Teresa MacBain, the former Methodist pastor who came out as an atheist at the American Atheist convention and now serving as the Director of the Clergy Project, was recently featured on NPR. I haven’t listened to the audio, but the article is quite good, here’s a small except:

MacBain, 44, was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. Her dad was a pastor and she felt the call of God when she was 6. She had questions, of course, about conflicts in the Bible, for example, or the role of women. She says she sometimes felt she was serving a taskmaster of a God, whose standards she never quite met.

For years, MacBain set her concerns aside. But when she became a United Methodist pastor nine years ago, she started asking sharper questions. She thought they’d make her faith stronger.

“In reality,” she says, “as I worked through them, I found that religion had so many holes in it, that I just progressed through stages where I couldn’t believe it.”

The questions haunted her: Is Jesus the only way to God? Would a loving God torment people for eternity? Is there any evidence of God at all? And one day, she crossed a line.

“I just kind of realized — I mean just a eureka moment, not an epiphany, a eureka moment — I’m an atheist,” she says. “I don’t believe. And in the moment that I uttered that word, I stumbled and choked on that word — atheist.”

But it felt right.

The line about questioning, finding holes, and being unable to believe is something I can certainly relate to and I’m sure so can many of you. She’s someone who’s been through and is still going through a lot, but she’s fortunate to have the support of the Clergy Project and a husband who supports her even though he’s a Christian. Check it out, it’s a good story. You can also find Teresa on Living After Faith and Ask An Atheist (joint recording) and of course on her blog.