(March 16, 2014 at 9:11 am)OGirly Wrote: Wow I can only imagine how difficult that must have been to leave the clergy. I can imagine there must have been quite a bit of pressure to stay. Glad to hear your free from it though. Must have been liberating to no longer have to preach something you didn't believe.There was no external pressure to stay because I knew that in a conservative denomination it would be crazy to tell others what I was thinking.
There was internal pressure to stay, in that you tell yourself, "I've believed this firmly for 20 years; my skepticism must be just a passing phase."
You're right that preaching something you don't believe results in very painful cognitive dissonance. It's not like other jobs where you can just go through the motions and get the work done and forget about it when you're finished for the day.
As I indicated, financial considerations are a big problem for a lot of unbelieving clergy. Where will you find another job to support your family? Your training isn't exactly relevant for other jobs.
It wasn't a issue for me because by the time I left, I was too strung out and depressed to even think about that. However, I got by because I was adaptable. The last 20 years of my work life, I was definitely underemployed in terms of my education and earned a bit less than a professional would expect to, but I was never unemployed for long.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
