in that kind of thread anymore. I am saying that as a piece of literature, it is complex enough to provide years of fodder for intellectual and spiritual nourishment. Even if the whole thing is a complete fabrication, which some believe it to be.

I'm often surprised here on DU how little cultural respect is given the entire topic of holy writings (of any faith) when this behavior has motivated human life for centuries. Some folks seem to think if they don't believe it then it should just go away.

I believe we need to understand the role these writings play in cultures, past and present.

[Bloodblister Bob]

3. Yes, one can weave a lifetime of sermons from the Bible...

...and in that regard it is fascinating. I was speaking of the absurdity of claiming it to be literally true.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. It is amazing to me, too, Bob,

how many folks believe the myth. And I can never fathom why anybody thinks Adam and Eve is somehow more miraculous than evolution. Here science has used human reason, gifts from God to many, to piece together just how it works and folks just don't see it.

Now, personally, I still buy much of the New Testament, but that's me.

[Mrs. Overall]

5. I am an ex-clergy member--

I studied with priests, nuns, and Protestant ministers at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Catholic and Protestant clergy came from all over the US and many parts of the world to study there, and in my experience, many of them did not believe in the stereotypical "God" but had a much more humanistic approach. Most of us thought of "God" and "Christ" as the potential within all of us to better ourselves and to contribute to the betterment of the planet.
I think another common concept was to think of the Bible not as historical fact but as a spiritual guide--stories (myths) that have something to teach on a spiritual and human level, and to see the Bible as a legacy of a desert people who lived over 2000 years ago--it's really about them, not us.
What I saw among the clergy were a lot of hard working people who simply wanted to help others with a social justice emphasis and who wanted to be part of a spiritual community for support.
By the way, there were no fundamentalists there. They often accused us of being secular and pagan.

[manic expression]

9. Interesting

but I do believe that may be a self-selecting group. If you went to a very conservative evangalist school to study theology, I think you would find a VERY different picture, to say the least.

[Mrs. Overall]

11. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "self-selecting group"

but the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) is certainly a very large group of schools with quite a population of theology/philosophy students.

I must admit I don't know much about evangelical schools of theology and the education level of the people who teach there. I feel so fortunate to have been able to study with some highly educated, cutting edge scholars from around the world who were truly pushing the boundaries of conventional theological thought. I had a Christology class in which the Franciscan priest/professor basically told us why, in his opinion, Christ's resurrection is symbolic and not literal.

I'm not sure students at a conservative evangelical institute are truly challenged by highly educated instructors. You can't continue to push and challenge your mind and remain religiously conservative--at some point you break into more critical and symbolic thinking, in which you question the very grounds of your own beliefs. It would seem that the evangelicals don't like to move in this direction, but are more concerned with maintaining a prescribed belief system, based on a literal reading of the Bible and a strict social/moral code.

[manic expression]

13. Well,

sorry if I am wrong, but Berkley is quite a liberal place, no?

What I'm saying is that those students were relatively progressive and open-minded, while others would not be nearly so enlightened.

[CatholicEdHead]

10. Sounds like the more education you get it becomes more symbolic

and less literal. Disenchancement also comes from learning more about the inante corruption in your Chuch institution. It is hard to live it when reality comes in. The humanistic approach is more realistic to actually applying the theory and not keep it in the realm of the books and istitutions, where it needs to be in the real world.

[Mrs. Overall]

12. Yes, definitely.

When I took a class on the history of the Catholic Church (I was part of the Catholic clergy), I was blown away by the amount of corruption and the inherent political nature of the Church's power.

Eventually, I could no longer stomach the "institutional" church, so I left, but continued my work outside of a religious order.

[CatholicEdHead]

15. That has been the eternal struggle of the RCC

since it was instituilized in the Roman Empire. The back and forth of "institution vs people" or these days it is often a "liberation vs tradionalist" battle. Does the Church serve the people or people serve the Church?

There is a higher than average internet presense of those who want to turn us back to the 1800's with full Latin in all things and all the useless pomp (read comments at Catholic World News (cwnews.com) to see how extreme they can be). Currently I am in a Catholic Charities JustFaith class and learning more about the social justice side.

[tjwmason]

6. Many of them re-interpret things when they stop believing.

I would imagine that very few are genuine charlatans, but that plenty have doubts about at least some of the religion they formally profess. I base this on knowing personally many Priests (both Church of England and Roman Catholic), as well as Divinity students at two of the U.K.'s best univeristies; many of them have done incredibly deep study in all areas, and yet have perfectly intact beliefs.

I wouldn't take this up as far as Popes though - the singular nature of the job means that I think it highly unlikely that anyone with doubts would get as far as S. Peter's Throne these days, we may not like everything that they believe, but I don't doubt that they believe it (and whatever else can be said, they don't tend to be stupid folk either).

But your basic premise is that one can't be intelligent, well-read, and yet still believe in Christianity - frankly that's nonsense. Principally because you're accepting the position of Christianity=Bible, which is perhaps true of fundies but not of many others.

[shrike]

22. Every Christian has, or has had, doubts

So why not clergy? Those who say otherwise are lying.

And, just because you have faith at this point in time doesn't mean you'll have it next year. And just because you're without faith at this point in time doesn't mean you won't be re-examining your worldview some time in the near future. People are fluid, and outlook is never static.

[Silent3]

7. Often the power of a strong intellect...

...is turned toward the task of creating elaborate rationalizations. Look at guys like Behe and Dembski of Intelligent Design infamy. These guys are actually pretty smart. They've studied quite a bit. Unlike most of their followers, they show at least passing familiarity with some of the realities of their foe, evolution, and do not merely fight the ignorant caricature of evolution most fundies conveniently decide to do battle with.

Nevertheless, the products of their intellects are full of obvious holes which only wishful thinking and elaborate tapdancing can avoid. To see those flaws would be to admit that great efforts had been wasted and that the foundational structures of their entire lives -- family relationships, friends, colleagues, sources of income, fond memories of warm receptions by audiences of like-minded people -- were all based on far less than solid ground.

While I imagine that there are indeed a few in the clergy who simple do not believe what they profess to believe, I'd think that far greater in number are those who simply have constructed whatever rationalizations they need to harmonize what they think and what they are "supposed" to think as best as possible. For liberal clergy this is a much easier task as it's quite acceptable for them to openly profess a more intellectualized and less literal and dogmatic form of belief.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. 3% of Church of England clergy, according to a poll

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1679824,00.html

80% believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus
60% believe in the virgin birth

Yes, it's just a poll, but I'm not sure if you're going to get much closer to a meaningful answer.

[Exiled in America]

25. That doesn't mean they're in it for money or con artists though -

- which is what I thought the OP was implying. That just means that they are biblical literalists.

[funflower]

14. I think a lot of clergy are afraid to tell their parishioners what they

really know about the history of the church, the Bible and religion in general. They are all too aware that most people "can't handle the truth" when it comes to their comfortable faith.

[CatholicEdHead]

16. This is true, besides keeping their jobs

many people will side with the hierarchy over the local pastor. They have utopian visions they do not want shattered for whatever phychological reasons.

[funflower]

17. My experience is with mainline Protestant denominations. There, the

rank-and-file membership is often much more conservative than the distant hierarchy, which is often vilified is overly liberal. My perception is that the local pastor often is more liberal than his/her parishioners realize but, as he/she has to deal w/ the parishioners every day, he/she hides his knowledge. The hierarchy, being somewhat insulated from the ordinary members, are free to speak the truth as they see it.

It seems to me that the reverse happens in the Catholic church, where the Vatican assures that only conservative clergy are promoted, and much of their job seems to be to keep the parish priests and their congregations in line.

[CatholicEdHead]

18. That sounds about right

Intresting that it is reversed in this day and age.

[funflower]

20. Probably has to do with who signs the paychecks in the various

denominations.

[silverlib]

19. A book that discusses this topic.

Here's a book that is getting some attention by Methodist, generally positive, in Austin, as the author is a retired Methodist minister living here. "What You Don't Have to Believe to Be a Christian." Yes, there are some things a pastor will not say in the pulpit. Some of the Chapters included:

Adam and Eve
The Miracles of Moses
Virgin Birth
The Miracles
The Resurrection and Ascension
The Coming Again
Life After Death

Ricker, the author, approaches his subjects with his own beliefs (non-beliefs), but also does not judge those who do "believe."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1571687629/qid=1136509506/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-4162845-8567136?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[funflower]

21. Sounds excellent.

I don't believe in any of that stuff any more, but I still feel connected to what I consider the basic, or perhaps best, principles of what I think Christianity may once have been or at least should have been about.

[shrike]

23. Faith is an emotional exercise

Not an intellectual one. I'm not talking about the "angels on a pin" sort of thing. I'm talking about faith, which is actually very different from religion.

Most of us who believe have a gut feeling, a sense of connection, what have you, to the divine. I've heard non-believers say just the opposite, and I understand completely. If it ain't there, it ain't there and you can't reason your way into it. I don't think you can reason your way out of it, either. You can reason your way out of RELIGION, that's something different. Sort of like being in love: how many people do you know who can reason their way out of love. Or HAVE reasoned their way out of love?

I might also say, very intelligent people often hold seemingly incompatible views. They also do things that to other people make no sense. Take Chris Hitchens, for example. I find him loathsome personally, but no one can deny his gray matter. Hitchens, an atheist, has been openly contemptuous of religion and faith, yet praised and supported a president who is openly a born-again Christian. Why would an atheist want a born-again in the White House? Obviously, because he espouses certain ideals that Hitchens holds dear.

As we all know, there was a whole "Rapture" crowd who went with Bush into Iraq. I may have missed something, but I didn't hear Hitchens complain much about a group of people he must think are insane.

[Exiled in America]

24. Most clergy aren't making money doing what their doing.

My father, for instance, was a minister for 25 years and ended up bankrupt.

I don't actually believe a sizable percentage (whatever that means) are con artists. I think there are a lot of true believers of various stripes. There are many who believe somewhat blindly - and years of seminary doesn't matter, because obviously seminary could easily be a place that teaches you to understand and explain away inconsistencies in the bible. Not all seminaries are like that though, just like not all clergy are fundamentalists. There are plenty of clergy out there who don't believe in literalists interpretation of scripture, and who don't peach evangelical fundamentalism.

In most local congregation settings, clergy aren't making any real money. They're doing what they're doing for different reasons. And contrary to some of the narrow stereotypes of outsiders looking in, most ministers of local congregations work an easy 60 hours a week - the bulk of their jobs are not "preaching" but rather visiting the people in their churches, counseling, volunteering in the community and trying to meet the day to day needs of their parish. I know that was true of my father. He was a minister because he loved people and because his conversion to faith save him from a tragic life that made him miserable. I don't think he had every belief quite right, but I know that he wasn't peddling something he didn't believe in, and I know that his intentions were pure - he was honestly motivated by the idea of helping hurting needy people and doing something positive with his life.

Sure, there are the super-churches out there and I wonder if those don't end up becoming more about money and show. But those are certainly the minority of churches across america. The average church congregation is still small with people volunteering lots of their time and with full time staff being paid very little.