Teresa McBain, (former) pastor of Tallahassee, Florida’s Lake Jackson United Methodist Church
Posted on 08/08/2012 4:14:07 PM PDT by fishtank
Pastor Became Atheist. Why?
by Brian Thomas, M.S. | Aug. 8, 2012
Teresa McBain ministered in the Methodist church for twenty years. She formerly pastored at Lake Jackson United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, but today she ministers as the public relations director of the American Atheists.1 She says that she used to believe in the God of the Bible, but she recently changed her mind: "I know it's a lie. I know it's false."2 Why has she rejected God?
She explained her reasons to the Christian Post, saying, "One [reason] was the contradictory nature of the Bible; the lack of scientific or historical foundation or accuracy, which took me a very, very long time to come to terms with."3
It makes sense to reject the God of the Bible if the Bible contained errors and lacked scientific or historical foundation. But it doesn't. Analyzing and teaching the amazing ways that true science confirms Scripture is what motivates the ministry of ICR—evidence for the veracity of science and Scripture abounds.
While McBain may represent those who are unfamiliar with or reject the truth of Scripture, scientific and historical confirmations of the Bible exist in abundance. A summary of ICR News reports during the month of June 2012, a small sampling of evidence, provides just a snapshot of recent examples:
Gene control regions are protected from tampering, which means that assuming that evolution tampers with them is a faulty conclusion.4 Evolutionists turned a blind eye to original dinosaur red blood cells when they claimed that Otzi the Iceman's red blood cells were the oldest preserved. Red blood cells in dinosaur fossils fit with the biblical young world.5 A clay seal with the oldest inscription of the word "Bethlehem" confirms that it had been a village before Micah prophesied that the Lord would be born there.6 Squid ink, made of original, unmineralized biochemical melanin, cannot possibly be as old as its 160-million-year age assignment, confirming the Bible's historical time line as well as its account of the great Flood.7 The precisely arranged body parts of rorqual whales were all required to coexist simultaneously for them to eat and survive, confounding whale evolution and confirming Genesis 1:21.8 Whoever arranged the molecular machines that perform plant photosynthesis understood quantum mechanics far better than any physicist.9 A 1984 Bible-based model for the origin of planets predicted that Mercury's crust would contain remanent magnetism from its recent creation. This was confirmed by MESSENGER's most recent survey in 2012.10 The newly published bonobo genome has a hallmark of special creation—its gene sequences do not match any evolutionary tree, but comprise a well-integrated mosaic of gene systems.11 The idea that the Bible has contradictions and lacks scientific or historical confirmation is popular, but it is wrong.
In a dramatic moment at the 2012 Annual Convention of American Atheists in Bethesda, Maryland, MacBain apologized to her new atheist friends for having been one of those "crazy fundamentalists."12 Believing in the fundamentals of the Bible would be crazy if the Bible were not internally, scientifically, and historically reliable.13 But because its verifications are so overwhelming, refusing to believe it is crazy.
References
Former Pastor Teresa MacBain New Public Relations Director. American Atheists. Posted on atheists.org July 3, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Hagerty, B. From Minister To Atheist: A Story Of Losing Faith. National Public Radio. Posted on npr.org April 30, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Zaimov, S. Ex-Pastor Turned American Atheist Director Tells How She Lost Faith. Christian Post. Posted on christianpost.com July 11, 2012.
Tomkins, J. Gene Control Regions Are Protected—Negating Evolution. ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 11, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Thomas, B. Are Iceman Blood Cells Really the Oldest? ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 13, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Thomas, B. Artifact Confirms Ancient Bethlehem. ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 18, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Thomas, B. Fresh Fossil Squid Ink 160 Million Years Old? ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 20, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Thomas, B. Organ Discovery Shows Why Whales Didn't Evolve. ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 22, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Thomas, B. Photosynthesis Uses Quantum Physics. ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 25, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Thomas, B. Mercury's Magnetic Crust Fulfills Creation Prediction. ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 29, accessed July 23, 2012.
Tomkins, J. Anti-Evolutionary Secrets of the Bonobo Genome. ICR News. Posted on icr.org June 29, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
Teresa MacBain - coming out - American Atheists Conf. March 26, 2012. You Tube. Posted on youtube.com March 29, 2012, accessed July 23, 2012.
For hundreds of articles that confirm the Bible in every major discipline, see Evidence for Creation. Institute for Creation Research. Posted on icr.org.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Article posted on August 8, 2012.
Teresa McBain, (former) pastor of Tallahassee, Florida’s Lake Jackson United Methodist Church
For hundreds of articles that confirm the Bible in every major discipline, see:
Institute for Creation Research. Posted on icr.org.
I thought all UMC pastors were already atheists? What’s the big deal?
God Caused Love
Unlike affection, only humans are capable of receiving, giving, refusing, and rejecting love.
Animals (including chimps) are not able to provide any assistance to other creatures they are not related to, and even seem to be unable to recognize the needs of other animals. Although some animals (especially mammals like dogs, cats, and horses) can and do appreciate affection, only humans are capable of receiving, giving, refusing, and rejecting love.
Humans are driven by an entirely different kind of love. We love our children when they are disobedient. We can love our enemies and sacrifice our lives for our friends (like soldiers do). The highest, truest kind of love is that which consciously seeks and takes practical action to do good for someone else, valuing that other person as higher than one's self, even if providing such good requires self-sacrifice. This is what separates us, practically, from love expressed by animals.
Of course, if God did not create us, how would we ever know what real love is, much less learn to practice love ourselves? The very fact that we can love and be loved (by God and by others) is yet another proof of a Creator's love. Because of His own nature of infinite love and grace, it was God's good pleasure to create things in whom He could bestow His love and grace and who, being made in His image, would be capable of reciprocating and responding to that love.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
Must be a lesbo.
Nobody becomes a Minister with so many doubts about God and the Bible.
I smell a Trojan Rat!
Her statements appear scripted not sincere to boot.
is there any doubt?
I honestly have no inside info on that.
The book of Daniel shows amazing understanding of 6th century BC History and linguistics (both Aramaic and Hebrew) not to mention deep understanding of Babylonian Mythology and customs.
This woman must be historically illiterate!
One of the first things my parents taught me as a very small child was, “God said it, I believe it and that settles it.”
If is just difficult for some people to believe what you can’t see. Life is so much easier when you take Him at his word and let Him handle all the stuff.
The truth is, she did not give up her faith for reasons presented to her by logic. She gave it up because it’s inconvenient.
It’s real easy for an apostate denomination to “ordain” an apostate ‘minister’.
Happens all the time...........
Satans latest concubine. Some people just fight to have their name removed from the Book Of Life. She no longer has to worry about eternity so she better live this life to the hilt.
All Praise, Honor and Glory to my Lord and Savior.
Maybe, but I'm thinkin' she's toast.
A belief in "nothing" is a strong belief worthy of acceptance of "something" to believe in.
The same marvelous technology that brought this story to you allows you to find out more about it. If you learned how to use it, you’d find out that she’s been married for over 20 years to a career military man who’s now a police officer and has at least one child, a son who’s currently in the Army. So is she a lesbian? Unless you’ve got some special insight into these things it’s not as likely as you think.
Because she didn’t believe in the Truth of the Gospel, she would rather chose to reject Jesus (how sad) than to accept that God Had to Save Her, instead I am sure she chose her sin.
Pray that God still has mercy and changes her heart!
There are a more pastors who are non-believers than people realize.
A friend of mine who went to seminary told me that he overhead other students say “there’s good money in the God business” quite often as their reason for being there.
It made him so disgusted that he basically doesn’t believe in having a professional paid clergy any more. He thinks it should all be voluntary.
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:46)
But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: (Mark 3:29)
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. (Isaiah 24:21-22)
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: (2 Peter 2:9)/
********
I don’t think there is much that can help her, she has DENIED God. She lives for THIS WORLD. I feel sorry for her. :(
The Bible is doctrine for Christians. I’m consistently amazed by how many people think that God is some big, jolly Buddha god laughing at the antics of His wayward children.
I Agree!! I thought they all were already!
2 Pet 2:20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
2 Pet 2:21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
2 Pet 2:22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
She probably prayed to lose 50 lbs. and it didn’t happen.
A lot of people who don’t get what they pray for feel let down.
This sort of thing happened a lot in the 19th century, when agonized clergymen decided they couldn’t take everything in the Bible literally. Didn’t realize it was still going on in churches where things aren’t so strict as they were for the Victorians. She’ll land on her feet, I’m sure. The culture’s changed a lot over the last hundred years.
She was never regenerated; never having come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. At least that's God's opinion.
Like an old sage told me once, God answers all prayers...and sometimes his answer is “NO”.
Many people need to understand that.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works; There is none that doeth good. — Psalm 14:1
In the mid-eighties the percentage of the population who admitted they're homosexual was higher in Tallahassee than in San Francisco. I don't know if that's still the case but I do know there's definitely no shortage of such folks in Tallahassee.
At one time the Methodist Church was the largest denomination in the country so it was targeted the same way the Catholic Church has been. The main difference is that the Methodists for the most part went along with the people subverting their church so the infiltrators didn't resort to creating scandals. In the case of the Catholic Church, infiltrators resorted to creating scandals when they realized they weren't going to be able to subvert and take over the Church.
They were able to pull a lot of people away from the Catholic Church and undermined an awful lot of US parishes, but they didn't have any where near the success at taking control as did in so many Protestant denominations. Whether it's the Steelworkers Union, the United Mineworkers Union, or the Catholic Church, the fascists work to destroy what they can't take control of. Whatever they're working to destroy is always plagued by sex related and money related scandal because democrat fascists are past masters at using both to their advantage.
She was never a believer to begin with and did not dig any further than DU to find answers to her questions.
Shouldn’t the caption under the picture you posted read “Teresa McBain Past and Present Whor of Tallahassee, Florida?
The more “mainline” the Protestant denomination (United Methodist, United Presbyterian, ELCA Lutheran, Episcopal), the more likely the creature officiating the congregation is a fraud. My observation of the united Methodists is that somewhere between 25-50% of the clergy could not articulate their own faith being in accord with scriptures. A long time friend who is an Episcopal priest told me fewer than 5% of his fellow Episcopal priests are Christians.
For years before she was old enough to drive my daughter was the organist for an Episcopal parish. I came to the conclusion that the clergy of that denomination is simply the liturgical wing of the CPUSA.
P.S. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she is a lesbian.
I imagine she is making a hellava lot more dough as Public Relations Director for American Atheists than she was as a Methodist pastor.
She never should’ve been ordained in the first place:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=I%20timothy%202:12-15&version=ESVUK
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
This is the fruit of following after vain philosophies.
There are many Christian Methodists, but unfortunately many congregations have become tainted with PC, with “social justice” being their lodestar instead of a deeper walk with Christ.
When they start to do it, so many Christians try to jump in and warn them, and they are ignored for all their efforts. They are looked on as “backwards”. But this is the end - their faith slowly falls away, and they become apostate.
Simple answer. Her church made her a pastor, and the bible clearly states that is wrong. So, why should she respect the bible, when her own church doesn’t follow it?
And if you aren’t following God’s will, it isn’t hard to decide God doesn’t matter. She already had decided that long ago, when she decided that she knew better than God who should administer to His church.
Truthsearcher’s friend said:
“It made him so disgusted that he basically doesn’t believe in having a professional paid clergy any more. He thinks it should all be voluntary.”
Too bad he thinks that way. The Apostle Paul disagrees with him: 1 Timothy 5:17-18. So does Jesus: Matthew 10:10.
Also, what makes him think “volunteer” preachers/teachers would be any better? Read the book of Numbers. Moses encountered plenty of volunteers for the position.
This is long. It is an excerpt from CS Lewis “The Great Divorce”, where an apostate cleric ghost is confronted after death with the truth from a Spirit, and the cleric refuses to see it.
If you are unfamiliar with anything but Narnia, enjoy.
‘The Great Divorce’
by C. S. Lewis
An interview with an apostate cleric ...
... but flowed swiftly like a mountain stream: pale green where
trees overhung it but so clear that I could count the pebbles at the
bottom. Close beside me I saw another of the Bright People in
conversation with a ghost. It was that fat ghost with the cultured
voice who had addressed me in the bus, and it seemed to be wearing
gaiters.
“My dear boy, I’m delighted to see you,” it was saying to the
Spirit, who was naked and almost blindingly white. “I was talking to
your poor father the other day and wondering where you were.”
“You didn’t bring him?” said the other.
“Well, no. He lives a long way from the bus, and, to be quite
frank, he’s been getting a little eccentric lately. A little difficult.
Losing his grip. He never was prepared to make any great efforts, you
know. If you remember, he used to go to sleep when you and I got
talking seriously! Ah, Dick, I shall never forget some of our talks. I
expect you’ve changed your views a bit since then. You became rather
narrow-minded towards the end of your life: but no doubt you’ve
broadened out again.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that you weren’t quite right.
Why, my dear boy, you were coming to believe in a literal Heaven and
Hell!”
“But wasn’t I right?”
“Oh, in a spiritual sense, to be sure. I still believe in them in
that way. I am still, my dear boy, looking for the Kingdom. But nothing
superstitious or mythological....”
“Excuse me. Where do you imagine you’ve been?”
“Ah, I see. You mean that the grey town with its continual hope of
morning (we must all live by hope, must we not?), with its field for
indefinite progress, is, in a sense, Heaven, if only we have eyes to
see it? That is a beautiful idea.”
“I didn’t mean that at all. Is it possible you don’t know where
you’ve been?”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t think we ever do give it a name.
What do you call it?”
“We call it Hell.”
“There is no need to be profane, my dear boy. I may not be very
orthodox, in your sense of that word, but I do feel that these matters
ought to be discussed simply, and seriously, and reverently.”
“Discuss Hell reverently? I meant what I said. You have been in
Hell: though if you don’t go back you may call it Purgatory.”
“Go on, my dear boy, go on. That is so like you. No doubt you’ll
tell me why, on your view, I was sent there. I’m not angry.”
“But don’t you know? You went there because you are an apostate.”
“Are you serious, Dick?”
“Perfectly.”
“This is worse than I expected. Do you really think people are
penalised for their honest opinions? Even assuming, for the sake of
argument, that those opinions were mistaken.”
“Do you really think there are no sins of intellect?”
“There are indeed, Dick. There is hide-bound prejudice, and
intellectual dishonesty, and timidity, and stagnation. But honest
opinions fearlessly followed-they are not sins.”
“I know we used to talk that way. I did it too until the end of my
life when I became what you call narrow. It all turns on what are
honest opinions.”
“Mine certainly were. They were not only honest but heroic. I
asserted them fearlessly. When the doctrine of the Resurrection ceased
to commend itself to the critical faculties which God had given me, I
openly rejected it. I preached my famous sermon. I defied the whole
chapter. I took every risk.”
“What risk? What was at all likely to come of it except what
actually came-popularity, sales for your books, invitations, and
finally a bishopric?”
“Dick, this is unworthy of you. What are you suggesting?”
“Friend, I am not suggesting at all. You see, I know now. Let us be
frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by. We simply found
ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into
it because it seemed modern and successful. At College, you know, we
just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good
marks and saying the kind of things that won applause. When, in our
whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on
which all turned: whether after all the Supernatural might not in fact
occur? When did we put up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of
our faith?”
“If this is meant to be a sketch of the genesis of liberal theology
in general, I reply that it is a mere libel. Do you suggest that men
like...”
The rest of the chapter is here:
http://listserv.virtueonline.org/pipermail/virtueonline_listserv.virtueonline.org/2003-October/006048.html
CharlesWayneCT wrote:
“Simple answer. Her church made her a pastor, and the bible clearly states that is wrong. So, why should she respect the bible, when her own church doesn’t follow it?”
Simple answer, yes, but really good and to the point. Although you probably didn’t need to say it four times ;-) ... on the other hand, maybe you did.
crusher said:
“The more “mainline” the Protestant denomination (United Methodist, United Presbyterian, ELCA Lutheran, Episcopal), the more likely the creature officiating the congregation is a fraud.”
Sadly, you are right. Even sadder is that there are plenty more frauds among the rest of the denominations. And there have been such for a very long time. “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame - who set their mind on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven ...” (Philippians 3:18-20)
Also, don’t make the mistake of thinking that belly-serving preachers have to make a lot of money to be such. Some are quite willing to do so on the cheap. Sad.
Showing that Christian love by calling her a Lesbian and a whore and getting all giddy about her burning in hell.
Yeah, I’m sure that will surely draw her and others back in the fold. It sure makes me want to go out and join a church.
IMHO, there are far too many carnal judgments ongoing here, but missing the simpler more obvious problems.
1) The gift of pastor-teacher is a spiritual gift only shown in Scripture to be given to men and with very strong indications, if not “in-your-face” orders for women not to assume the role of Pastor.
2) Once again stress the “SPIRITUAL” nature of the gift. It is NOT a proclivity to academics, nor to command presence, nor to teaching, although for those so gifted spiritually, they may indeed also be well disciplined in their mental faculties to hone those skills. But those skills are not spiritual gifts.
3) She held a religious role as a leader in her religion, but missed the vary foundation of that thinking provided in Scripture, namely the Spirit filled life. Over time, attempting to repetitively counterfeit the spiritual life results in a scarred soul, misidentifying carnal worldly substitutes for the life of the new man.
4) We do not know if she has been saved or not. Believers who fall out of fellowship, then continue to rebel against God become some of the most wretched humans imaginable, becoming enemies of Christ, although still in His Royal family. If they continue to rebel through divine discipline, they may find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, never able to do something other than that which is good for nothingness, ultimately placing themselves in a state of the sin unto death where God simply removes them from this life with the first death.
5) Note her rebellion has degenerated past a stage of rejecting God. That would merely lead to agnosticism, legalism, antinomianism, or general worldliness and carnality in arrogance.
Instead she has further degenerated into a second stage of spiritual degeneration, where the rebellious degenerate now attacks God. Rejecting God no longer satiates her lust for rebellion, she is now tempted to attack God and everything He provides.
She might become or condone lesbianism in an antinomian insatiable frantic search for happiness, ...or she might become extremely legalistic, condemning homosexuality and all lust in favor of an attempt to counterfeit righteousness without justice.
The lesson to be observed is that those who continue in sin, do not remain stable and secure, but will further degenerate towards not mere rebellion, but towards attacking God.
“Atheists don’t believe in God. But the Devil does’’.— Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
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