(RNS) This Easter, Teresa MacBain will mark an anniversary that’s uncommon for an ordained minister — her first year as an atheist.
Teresa MacBain of Tallahassee, Fla. was a Methodist pastor for 10 years, in March of 2012 she spoke at the American Atheist convention and announced she no longer believed in God. MacBain left her position as senior pastor at Lake Jackson United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, a post she held for 3.5 years, prior to speaking at the conference. Photograph taken in Tallahassee, FLa. on April 19, 2012. RNS photo by Colin Hackley Photo
This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.
Last March, MacBain, now 45, stood at a podium before hundreds of people in a Maryland hotel ballroom at the national convention of American Atheists and told them that, after a lifetime as a Christian and 15 years as a pulpit pastor, she had lost her faith.
- From the RNS archives: For clergy, lost faith can lead to lost jobs, family
Her coming out was national news, and she expected it would cost her her position as pastor of a United Methodist church, and she expected she might lose some friends and family members. In the last year, she has lost all those things.
But there have been gains, too, including a new career, the embrace of a new community that she had been taught to distrust and a newfound sense of confidence.
This week, on the day the old Teresa MacBain would have marked as Good Friday, she will return to the American Atheists convention, in Austin, Texas, to deliver a talk she describes as “a road map of the last 12 months.”
If there are any pastors there who find themselves perched on the edge of going public with their own loss of faith as she did, she will have some advice to give them.
“Go for it, but be prepared,” MacBain said from her home in Tallahassee, Fla. “They should be prepared for unexpected love and acceptance from the freethought community and they should be prepared for the worst from friends and family and people you would have never imagined.
“They need to have their mind ready ahead of time to look for the small pieces of joy and the small victories and hold on to them because that is what will get them through.”
There have been many such small joys and victories in the last year, MacBain said. Chief among them is the acceptance she found in the local freethought community — atheists, humanists and other nonbelievers — after her former church fired her and locked her out of the building.
“The freethought community just wrapped its arms around us,” she said. “Not just me, but my whole family.”
That includes her two adult sons and her husband, who is still a Christian and stood by MacBain through her change of heart. He has become a regular at weekly freethought meetings where she said his beliefs are respected.
There has been a broader acceptance, too. Not long after coming out, MacBain was hired by American Atheists as communications director — a job she loved, but had to give up when her husband couldn’t find a job near the group’s headquarters in New Jersey. MacBain returned to Tallahassee earlier this year and is now the executive director of the Humanists of Florida Association, which has about 500 members.
While she no longer believes in the divinity of Jesus, she has not lost faith in what she calls “the philosophy of Christ.” Leaving religion does not mean she has left morality, she said. She still adheres to the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule and other moral teachings common to many world religions.
And she has found a new way to use her pastoral skills in the phone calls and emails she receives from people who have also lost their faith but are afraid to openly acknowledge it. “They say, ‘I heard your story and I am in a rough spot and I don’t know what to do.’ I am really happy that I am able to help them. That is part of the reason I became a pastor.”
Catherine Dunphy is the executive director of The Clergy Project, a support network for pastors who are questioning or have lost their faith and may be looking to transition out of a religious environment. She called MacBain a successful example to the project’s 425 members.
“It is a big upheaval,” Dunphy said. “She had to make a space for herself. It is not just a change of career, it is a change of lifestyle and there is grieving that goes hand in hand with it.”
MacBain knows that all too well. For almost every gain, there has been a loss. The biggest, for her, has been the many friendships she lost, some decades long.
“I don’t think anybody is ever prepared for that,” she said. “It is something I still deal with. When you care for somebody, the caring doesn’t go away because they have removed themselves from your life. That does not happen. Those have been very hard things for me.”
Another low: the emails, messages and phone calls from people who wish her harm. Anonymous people have threatened her with violence and rape.
“I had to shut down one of my email accounts because I could not stand to open it anymore,” she said. “I was a mess.”
And when she lost her faith, she also lost the tools with which she managed her life.
“For me, religion was everything, my entire world,” she said. “All my friendships, connections, family, all the places I went to deal with difficulties, to do good works, to find resources to raise kids — everything was contained within that environment. I miss that social connectivity, that network.”
Now, she said, she is reassembling that sense of connectivity in the freethought community. She travels to speak to atheist, humanist and other nontheistic groups nationwide, sharing her story.
“In the past, everything I accomplished I felt was a gift from God,” she said. “But I have learned that those things are actually who I am and skills I have, not something that has been mystically appointed to me.”
And that, she said, is something she does not expect to lose.
32 Comments
William Newman
I can only imagine how difficult it is for preachers like Teresa MacBain and Jerry DeWitt to publicly acknowledge their Atheism knowing that their social, career and family lives will be forever changed. It’s difficult enough for anyone to cope when they are going through something like a family change, or a job change, but to come out knowing that your admission will affect every part of your life and, at the same time, isolate you from the very people you’ve relied on for support during life changing events requires unimaginable courage.
Teresa and Jerry, and all the others that I don’t yet know but who are going through the same things, I salute you! Your courage serves as an example to all of us and I am humbled to be in your presence. I wish you all the best… Human Speed my friends.
Sam magee
No surprises there. Today the devil is busier than ever, blinding the eyes of them that believe not, lest the light of the Glorious Gospel should shine into there hearts. For Gos so loved the world, that He gave His ONLY begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believeth in Him, should NOT perish, BUT HAVE everlasting life. John chapter3verse 16
luke
Oh my god, get a grip. Do yourself a favour and read some Richard Dawkins.
eeenok
or, in the view of people who don’t agree with you, no surprises that rational thought is busier than ever now that people have the resources to work out these things for themselves. get a grip indeed: i wouldn’t expect dawkins to change your mind, but you need to understand that frothing at the mouth and ASSERTING that what you believe is true doesn’t amount to an argument, and is only of interest to small children
Jim
These people really can’t stand those who refuse to believe their particular version of the world’s most read, and most amended fairy-tale.
Francisco Magana
2/10 for getting me to read your comment.
cipher
Trying very hard to convince yourself, aren’t you?
CthuluCarl
Who the hell is Gos?… Is that like Crom? “He is strong on his mountain!”
Michael
And why wouldn’t she lose her job and have to give up her keys? This story makes it sound as if those church people were just sooo mean. Well ya kinda have to, you know, actually BELIEVE to be a Christian pastor.
Tim
Michael-” This story makes it sound as if those church people were just sooo mean.” The story didn’t tell that nearly 100% of her congregation and friends completely shunned her, and even say hateful things about her because she changed opinions on one issue. Contrary to the what is advertised to the world, Christian love is so conditional. If you are “In” you are good. If you a potential convert, you are good. If you ever decide to leave the faith, expect to recieve wrath only exceeded by Islam.
FreddieB
The God of the Bible would say they weren’t mean enough:
Kill all non-believers in your town
– Deuteronomy, 17:2
eeenok
you make it sound as if pastors only have themselves to blame when they find themselves trapped with no employment skills other than a job they no longer believe in. the fact is that they get themselves into these positions “in good faith” based on the adamant (if not screeching) assurances by their churches that the evidence of all these things is absolutely proved and sorted out “trust us”. but the story we get over and over is that these people have done far more study into the matter than the typical carping internet commenter, and discovered too late that those assurances were completely empty. realizing in advance that you will hotly deny this viewpoint, having read all the chic tracts and being utterly expert in all the proofs of bible inerrancy, but you need to reed some of ehrman’s books and honestly ask yourself then whether he is not more studied in these matters than you
Devin
Remaining at her Church would be the equivalent of having a PETA activist employed by a slaughterhouse, it’s just not going to work out well.
eeenok
i very much doubt she adheres to the ten commandments
ThinkingApostate
Which set? There’s two.
Tom
#1 is pretty tough for an athiest. Shrug.
Jaeger
I very much doubt that T. Mac Bain still follows the Ten Commandments.
Lets not forget that the first 4 commandments (depending on the denommination it can be also the first 3) cater to the ego of Jahweh (whom she doesn’t believe to exists). the 4th is honoring the parents so she can live in the land… since she doesn’t live in the land (Israel) that is kinda moot anyway.
Not killing, stealing, or lying is covered by the golden rule.
And since she obviously is still married to her husband she is loyal to him. I suspect she doesn’t care for other peoples cattle or donkeys. So that would make one out of ten. Nope I don’t think she needs the 10 commandments, to live a life as a person that respects and is kind to others.
Mike in Wisconsin
Very interesting story! It’s also interesting that MaBain’s critics seem so threatened by her views. Perhaps this exposes how little they actually believe what they say they believe. Religious terms are vague; everyone seems to mean different things by them and the story doesn’t say exactly what MacBain means by God, atheism, etc. MacBain may have lost her beliefs, but she would have to have incredible faith in life to give up her career and support systems no matter how illusory they might ultimately be. The Clergy Project, the Nones, the Spiritual but Not Religious, the Emergent Church, etc., all seem to be part of a new axial age and the wide spread re-thinking of “the big questions” going on in our society today. It’s an exciting time.
Secular Coalition’s Morning Read for Wednesday March 27 | Secular News Daily
[...] A year after losing faith, atheist pastor finds a new calling This Easter, Teresa MacBain will mark an anniversary that’s uncommon for an ordained minister — her first year as an atheist. [...]
Leslie Palma
Christian-bashing at Easter — there’s news!
Kaitlyn Richardson
I can’t imagine a more spoiled, privileged remark than the one you just made. I hope you have the chance to actually experience “bashing” one day. Maybe then you’ll understand that it’s not the same thing as people being different from you.
Gea
This former Methodist has not lost her belief in God, just because she lost her belief in “divinity of Jesus”. Atheists do not believe in God ruling the world, but many of them follow the Noahide laws that have to do with the ethics that are in Tora. Jews also do not believe that the Jewish revolutionary Jesus was more divine than any other great Jewish man (such as Moses), but that does not make all Jews into atheists, although some Jews are, just as Communists were supposed to be, but had now turned Christians since Communism died.
Muslims do not believe in a divinity of Jesus either, but are not atheists, since they believe in a murderous God Allah, who uses Muslims to kill those who are not followers of Mohamed, their prophet who was a pedophile, polygamist, rapist, looter and murderer, who do not follow Decalogue….
A-theism by definition is “absence of belief in God as a prime mover” of the universe and and nothing to do with what we believe about Jesus, who was a good Jewish guy, preaching to Jews and never claimed divinity in his sermon. on the Mount. This former Methodist is NOT an atheist, but a good person who follows the preachings of Jesus, who still believes in Divine…
luke
‘This Easter, Teresa MacBain will mark an anniversary that’s uncommon for an ordained minister — her first year as an atheist.’
- the first sentence of the article. Pretty sure she’s an atheist.
Kaitlyn Richardson
Nowhere in the article did it say that she believes in God. Furthermore, the first sentence of the article says that she is an atheist.
Teresa MacBain, a Pastor-Turned-Atheist, Celebrates Her One Year ‘Coming Out’ Anniversary
[...] Winston at Religion News Service caught up with her to see what her life has been like over the past [...]
Roedy Green
The ten commandments are a joke. check out
http://mindprod.com/kjv/Exodus/34.html
According to that chapter most important rules are:
1. not making images or statues
2. picking one particular god over others
3. don’t put yeast in your bread
4. you must perform animal sacrifices
5. don’t cook goat meat in milk
6. You must hold gatherings
No Christian pays any attention to this nonsense. Instead their prime rules are.
1. make life as miserable for gays as possible.
2. be as nasty and cruel as you can to unwed mothers.
3. treat women as second class citizens
4. have as many babies as possible and force others to, even by rape if necessary.
5. bully children into accepting Christian superstition.
Gea
Go back to Bible and read Decalogue…10 commandments are not about animal sacrifized but about ethical behaviors: Do not worship other gods (such as money or other such Gods), Honor your parents, do not steal, do not commit adultery, observe a day of rest from work (and shopping), do not kill, do not covet what somebody else has.
Naturally in our market society, we violate the First Commandment and worship money as a god, and we violate 10th commandment by coveting what other have and buy stuff because we covet. Making people covet what others have is a main principle of marketing in a free market economy…People buy what they do not need and they worship Mammon, the god of money.,
Being a staunch atheist is a religion in itself, because it does not allow for any uncertainty that there may be a divine principle. I know somebody who hates all religions people and thinks that he is the only one who KNOWS what is true
!
M.A. Moreno
“I’ve decided that everything we believe in is complete and utter nonsense, so I’m going to invest my trust in my own righteous self rather than in the mystical crutch that all of you still pathetically rely upon. Wait, why are you firing me and having nothing to do with me? Don’t you still want me as your leader? How can you be so intolerant of my spitting upon your faith?”
Ralph
I don’t understand why atheists, as seen from these posts, are so anti-Christian. Their materialistic view cannot inform any morals. Why would it be important for that clump of cells and chemical reactions that ahteists consider their mind to believe in a material truth or a myth? Why would it matter if they are even “oppressed” (whatever “they” mean)? After all, they will all face utter anihilation and oblivion at death, and nothing that they do, or their mere existence, will have any meaning or purpose. Let us Christians, who believe in immortality, souls, and realities outside the scientific method live as we wish. After all, atheists, “you” don’t exist, you are a just an accidental chemical reaction of the same value as water mixing with sodium.
luke
I can’t speak for all atheists, but I am personally anti-christian, because the things they believe in are old-fashioned, impossible (resurrection, miracles) and ridiculous. Morals are ingrained within us – we know right from wrong and we don’t need a 2000 year old book to tell us what’s right. We know that we will face “utter annihilation and oblivion” (whatever that means lol) at death, and we’re ok with that, because that’s what death is. To quote Scroobius Pip, “Death’s what makes life worth living, so stop crying”. Pretending that you’ll live forever is a childish fairy-tale, that no-one in this day and age need believe.
Oh and the child raping priests and the cover up by the vastly rich catholic church doesn’t help either.
Debbie King
I would just like to communicate with people who have chosen to leave behind the ideology of religion….Christianity…just a homemaker that was a true believer for 48 years…and over the past 14 years has come to the realization…it was all for naught……I still am not sure what i believe..which this is the hard part..when you have believed for 48 years in something then it is gone….you are just curious as to who else thinks similar to you.I am still sorting things out….
interested-reader
Wow, the comments about this article have been intersting if nothing else.
I am a Christian, about to complete my first year in seminary. I believe in the divinity of Jesus and believe that God is the creator. That said, I have come to recognize that regardless of my belief, I need to respect the beliefs (and non-beliefs) of others. I don’t have to agree, but I should respect that we all have our own opinions. In the end, we are either going to be judged by God when we die OR we will just die and that’s the end.
I don’t know, but I believe in the former.
I understand how Christians could and have lost their faith, especially when we read about folks who profess to be Christians doing the very same sinful things as those who are unsaved. Everyone’s faith (it seems to me) has a foundation of love and repsect for one another and perhaps if everyone followed those two priciples, our world as a whole would be a much better place.
I don’t know, but as I stated earlier, the conversations have been interesting!
Blessings.