CNN’s Dan Merica has a great profile of Jerry DeWitt, a graduate of The Clergy Project and the executive director of Recovering from Religion. DeWitt is now helping other pastors break free from faith:

During his speeches, he talks about the process of leaving his preacher job. “If you don’t believe, then you will be like me — you’ll suddenly find yourself where you only have two choices,” DeWitt told a group in Johnson County, Kansas, earlier this year.

“You can either be honest that you don’t believe … or you can pretend that you do,” he said. “Which is what so many people are doing and that is called faith.”

…

When DeWitt runs into people he used to preach to, he still averts his eyes. Going to the post office and to Walmart, he said, can be stressful because of the possibility of running into a former congregant.

“It is because places in which you were once admired now you are suddenly scorned or pitied,” DeWitt said, who admits not having many friends anymore. “It makes for an extremely uncomfortable life.”