Surprisingly, it wasn't atheists or liberals or (horrors!) the new Rob Bell book, but a couple of Christian fundamentalists that made me question how much they (and I) have right about spirituality. As they were talking to me, they showed a lot of paranoia, closed-mindedness, and an exclusionary mindset that made me realize how ignorant they were about themselves, human nature, and the world in general.
If I agree with most of their doctrine...and if I was taught most of my doctrine by fundamentalists...how much of it can I really trust when it comes from such shallow, fear-filled brains? If Christianity WORKS, really works, then why is the church filled with more self-righteousness, scandal, and a focus on looking good than with love, compassion, trust, and openness.
Maybe that's a dumb reason to start questioning Christian tenants that usually make sense, but I started ruminating on specific issues and it all spiraled out of control. When I get to the passages in the Bible that touch on the issues, I'll let you know. I guess one good thing about this blog is it's a spiritual barometer for me. When I'm not feeling close to God, I don't even want to touch it. I've gotten to the point where I want to study/talk about the Bible again. So, onward. Back to Job soon. For now, check out this quote. It pretty much nails where I've landed:
For many people in our world, the opposite of faith is doubt. The goal, then, within this understanding is to eliminate doubt. But faith and doubt aren’t opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it’s alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt…are excellent dance partners….
Fundamentalism shouldn’t surprise us. When a leader comes along who eliminates the tension and dodges the paradox and neatly and precisely explains who the enemies are and gives black-and-white answers to questions, leaving little room for the very real mystery of the divine, it should not surprise us when that person gains a large audience.
Especially when that person is really, really confident.
Certainty is easier, faster, awesome for fundraising, and it often generates large amounts of energy because who doesn’t want to be right?…Two people can believe the same thing but hold that belief in very different ways.
You can believe something with so much conviction that you’d die for that belief, and yet in the exact same moment you can also say, “I could be wrong.”
This is because conviction and humility, like faith and doubt, are not opposites; they’re dance partners. It’s possible to hold your faith with open ands, living with great conviction and yet at the same time humbly admitting that your knowledge and perspective will always be limited.
Do you believe the exact same things you did in the exact same way you did five years ago? Probably not. You’ve grown, evolved, changed, had new experiences, studied, listened, observed, suffered, reflected, and reexamined. That’s how faith is. We learn as we go.
#fundies gonna fundie
In particularly good timing, todays entry from a book I'm reading was about doubt (Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner). Some excerpts:
ReplyDelete"Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.
...When our faith is strongest, we believe with our hearts as well as with our heads, but only at a few rare moments, I think, do we feel in our stomachs what it must be like to be engulfed by light."
I might have a bit more to say later more specifically about the post, when I've got the time to piece together some particular thoughts.
Thanks! I guess I was raised with the attitude that if you questioned, doubted, or entertained thoughts and perspectives outside of what you were taught, you were opening yourself up to becoming more liberal or exposing yourself to corrupting influences. But you've got to, in the end. It's nice to know more Christians are open to accepting doubt.
DeleteI love how much you read.
I meant to get back sooner, but I've been busier than usual, and as I've thought about the topic other blogs or books or quotes I've happened across during the week kept adding more things to think about, causing this reply to spiral out of control. I think doubt can indeed be a good thing, in the right way and measure. It's kept me thinking, kept me searching for a greater understanding of what I believe in, with recent examples ranging from the nature of heaven and the resurrection, to the saying love the sinner, hate the sin.
DeleteHowever it can also be hard at times, especially when dealing with beliefs you've held since childhood, my initial instinct is often to flat out reject some (at least seemingly) contradictory ideas on the basis that I 'know' the truth. Yet doubt, or at least the willingness to allow room to be wrong has been greatly helpful, allowing me to question exactly what it is I believe and why I believe it. The outcome may not always leave me very far from where I started, I may still believe what I had been initially taught but through the process my understanding and appreciation of whatever it is may have grown. Or I may find that I don't know what exactly to believe, maybe tending towards what I initially believed but willing to explore the issue in an ongoing manner, able to see the other side and why others may believe so, leaving me in a better position to relate to them rather than just knowing the 'truth' and not understanding why they just can't see it.
Not to say that any of this is easy or that it comes naturally to me, but I have been helped along the way and have been willing to put in some effort. There are a couple Christian sites I read largely because they have differing views, or just have perspectives that I haven't come across before, and as we both have a common basis of grounding our beliefs in scripture I'm often willing to entertain their ideas or their book recommendations when my first instinct is just to write them off. And I didn't even think of it until I was reminded today from one site, but it helps that Luther and others struggled immensely with doubt and that the Lutheran tradition "recognises the fact of human limitations and the impossibility of certainty in dealing with a God beyond comprehension and a life filled with imponderables". That may not always play out in day to day life, or amongst everyone from my church, many perspectives around me sound similar to yours, but I'm grateful for everything that keeps me from arrogantly assuming I know the truth and treating others accordingly, but rather to seek after the living truth, the truth that would rather draw people together in love and compassion.
And yes, I love that I'm always reading, though there was a period over summer where I barely read anything, which is highly unusual for me. I finally got around to reading The Brothers Karamazov (highly enjoyed, wish that it would have been possible for Dostoevsky to write his planned sequel). Other enjoyable reads recently have been In the Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, Iscariot by Tosca Lee, and Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays vs Christians Debate by Justin Lee.
Thanks for coming back to comment. That was good. My personality tends to want to question, but then I reach a point where I'm like, "Go back! Go back! You teetered too far off the building!" And you really can't get something OUT of your head. You have to keep going until you have that something conquered or argued with, if that makes any sense.
DeleteLoved The Brothers Karamazov. In fact, it might be my favorite book. The Grand Inquisitor chapter alone is fantastic, and I tell people to read that if they don't feel like they can finish the whole thing.
I came across another post today that kept me thinking about this topic, and my continuing thoughts are that doubt is like most other things it can be used for good, but it matters when, why and how we go about it, and it's going to be different for different people in different situations.
DeleteMuch of the following isn't my wording, just what particularly stood out to me, from both the article and the responses (http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/40240), and there are good points from both views of 'having faith' and 'being certain':
Questioning helps us from surrendering our faith into the hands of someone who could misuse it. We can often latch on to the conclusions of others without true understanding. Asking questions is legitimate and needed in a Christian walk.
Out of our certainty the language we use can often shut down conversation, or dismiss the opposition. Engaging with concepts we don't agree with instead of digging in can allow us to change our perspective, or aid us in trying to understand one another. If we don't have doubts, and are certain of everything, then why would we need faith? Entertaining doubts helps us be open to mystery, and keeps us open to learning and growing. “Test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thess 5:21). The certainty and the faith of the Pharisees showed that they had no doubts over what they thought they knew of Jesus.
However there is still room to see faith and doubt in opposition. While Jesus didn't compliment Thomas for his doubting, he still met him where he was at. It is right in many cases to conclude that something is true, and if it is true we must then conduct ourselves according to that truth. Doubting and questioning in this case allows us to resist these truths and the change of heart and behaviour they deserve. We should take a stand for the truth that is clear to us, even as we pray for further understanding. It is good at times to ask tough questions, but we can also learn from those who simply believe.
I'll finish off with a bit more from Frederick Buechner (I've got a bit of an author crush on him at the moment). He makes the distinction between two different kinds of doubt, "one of the head and the other of the stomach. In my head there is almost nothing I can't doubt when the fit is upon me - the divinity of Christ, the efficacy of the sacraments, the significance of the church, the existence of God. But even when I am at my most skeptical, I go on with my life as though nothing untoward has happened", with none of these head doubts shaking his deeper, unshakable belief. Though my impression wasn't that it wasn't these types of doubts in question he does go on to commend those 'saints' who do deal with these 'stomach doubts', acknowledging that most of us are incapable of doubting (or maybe believing) in this way.
Thanks for the article.
DeleteAnd it's true. Sometimes when someone answers too quickly and decisively, it shuts down conversation. I think these were the stomach doubts, since I had so much trouble putting them into rational words, haha
Sorry I haven't checked in until now; I had a massive stomach virus/flu that had me on the shelf all week. Sorry to hear about lillard; tough losing something you love, but you did the best thing by getting two new creatures :).
ReplyDeleteA person we both know, and shall remain nameless, once saw Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" in my book collection. He was a Roman Emperor who believed in the philosophy of Stoicism. This person looked at it skeptically, and said, "Everything I need to know is in the Bible."
While I don't agree with everything in "Meditations" I have found many of Aurelius's observations and commentaries enlightening, and not at all divergent from what I believe as a Christian. Therefore, I find fundamentalists to be their own worst enemy. People who become so beholden in their "correctness" to the exclusion of all other beliefs and interpretations pave the way for some of the worst evils in history: the Holocaust being a perfect example.
Put another way, being a Christian isn't about being a member of an elite country club; it's about being in a big tent where everyone is judged equally. Are there certain things that I am 100% sure of, yes. But I am not about to condemn others who have different viewpoints, and find often those differing viewpoints to be invaluable in strengthening my faith.
Thank you. I did love my Lillard. These new ones are crazypants, but they'll do, haha. When I get home, they want to play/chew on me/get love for 30 minutes, and then they just CRASH, haha.
DeleteThat "person we both know" could be seven people, so I won't even try to guess, haha. It's very much....the culture of...them. But I think it's good for kids. It gives them a foundation and security. I'm glad I was raised in it.
Definitely agree. I always tell people, "Everything in the Bible is true, but not all truth is found in the Bible."
In a recent interview, from the Pope: "in this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation."
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