“Hello, I’m Jerry and I’m an atheist.” Nothing unusual about that, you might think – other than the fact that when Jerry drifted from Christianity to disbelieving in hell to universalism to God is our inner dialogue, to atheism, he was a Pentecostal minister.

Since he wasn’t an Anglican minister, this presented Jerry with a bit of a dilemma which, on hearing of his new-found lack of faith, his congregation helped him resolve by firing him.

From there, he fell into the welcoming arms of The Clergy Project, a “confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs”: TCP, the spiritual formulation, guaranteed to disinfect the bacteria of Faith, Hope and Charity from contaminated souls.

Having come out, Jerry has been photographed with Richard Dawkins and become executive director of Recovering from Religion; that’s about as transcendent as it gets for an atheist.

A brief perusal of this clip will confirm that, although Jerry has abandoned Pentecostalism, it hasn’t entirely abandoned him: his intonation, gestures and stagecraft are all standard Pentecostal minister fare. I was expecting a “preach it, brother” from the audience; Jerry needs to attend a few more Reason Rallies to purge the remnants of what used to intoxicate him from his system.

From here:

In the span of just a few months, Jerry DeWitt went from a respected pastor with a vibrant congregation to an atheist without a job.

DeWitt, 42, is the first “graduate” of The Clergy Project, a program supported by several atheist organizations that assists pastors who have lost their faith to “come out” as atheists to family, friends, congregations and communities.

DeWitt, who lives in Southern Louisiana, went public last October when he posted a picture of himself with the prominent and polarizing atheist Richard Dawkins, snapped at a meeting of atheists and other “freethinkers” in Houston.