Faith Journey (part 5)

As I said in my last post (quite a while ago now) from 2011 onward I became aware of a growing body of literature recounting the stories and struggles of theologians and ordinary pastors who had left the faith and church altogether, or felt increasingly torn between their own intellectual integrity and the doctrinal position of their church (often their employer). A few examples are Richard Holloway’s Doubts and Loves, John Loftus’s Why I Became an Atheist,  Kenneth Daniel W. Daniels’ Why I Believed: reflections of a former missionary , and the fascinating Caught in the Pulpit: leaving belief behind, edited by Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola (Lutheran pastors might be interested in this one). Reading these I immediately felt that there was a community of people around the world whose experiences were often similar to mine.

But despite resonating with the accounts of clergy who had abandoned their Christian beliefs, I was hardly ready to envisage myself as a non-Christian. Obviously there was the small matter of being a seminary lecturer, but besides this, I also wanted to learn from those Christian thinkers who fully recognized the challenges to orthodox belief, but chose to wrestle with them inside the believing community. And so I immersed myself in the works of ‘progressive’ and post-critical Christian theology, as well as the works of pluralist theologians. The idea that one could still have faith without subscribing to specific dogmatic beliefs was one that I found quite appealing, as was the notion that Christianity could have some unique practical and human value. In my next post I’ll share a list of some of the books I was or am continuing to read. 

Another stream feeding into my thinking at this time was provided by my doctoral studies. For a start, my choice of PhD topic was a kind of compromise between a traditional focus of our church (Luther’s commentary on Genesis 3) and a field of contemporary thought (Paul Ricoeur’s theory of symbol and narrative) which I felt would give me room to further explore some of these issues both within and beyond our ecclesial boundaries. For a nice video introduction to Paul Ricoeur see here. Indeed, it was very heartening to discover a whole field of literature and thought that I found intellectually critical on the one hand, but open to faith and the transcendent on the other. It was through Ricoeur and others that a ‘post-critical’ faith, often termed a ‘second naiveté,’ began to present itself as a real option.

2012 was entirely given over to advancing my PhD, and since I would be returning to full time work the following year, I worked as I hard as possible to make good progress. My proposal was accepted, and I began to develop the shape and content of my thesis. The weeks and months oscillated between Ricoeur’s world of contemporary hermeneutics and Luther’s 16^th century Reformation world, the common element being the human experience and understanding of evil. But I also worked hard for another reason. During this time I continued to draw a full salary, and so benefited from the church’s belief that I was a long-term investment. With all honesty, I wanted to honour that trust placed in me. So as well as straddling the worlds of Luther and Ricoeur, I also resolved to find a way of negotiating my own two parallel universes of confessional subscription and personal integrity. At the very least, I had to find a way of bracketing or managing my personal convictions so they would not fundamentally interfere with my calling and profession.

In 2013 I returned to full time ALC service (and part time study) reinvigorated and ready to go. But it was not long before I realized how hard it was to live in two worlds. While personally I found it liberating to think and believe authentically, what daunted me was the inability to share these views with anyone in the church – and that included a lot of people: colleagues, students, friends and family. Of course, I could share my PhD journey with anyone who cared to listen, or allude more indirectly to the issues this raised for theology. But as a lecturer in pastoral theology entrusted with the task of forming and educating candidates for the ministry, I could hardly say to my students, “Well this is what the church teaches, but as for myself, I find it completely untenable”. Even sharing too much with my colleagues was risky, not due to any intolerance on their part, but because everyone knew that in this particular vocation, personal faith is one of the first job requirements!

To give a sense of how I felt, here is how I described my feelings of the time on a private forum I would join some time later (I’ll get to that):

The question is, should I just try and focus on my list of responsibilities, and refuse to look the bigger picture, year after year after year? I would, except there is a sense in which this is almost impossible. For, by definition, the work of theology (like philosophy) centres on those bigger picture issues: the meaning of life, our origins and ends, the nature of humans, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. It’s not at all that ‘I hate my job’ in the way most people understand it – far from it. While a common complaint is ‘my work is meaningless’, in my case, it’s the actual reverse: my work is saturated with meaning, but a meaning I no longer own. This congestion of meaning is particularly intense in my position of training pastors. It’s not good enough simply to ‘respect the ethos’ of the Lutheran tradition in this place, as is the case for administrative staff, for example. Nor is it good enough to know, understand, and teach the faith, as might be the case with a religious studies lecturer. No, I have to show, before others, that I personally own and live this faith, when I don’t. I have to pray, lead liturgy, and say ‘This is the word of the Lord’, not just competently or even proficiently, but genuinely and authentically. The best I can do at times is to conceal my reticence.

On the family front this lack of authenticity was also taking its toll on me personally. I’m not going to share much about this, except to say that my predicament led me to become increasingly withdrawn and non-communicative about my work and faith (even though by this stage I had begun to admit to Jeanette where I was at). But as my children grew into inquiring teenagers, I felt it was pretty poor going to either avoid discussions about faith and life, or tow a line I myself didn’t hold. It was especially difficult when asked questions like “Why did you become a pastor, Dad?” or “Do you like being a pastor?”! 

So while 2013 had started out positively, by the end of the year I felt more constrained by these pressures than ever before. And being the kind of introvert that I am, the more burdened I felt, the less willing and able I was to talk about it. Depression and anxiety were setting in. I knew, however, that I could not continue like this indefinitely. At the beginning of 2014, therefore, I resolved to do several things: first, to start writing down what had, up to now, simply been swirling around in my mind; second, to find a support network; and third, to start exploring other career options. As it turned out, I did all of these things, and even more, which would be a first (and probably the last) as far as New Year’s resolutions go!

• In a private and confidential way, I began to open up to two of my ALC colleagues, both of whom listened without judgment and offered their support.
• I began sharing more of my internal changes with my wife, Jeanette, something she was well aware of by this stage. But now she would begin to realize that my ministry probably had a use-by date on it.
• I developed friendships with two non-Lutheran clergy, one who was very progressive, the other more rationalist. These guys were a great help, and we stay in regular contact.
• Probably the most radical move took place in January 2014, when I applied to and joined The Clergy Project, an anonymous online forum for clergy who no longer hold to supernatural beliefs, and are trying to move out of ministry. This meant I was now in contact with hundreds of clergy (or ex-clergy) in a similar situation to me.

In mid-2014 I had several appointments with a career counselor, as by now I felt I had no options but to leave my current calling. My meeting with her confirmed that I enjoyed the kind of work I do – it’s just that my beliefs were completely out of sync with the church! 

So in the end, I once again decided I wasn’t ready or able to seek other employment, but would somehow try to ameliorate and manage the cognitive dissonance I had now lived with for several years. My main strategy here was to share my journey with a few trusted colleagues, and hope that this would make things more tolerable. More on that soon!