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.
Maybe it’s just not as disappointing when atheists do it, because you don’t expect them to adhere to any moral standards besides whatever they feel like on that particular day.
In looking at their pictures, quite the faces of a couple of shysters. They’ll be taking a group for some $.
They’re emergent, liberal, sqishy, etc etc.
I suspect this is because his theology was wrapped up in the "Expect a Miracle" crowd that thinks the only thing that prevents miracles from happening is a lack of faith.
Look at the Book of Acts and the number of misfortunes that befell them. Was it because they didn't believe hard enough?
Sometimes misfortunes happen to godly people and God allows it because it enhances our "street cred" with others who suffer, furthers our empathy and forces a deeper reliance on the character of Jesus and not some superficial ATM version of Jesus.
Jesus promises "I will never leave you nor forsake you." He doesn't promise a bed of roses. In fact, the lives of many Christians are just the opposite and it is often to wring the self-reliance out of us.
To sum up: “My faith in God was shaken by the actions of humans. So, I decided to place my faith in humans.” And, THEY are supposed to be the rational thinkers?
..throw in Saddleback while you are at it...
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.
How "American people" so often behave?
How about just "people"?
What he wants to believe doesn’t change truth.
His faith was obviously shallow from the start.
Which is precisely what he has done. People let him down, not God, but he has turned his back on God and placed his faith in humanity. His own words.
Jesus told us we would have trouble in this world. We were never promised a world where innocent babies are never stillborn, or born completely normal. Good, faithful people are not being punished with a tragedy, nor is anyone exempt from such a tragedy. My family has personally lost eight babies to miscarriage or premature birth.
As for the man who beats his wife, he should have been disciplined and then educated by the church. And if that didn’t work, put out of the church. The failure is his, not God’s.
He has never believed in God or been a follower of Christ. He has always believed he is personally the fulfillment of truth. He believes God is to be judged by the lives of those who follow Him. Willow Creek taught him this apostasy. He has not strayed from it.
Well put.
/// “It would be easy to lose faith in God if it were based on faith in people.” ///
The bar to being a Christian is very low: acknowledgement that indeed you are a sinner, is part of it. The Church is composed of sinners, albeit sinners who are striving for better.
Neither I, nor any other Christians, are surprised when members go astray, sometimes in big ways. Disappointed, for sure, but never surprised.
What is it known as when someone’s actions are constantly a reaction to someone else’s actions? ... The
‘pastor’ lacked the first principle in faith: God IS.
“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.”
Then clearly your “theology” was a heresy and not based in any way on the true theology. “Feel Good/God Wants Me Happy” “theology” has nothing to do with true theology.
If you lost your “faith” because you witnessed bad things happening to good people, or “good” people doing bad things, then you don’t understand true Christian faith at all.
Except it’s equally disappointing because it’s the same thing doing it in either case.
Well, the baby did live.
A common ailment amongst clergy and Christians is the belief, drive to fix all problems, fix all people. Fix ugly situations. Peace is accepting the exercise of free will in others. In other words, in the world we are placed in you must embrace the suck. This temporal existence is short and full of uncontrollable situations. Faith is understanding you have no power or control over any circumstance. You only control yourself.
This pastor and that staff member were married to the same wife? How does that work?
Yes, he's placed his faith in humanity. Good luck with that!
This comment of his is telling:
"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.
If a person is truly trying to improve and to live as a good person, he's going to have to look directly at his imperfections and that's a hard thing to do. It would be much easier to accept one's imperfections as inevitable in order to have "inner peace" than to work at correcting them.
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