The Role of Doubters (June 2012)

       

Is Doubting Okay...?

No doubt (pun intended) people have come across this dilemma when approaching the Church of Jesus Christ. How many have walked into a local church with honest questions from a place of pain, confusion, or just curiosity and found not a haven for rest and earnest seeking but something more akin to the Spanish Inquisition? 

"Why don't you believe? Don't you know what's on the line? If you're not willing to believe what the Bible says first, then what makes you think I can help you? Do you know without Jesus you're condemned to hell?" 

I shudder to think of it. We might sooner find how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop. The message non-followers of Jesus get from arguably well-meaning Christians is that the Church is not a place for doubting. One article asks if "the church welcomes dialogue in the first place," and we would do well to ask this of ourselves. We think of James 1:6-8 - But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. - as a scathing rebuke to all who are unsure. But where does the end of doubting come from, if not at the intersection of faith and doubt (Mark 9:17-24)?

Whether it's the disciple of Jesus named Thomas who became known not for his willingness to die with Jesus (Jn. 11:16) but for his reserved nature toward news of Jesus' resurrection, or a youth named Samuel, class of 2012, who is ostracized in his local church congregation because he doesn't automatically believe everything the Bible says, carte blanche, we know that doubt can have far reaching effects on a person, and on a congregation. It's happened far before the life of Thomas and it'll continue to happen far after Samuel. 

The point is this: doubt isn't going away. And it's not so easy to sweep it under the rug by always throwing a scripture passage at it, or the person who confesses her own. We must be willing to acknowledge what these behaviors do to those who do not understand what we believe (or why) and - on top of this - meet our animosity. Consider the following points as a place to start in practicing compassion for those with doubts:

1. Remember your own questions on faith and God :: A great deterrent from judging another's difficulties in the faith is remembering your own. Far from being a blight on an otherwise righteous record, your journeys through doubt and emerging on the other side stand as a testimony to God's goodness and the process of growth in the faith (i.e. sanctification). 
2. Give others the benefit of a doubt :: Everyone has a story that got them to where they are. Care enough about others to dig deeper, invest in their lives, and find out where their questions are coming from: are they efforts to dismantle your faith or make some sense out of their own life? If we're not willing to hear the story and join with them in solidarity, we have no right to question the heart behind their questions.
3. Separate their doubts from your reactions to their doubt :: We can tend to make another's questions about faith/life/God/etc. more about us if we are uncomfortable with doubt. When someone we're close to has doubts this can raise doubts of our own, which feels like an attack on our beliefs. Being defensive, unfortunately, clouds the problematic issue that caused the doubt in the first place and replaces it with interpersonal conflict.
4. Doubt does not have to equal rejection of our faith :: We must resist the tendency to equate our questions and struggles with turning our back on God. Mustard seeds of faith is all God requires to give increase, and only God can distinguish what in us is faithfully open to learning and antagonistically opposed to it. Ignoring or dismissing doubts can affect swifter falls from the faith than asking the questions in the first place. 
5. Doubt that asks questions fosters growth :: There is a kind of doubt that only seeks to dismantle and destroy by attacking - this is harmful because it's based on a hatred of something else, that which the doubt attacks. But doubt rooted in love seeks truth and to understand, seeks reason, and pushes the seeker to learn and grow as a person. Doubt in faith matters is no different. Faith that cannot stand up to questions is likely not worth having (see Letters from a Skeptic by Gregory A. Boyd).

The Church, above any other "institution," should be known immediately as a place where it's safe to come and ask questions - and not just of the leadership but of the people in the pews (or seats, if the alliteration doesn't describe your meetings). If we do not hold up the light and allow people the opportunity to come to the Light who is Jesus - barring instead the gates to preserve the righteousness of our supposedly hallowed walls - then there is nowhere else for the world to go but back into the darkness. And people will go there, and they will thrive, because people are resilient. But when they look back at the beacons who claim to have the welcoming God who loves all, they might not see the truth of Jesus. They might not see the subtext of our own struggles we don't share. They might not even see the point in wading through the unwelcoming waters of our sanctuaries to our more casual fellowship halls where someone might be able to answer their questions. They'll see the light we've shown them for what it is.

"God's not there. If God is love, and they represent God, then someone overthrew the real leadership. They didn't even want to see me when they learned I had questions."