“My whole world was ripped out from me,” wails a former Assemblies of God minister. This is a telltale line from “The Unbelieving,” a drama that, according to the playbill from its 2022 premiere staging in New York City, “takes a penetrating look into the lives of practicing clergy members…who have stopped believing in God.” It was inspired by interviews with clerics conducted for the book, Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind.
“The play is drawn almost entirely verbatim from Linda’s [LaScola] astonishing interviews with these brave, lonely, good folks,” the late Daniel Dennett has explained—she was the qualitative researcher, and he the writer of the book. It was Emmy-winning stage and screen writer Marin Gazzaniga who crafted the play from thousands of pages of transcript, Religion Unplugged reports. (This “Featured Book” is actually her script for the play, the dialogue.)
As Religion Unplugged has it, “the stories of these clergy are real, as are the emotional and material struggles they face.” Certainly, Gazzaniga felt for them: by “coming out,” so to speak, “They’re losing their family, friends, community, job.” “It is refreshing to see free thought so honestly and powerfully portrayed on the stage,” freethoughttoday.com warrants.
“The Unbelieving”
By Marin Gazzaniga
Theatrical Rights Worldwide, 2024
