Posted on 12/05/2017 7:37:41 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Jim Palmer, a former evangelical pastor who once served in ministry at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago and went on to preach the power of faith to hundreds as lead pastor of his own church in Brentwood, Tennessee, is now the vice president of the Nashville Humanist Association, which promotes humanism and a secular state.
Palmer, 53, told The Tennessean that his journey away from faith in God was triggered about 20 years ago by two devastating events. He said his faith was shaken when he learned that a church staff member was beating their spouse. It then suffered another blow when a woman encouraged by his sermons believed her unborn child diagnosed with a fatal disorder would live. The mother blamed herself when her child died soon after birth.
"That triggered, 'How can I preach this stuff?'" Palmer said. "Beneath the appearance and the surfaces of people's lives there was a level of suffering and brokenness for which my theology did not touch."
In his journey away from faith, the former pastor also lost his marriage.
Despite the loss of his faith and his family, however, Palmer is forging ahead with his belief that there is no God and has now placed his faith in humanity.
"I'm still going to plant my flag down on the belief that we are who we've been waiting for. There is no God in the sky who is going to rescue us," he told The Tennessean. "We've got to pull up our big boy and big girl panties and be human beings."
Palmer, along with Kay Overlund, 34, another former Christian, came together to found the Nashville Humanist Association in August.
Despite Nashville's reputation as the "Buckle of the Bible Belt," some 21 percent of Nashville residents are unaffiliated with any religion, according to the PRRI American Values Atlas.
And Palmer and his team of humanists are seeking to unbuckle the city.
"While it's true that our city is often referred to as the 'Buckle of the Bible Belt' for being a hub of Christian fundamentalism, there is also a fast growing secular community in the Music City and Middle Tennessee. The Nashville Humanist Association aims to connect that community together in meaningful, enriching, empowering and productive ways," the Nashville humanists say.
"Humanism encompasses a variety of views such as atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, naturalism, and secularism. As humanists, our outlook on life attaches prime importance to being human. We stress the value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems," they argue. "Outside the framework of religion or supernaturalism, Humanism affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical lives capable of adding to the greater good of humanity and working toward a world of less suffering and more flourishing."
Palmer became a Christian when he was in high school, then went on to seminary in Chicago to deepen his faith. After his spiritual unraveling, however, he is now teaching a course about Life After Religion.
"I find that there are many people who leave religion behind but still struggle with finding and experiencing true peace and liberation and happiness and I see that one of the reasons why that is, is that even after one leaves the externals of religion behind there is often a very deeply rooted religious pathology that's persistent in people's lives," he said in a discussion of the course.
"Certain ways of thinking about ourselves and life and other people and these beliefs and mindsets, these narratives that have been indoctrinated into us can be very saboteurial into our journey of wanting to be at peace with ourselves and to live a life of liberation," he said.
Palmer, who is a member of The Clergy Project, an organization that supports religious leaders who no longer believe in God, hosted a screening of a documentary about the organization called "Losing Our Religion" at the Metro police department's West Precinct on Sunday.
I can’t know about this guy, but I think a lot of people want to be liberated from the idea that they are weak and imperfect, and that it’s good to work on being better.
St. John of the Cross said something like ‘It’s easier to go into battle than to see ourselves as we truly are’.
“We are who we’ve been waiting for.” That’s exactly what Obama said.
Being honest enough to admit it should be a
big plus the way I see it.
If you lost your “faith” because you witnessed bad things happening to good people...
One thing to keep in mind is we are living on a fallen planet. You won't get a break here.
What we have to figure out as a Christian is many times we doubt because we don't understand God. We think we understand God, but He tells us His ways aren't our ways and they are Higher than our ways. He is looking for people of faith. He told Thomas "Blessed are those that don't see, yet believe." Stay with your first love. There is some reason you decided to follow Jesus in the first place. There is usually some undeniable circumstance that convinced you. The Holy Spirit will place a divine appointment in front of you that will convince you.
We must always keep in mind, the world killed Jesus. The world killed Paul. The world killed Peter. ect. They all chose to follow Jesus unto death. Our faith comes in that life on this rock is NOT the objective. Eternal life with God is the objective. When we come to Jesus we are supposed to lay down our life here and follow God. Many of us go back to the baptismal and drag that old dead body out of the water and give him mouth to mouth. Life down here is about a choice. Choose God or choose the world. God tells us to choose blessing or cursing, death or life. I always thought it humorous that God had to tell us to choose life. If you pray for something and don't get it,...trust God that He has the right answer for you. That's hard when it involved love or death.
The story of the potter and the clay comes to mind. We don't have the right to tell the potter what to do with His clay. The Bride is to submit to the Bride Groom. As we walk with God over the years, we learn that He loves us completely. We live in a bad place and things happen to good people. We all die eventually. Our eternity is what He is consumed by. He only has our good in His heart. When someone tells you to trust Him, do we really? We cannot please Him without faith.
Remember, we can pray for God to increase our faith. If a son asked for bread, would He give him a stone? Ask God to show Himself to you. Ask the Spirit to fill you. Ask for a divine appointment with Him. Set aside a time to listen to praise music. thank Him for what He has done in your life. If we give praise and thanksgiving, He will come into our presence. When people have complaints like yours, they are in need of an experience with the Father. He will strengthen you if you meet with Him.
God bless you and I will pray the Holy Spirit will strengthen you soon.
So its out of the frying pan and into the fire. Good luck with that.
My first response when I encounter such people is to ask then how Christianity could have had the growth it did in the first centuries, in a world of dark barbarism , in a world without recourse to drugs, anesthetics, and other accoutrements of modern medicine. The Roman world was filled with pagan Gods who could not speak or answer, why did so many embrace Christ in that era, rejecting the old myths?
Job
“It’s a stretch to call Willow Creek a church.”
Really? Why’s that?
there are numerous reasons to show that Willow Creek is not a Christian church. The primary one is that their “model” is to use worldly, secular methods to get people to come to the church. MARKETING is one of their biggest strategies.
But Jesus told us about the wheat and the tares. He said there will be tares that look just like the wheat. Tares = unbelievers; they will look and even act like believers. But at the end of the age they will be ripped out and thrown into the fire. (see Matt 13:24 and following)
Hope that answers your concern.
Lost faith? He apparently never had it. Otherwise he’d know: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?—Jeremiah 17:9
Sounds like weak faith to start with.
The problem is that his faith was always in humanity instead of God. When people didn't measure up to his expectations he was groundless.
If he read scripture he would have seen many examples of this
you said “He chose to leave God.”
Jesus called it when he said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you....” John 15:16
pastor loses faith after humans be humans and suffering occurs.
All believers in Christ need to be in prayer for this man and his family.
I can see how people brought up in certain “churches” would have a crisis of faith. Happy clappy, self-help doctrine will crumble very quickly.
“I couldn’t count the times God has allowed ‘”
God is not passive-aggressive.
“The fundamental problem with Willow Creek and churches like it is that they believe they should bend the church into what pleases men, instead of molding men into what pleases Christ.”
Specifically, regarding Willow Creek, can you provide specific examples?
“There are numerous reasons to show that Willow Creek is not a Christian church. The primary one is that their “model” is to use worldly, secular methods to get people to come to the church. MARKETING is one of their biggest strategies.”
Actually, the primary reason new folks attend is that they were invited.
Declaring them as a non-christian church is frankly, ignorant.
Hello Sky, noiseman posted a very good reply, here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3610773/posts?page=60#60
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