to think you don't have to believe in God to be a vicar / priest

[moogstera1]

having a conversation with dh about whether priests / vicars other "professional" religious people actually all believe in God or whether some see it as a career ( Have no religious belief myself so find it hard to fathom ).
Anyway, got onto my asking whether if you lost your faith when you were a priest, but were otherwise very proficient at the giving services, being nice to people etc. you would still be allowed to keep your job, or would the church sack you.
Also, would they legally be allowed to as it seems to cry out to me that it would be religious discrimination directly leading to being sacked.
Dh now refusing to engage in the convo as he says it's too mad to contemplate that any vicars / priests don't believe in God, let alone that they wouldn't be told to give up their job if they were to "come clean" that they didn't believe in it all anymore.

nightlurker I assume that pastors in your faith have a much lower time commitment than a vicar? I am not suggesting that this is a bad thing, in fact it might be much healthier all round, but it sounds like a very different model.

NB On the housing side, my sister had a pretty standard council house (which the family lost when she became too ill to work) newer parishes don't have the vicarages of old, and many parishes have sold their vicarages. Sometimes because they were expensive to keep up, but more often because where in the past a vicar might have one, perhaps two parishes now it's not unusual to have six or seven (the overall congregation might be smaller though).