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{"id":444,"date":"2011-10-20T21:33:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T21:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/10\/the-clergy-project.html"},"modified":"2011-10-20T21:33:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T21:33:00","slug":"the-clergy-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/10\/the-clergy-project.html","title":{"rendered":"The Clergy Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

For a few months now I have been a member of an online group called The Clergy Project.<\/p>\n

This group was founded by leaders of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.\u00a0 Its originators included Daniel Dennett, Linda LaScola, Richard Dawkins, Robin Cornwell and Dan Barker.<\/p>\n

The Clergy Project is a private forum with about 100 members who are either active or former clergy and who have lost any belief in the supernatural.\u00a0 Many of them come from pretty fundamentalist backgrounds, including some who are still preaching in those kinds of churches.<\/p>\n

Most of the active clergy members need to keep their identities very private.\u00a0 As far as I can tell, there aren\u2019t any who aren\u2019t trying to get out of the clergy.\u00a0 That\u2019s a tall order, though, for people whose training and skill sets are difficult to transfer.\u00a0 Not every pastor or priest has the privilege of signing on with a humanistic version of their religion as I was fortunate enough to do.\u00a0\u00a0With the exception of joining the Unitarian Universalists, who do count theists among their members,\u00a0I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s an option for my ex-Christian friends.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing about it now because The Clergy Project has just gone quasi-public.\u00a0 We\u2019re not opening up the private forum, but there are now a website and Facebook page with public faces that explain what\u2019s happening behind the scenes while protecting the privacy of our group.<\/p>\n

ClergyProject.org<\/a> has a wealth of resources that we all hope will garner a great deal of attention to our cause.\u00a0 Our Facebook page<\/a> is also up and running.\u00a0 I think we would all like to see this become a national movement to guide non-theistic clergy out of traditional religion and into something more productive.\u00a0 Perhaps a few will even be drawn to humanistic chaplaincy, a career path that is in its infancy.\u00a0 (Okay, it\u2019s in its gestation.)<\/p>\n

Take a moment to visit the site and read the testimonials and press coverage.\u00a0 You can also leave comments on the Facebook page.\u00a0 I\u2019m encouraged to see that, as of this writing, all of the comments are quite positive.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"