Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
-Matthew 7:15
Sometimes priests, pastors, and ministers don’t believe in God. Or they might believe in God, but not believe Jesus is God. Maybe they think the “real miracle” of the Resurrection was that Jesus’s moral teachings survived. Or the “real miracle” of the fishes and loaves was sharing.
If you’re a Christian, this seems very bad. How are you going to spread the Good News when the guy in charge of your flock isn’t on board? And when you attend a funeral, you probably want the minister to preach about the hope of resurrection rather than being reminded you can “keep someone alive” in your heart.
Even if you’re not Christian, I think non-believing ministers are off-putting. It’s tacky at best, and damnable at worst, to run around LARPing as a believer to make an income that’s less than the median household income.
How widespread is this problem? It’s hard to know for sure and almost certainly varies substantially across country and religious tradition. But a 2014 survey of priests in the Church of England found that almost a fifth were atheist or agnostic.
How can an employer- the church- encourage employees – ministers- to quit if they’re not fully committed to their mission? One approach used by some businesses is to offer quitting bonuses- literally give people a bonus if they agree to quit. The idea is that it will encourage the less committed workers to walk away. Both Zappos and Amazon have used this technique.
I don’t know of any examples of individual congregations or denomination trying to buy out non-believing ministers but some atheists have. A group of atheists, including Richard Dawkins, felt so bad about atheists who kept working as ministers because they didn’t know how else to make a living, that they formed the “Clergy Project,” a non-profit that encourages apostate pastors to quit! Sounds like a good idea from every perspective! The Clergy Project offers an online forum, free counseling, and most intriguingly “transition assistance grants” where they provide free resume workshops and career placement services to ministers who are committed to seeking secular employment.
Rather than be offended by the motives of the Clergy Project and its atheist agenda, I think churches should emulate their program.
Can churches afford to buy orthodoxy?
The median US church has 65 attendees on any given Sunday. Since not every church member attends every week, the total size of the congregation is somewhat larger- maybe around 100 people? Paying disbelieving pastors to quit will save those church-goers from an apostate in the pulpit. And not just them, it spares new members who would join in future years and potentially members of another congregation if the make-believe minister switched positions.
If you convince atheist ministers year to quit, how many years of this are church-goers spared? The median age of a Protestant pastor is 57 years old. If we assume that pastors retire at 65, 8 years isn’t a bad guess. But maybe non-believing ministers are more likely to quit already or retire early than believing ministers- maybe you have to be a true believer to spend an entire career as a pastor? But sticking with 8 years of a career left and a typical congregation size, convincing one non-believing minister to quit prevents 800 congregant-years of being led by an apostate!
The cost of the “transitional assistance grant” offered by the Clergy Project is $2,200 per minister. If a grant of this size can get a non-believing minister to quit, it’s possible to prevent one congregant-year of being led by an apostate for only $2.75. Even much more generous quitting bonuses look attractive when broken down by congregant-year. If churches offered a quitting bonus of $25,000 (half the average pastor salary), they could prevent one congregant-year of being led by an apostate for only $31.25!
Some believing ministers might want to quit as well- but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it would lead to pastors being more committed to their role in function. But it would lower the cost effectiveness of the program. For this reason, I think the Clergy Project approach of funding career placement services rather than a straightforward cash bonus seems attractive. It also avoids looking like a church is literally paying people to apostatize- reverse simony, if you will.
For more centralized denominations where a central body regulates clergy compensation, congregations could be required to pay exit bonuses to weed out uncommitted ministers. For less centralized denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, there could still be a pooled fund that pays pastors to quit!
Churches shouldn’t be led by apostates. For the cost of one cup of coffee, you can make that less likely.
That’s a very interesting thought. I like the outside the box stuff