I have just finished reading: CAUGHT IN THE PULPIT; LEAVING
BELIEF BEHIND by Daniel C. Dennet and Linda LaScola.
This book was quite the eye opener since I have not
encountered a book on this subject matter which was a survey of clerics who
lost their belief in what they were preaching. Some of these clerics are still
in their positions, many have left the ministry and some are about to leave.
The clerics or former clerics come from all denominations of
Christianity and some from the Jewish faith. The book examines each cleric’s
particular journey into disbelief.
The one thing that is common to all and very puzzling to me
is their time in school learning to become a cleric. These schools are
seminaries or theological institutions that one has to attend and graduate from
to obtain a degree allowing you to become a priest, minister, pastor or
whatever the title each denomination gives to their religious clerics.
What is puzzling to me about the education these individuals
receive is the courses that are taught there. These courses, many of which I
have also taken, tell the honest truth about what is known about the Christian
faith as known from historical data.
The strange part is that what they learn in class in many
cases contradicts what they are expected to preach to their flock…
Technically they are taught the “historical / critical”
method of Bible study which is basically a scientific process that takes all
the variables into consideration…simply put, it treats the Bible as a bunch of
books written by humans and tries to figure out why they wrote those words and
why did those words make it into the Bible.
Once you know all the facts about why Christianity came
about and how it came about, you see it as a scam and how can you as a good
person perpetuate this scam on people in your flock…but you do!
I feel many people entering the ministry have an actual “calling”
where they have the best intentions of doing God’s work among the people so why
do these schools try to poison their raw belief in their religion as they
perceived it since childhood?
I happen to know a few people that went through seminary.
One made it all the way to a Ph.D. level and abruptly quit cold and is now a
meat slicer at a local grocery store. Reminds me of St. Thomas Aquinas who was
and is the Catholic Church’s most brilliant Aristotelian (logic) philosophers
of all time who had a stroke and died when his carefully crafted philosophy
crumbled like a house of cards…some say.
Another friend who went through seminary training and tried
out what he learned on me believed that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
One can make oneself believe that but the historical / critical method of Bible
study really does its best to deny that belief.
I will be looking into this issue some more because it does fascinate
me…hopefully I will find more books on this subject.
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