Career Crisis Late in Life

[McCulloch]

A man about age sixty with a family to support. His youngest daughter just started university. He is good at his job but it does not pay well, so he has not put too much by. He works as an evangelist in a conservative, evangelical, literalist christian church. He has come to the slow realization over the years that those truths he once held to be absolute are simply not true. His problem is that he is not trained to do any other work. What does he do?

1. Quit his job and try to find some other work and hope that they can make do with welfare. Maybe his daughter will meet a nice young man with a promising career and won't need higher education.
2. Continue his job but try to represent the most liberal wing of his denomination.
3. Continue to do his job until he can retire. After all, the more converts he and his church can make, the longer he can keep his family off of welfare.

[ST88]

If he has that much experience in a "literalist" church, and has since come to the conclusion that it isn't the correct way to worship his god (assuming he is still a Christian or a theist or whatever), then he could exploit his previous experience as a literalist preacher for left-wing organizations. He could probably command a fairly nice speaking fee if he could come up with a good hook for his speeches. I'd also suggest writing a book about it.

There is also the option of teaching or preaching at a more liberal institution. His life experience would probably be prerequisite enough, especially if he had written the book first. I can't imagine that he could, in good conscience, stay with his current denomination having realized that what he thought was truth was now not truth.

Not knowing anything else about this family, I think if I were the father, I might ask the daughter to pursue student loans or a side job, and ask the wife to help contribute also with her job.