Posted on 01/12/2014 4:02:50 PM PST by nickcarraway
Former Seventh-day Adventist Pastor Ryan Bell made an unusual New Year's resolution: to live for one year without God.
He used to lead a congregation in Southern California, but in March, he was asked to step down after voicing some of the doubts that led to this decision to "try on" atheism.
Just a few days into the new year, after announcing his resolution, Bell was asked to leave the teaching positions he held at the Christian Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary.
Bell spoke with NPR's Arun Rath about his flirtation with atheism and how he arrived at the decision to put his work as a religious leader — and follower — on hold.
Interview Highlights
On the expectations of belief for church leaders
My entire adult life, I've been a leader in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And I think the expectation of church leaders is that they would have fewer questions and more answers, and that the members or seekers or people that come to the church are the ones with the questions. And I can't remember a time that I wasn't wrestling with my faith. I think faith is one of those things that people wrestle with.
On experiencing doubt
When things start to come unwound, sometimes they unwind all the way. And then, you know, perhaps you can wind it up a little bit again later — who knows? But I feel like I lost my church leadership position and then I really didn't have any compulsion to go to church internally, like I just didn't feel like participating in church. I tried a number of times.
And it woke me up to the kinds of things people had been saying to me all these years, like, "I love what you're doing at the church, but church just isn't for me." ...
So I just decided not to fight it. I just decided to say, "Well, let me just give church a rest." And as I did that, I just began to wonder about the very existence of God.
On how members of his congregation have responded
Some people have been encouraging, some people have just been silently watching. Some are a little heartbroken. It's almost like people respond as though I've lost a loved one and I'm going through a deep grieving process and doing strange things as a result. Some people have just tried to talk me off the ledge.
Others have said, "I have these same questions. I'm really glad that you're doing this, and I'll be following along. Maybe I'll figure some things out along the way, too."
I'm not saying to my former members, "Follow me out the door." Nothing like that. I don't want them to do that. I want them to be on their own journey authentically.
On the reaction of the atheist community
Some people are, in a way, gloating. They're like, "Congratulations on coming to the other side" ... But other people are skeptical. There are a lot of atheists who are really not sure what I'm doing. So they say, "You are either an atheist or you're not. You can't be 'a little atheist,' like you're 'a little bit pregnant.' "
In a way, what I hear them saying is, "You're not authentically atheist" ... And my internal reaction to some of that is to say, oh, I was a Christian leader for a long time. I heard that argument on the other side, as well: "You're not properly Christian. You're not a Christian in our way of being a Christian, so you don't really fit here." And my response to that is, I'm used to not fitting places. So that's fine with me.
Future Darwin Award nominee?
i can’t do anything without God. He sustains us every second, that enables us to do whatever we want to do.
Sounds to me more like he wants to spend a year away from the Ten Commandments.
He’d better pray that God doesn’t decide to live a year without him.
A thousand years is like a single day to God.
Hey, you got in there before I did! My instant thought was, “Why, that’s perfect! It’s the ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy!”
See my post 37
"But he who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 10:22)
Could be this——’Bell was asked to leave the congregation a week ago(April 2013), not by its members, but by the governing body—the administration of the Southern California Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church—after his theological and ideological convictions were deemed inconsistent with the trajectory of the Adventists.
When asked if he saw the termination coming, Bell—an LGBT ally and marriage equality advocate...’
Former Seventh-day Adventist Pastor Ryan Bell made an unusual New Year’s resolution: to live for one year without God.
He may think he is living a year without God.
God unlike man does not abandon his children.
God will be there at all times.
Silly human being...........
Sounds like a very strange SDA-er. According to his beliefs, homosexuality is OK but non-kosher diets and worshiping on Sunday instead of Saturday are sinful? :?
In terms of ‘kosher’, Sunday worship and other such behaviors, a goodly number of Adventists believe that the relationship with Christ aspect must come first with the ‘behaviors’ then resulting from that established relationship. The relationship ‘saves’ with ‘works’ being the natural result of that relationship. As a Christian and Adventist I believe that God can and will save homosexuals, prostitutes, rapists, murderers, thieves, pedophiles, liars, gossipers, addicts, sinners of all kinds. As long as individuals have established a true, active relationship with Christ, His blood covers their sins. Within that relationship individuals no longer CONTINUOUSLY, PURPOSELY engage in their former behaviors. This minister has chosen to believe that some of the a-fore mentioned behaviors can still be willingly engaged in while in that relationship which is contrary to Christian/Adventist belief. He apparently cannot square his beliefs with that of the Christian God so God is gone...at least for a year.
Well, he was Seventh Day Adventist, so not a Christian pastor.
It’s like deciding to spend a year without gravity. It’s there whether you claim to believe in it or not.
Bookmark! Just WOW!
maybe he can find his way to a less cultish church
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