About the Author: Martin Thielen

Martin Thielen has served as a minister in the United Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. He has pastored small, medium, and large churches, including a megachurch of ten thousand members. He also worked as a national denominational editor, consultant, and adjunct seminary professor. He holds a bachelor of arts, a master of divinity, and a doctor of ministry degree, plus a year of Ph.D. studies at Vanderbilt University. Martin is the author of hundreds of articles and eight books, including the best seller, What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian? His website, Doubter’s Parish, helps thinking people navigate faith in the twenty-first century. The books, articles, stories, and posts are all free, including his new downloadable novel, An Inconvenient Loss of Faith. You can visit the site at www.DoubtersParish.Com.

  • The Self-Destructive American Church

    By Published On: July 28, 2021

    I talk to a lot of people who grapple with religious doubts. Many of them harbor doubts about traditional faith, including a personal, supernatural, providential, and interventionalist God. An even larger number of them express doubts about institutional religion.

  • Six Lessons I’ve Learned about Doubt

    By Published On: April 22, 2021

    In recent decades, tens of millions of Americans have left their churches and other places of worship, and that trend shows no sign of abating. Instead, it’s almost certain to accelerate. Although motivations for departing organized religion are numerous, doubts about God, institutional religion, and traditional beliefs lead the pack.

  • Retired pastor starts online ‘Doubter’s Parish’

    By Published On: February 18, 2021

    Retired United Methodist pastor Martin Thielen reaches out to skeptics and struggling Christians, offering help and solidarity through his website, Doubter’s Parish. Photo courtesy of the Rev. Martin Thielen.

  • A Colossal Failure of American Religion

    By Published On: January 22, 2021

    The American church has enjoyed many successes. Unfortunately, it’s also been guilty of numerous failures.

  • On Losing and Keeping Faith

    By Published On: December 16, 2020

    I became a Christian believer as a teenager in a conservative evangelical church. Since then I have lost much of my youthful faith. For example, I have lost faith in a literal Bible. It’s beyond me how people in the twenty-first century can still believe everything in the Bible should be taken literally.