Creating Space For Uncertainty
Today over Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight sensitively responded to a letter from a young woman who, after years of service in minsitry, has begun to experience deep doubt about her faith. His response is excellent and is well worth the time to read. As always, the discussion in the comment section is lively and engaging.
Doubt. This is an increasingly important topic, as I find myself coming across many people facing this same set of challenges as “Karen” shared in her letter to Scot- a letter, I might add, that required incredible courage and honesty. Some respond as she has, honest, but longing. Others have stepped away from faith, embracing alternative beliefs and non-beliefs. Responses are as varied as those responding, but one thing is clear: we are seeing more and more people within the Church experiencing this phenomenon.
I am quite sure that this is not a new trend, but rather that our Western Christian culture (especially in Evangelicalism) has more recently begun to allow for genuine and honest discussion and dialogue. As a result, the increase we see in this respect is likely largely due to the freedom, where most others have wrestled with these things in secrecy for free of alienation or worse.
When asked what young Christians today most need from their churches, my answer is always the same: a safe place to be uncertain. This is not a tacit endorsement of postmodern relativism, but rather a genuine response to the reality that we are all in process- a journey, if you will- and it is essential to our spiritual formation, to our capacity to become the Church, that we given a safe space and context in which we can question even the most sacred. This is not license to treat be reckless, casual, arrogant or dismissive about our faith and its rich traditions and history- by no means!- but rather a necessary stage in the pattern of the Gospel, drawing is through the cross, the emptiness of the tomb towards the Resurrection into His Body.
It is because “doubting” has been demonized that people like “Karen” suffer so much in this. If we recognized that it is the essential aspect of our spiritual develop that it is, we would be better able to extend the grace, space and understanding needed to allow people to work through the what follows. too many people are alienated in these times, when the very thing they need is the unconditional love of their community. We can agree with 12-step programs for their acknowledgement of the inevitability of this crisis, praising the wisdom in their requiring a reliquishing of certainty and control, but arrogantly see ourselves as above it in our own struggle out of sin.
This is not to say that this process will ever be painless. As though our very identity is at stake, it is terrifying, confusing and above all lonely. After all, while we take comfort in God and others, when we die to ourselves, it is essentially alone that we enter that void. Did not even Christ cry out from cross: “My God, why have You forsaken me?” And yet, it is into the community of faith, the Body of Christ, the Church, that we are reborn into.
Have you experienced such deep uncertainty? What did you do? What helped? How have you seen this done well?
One of the more interesting verses in the Bible comes from a boy’s father speaking to Jesus (in Mark 9). He says “I do believe, help my unbelief”
vapor
sv,
Well said.
Peace,
Jamie
I am so glad to have seen these topics come up on blogs. Doubt is so pervasive among people my age. I am in my 20′s, and I feel like half of my Christian friends are wrestling with some semblance of doubt/cynicism, including myself. It is very frightening because many of us were always considered the “mature” ones of our churches. Ironically, in my experience it is more likely for kids who have gone to Christian schools/ Bible school to be experiencing this then for those who have been in secular environments. I wonder if that is a delayed adolescence, a necessary stage in wrestling with our faith and making it our own in an adult world?
I think that this is the phenomenon that is driving the growth in the emerging and missional churches, as well as the movement into high church traditions. I believe you’re right in saying that we long for the freedom to question – that is what has drawn me to my emerging church. At the same time I am drawn to the high church traditions because of that – tradition. I look at the churches around me and see a lot of emotionalism and I see for what it is based on. History, centuries of it, is a comforting way to approach God.
Anyways, please continue to take this seriously. For me and my friends, doubt is causing some to strengthen and many to walk away. Understanding this helps to unlock the heart of my generation.
Kacie,
I think you are right in that there is something of a delay in development. The church creates an artificial environment, nurturing Christians that can only survive if they then maintain that isolation from the world.
Walking with the dynamic tension between a spirituality that allows for genuine questions and one that adheres to the traditions of the historic church is difficult, but not impossible. The danger is that in the beauty and depth we discover in the high church traditions that we fail to see that, amidst its strengths is its inevitable weaknesses. This should not bring us to a place where we reject it outright, but neither should we embrace it all uncritically. I have seen many new “converts” to high church/patristic traditions embrace their new expressions of faith arrogantly. This is a danger that needs acknowledgment.
You might consider reading M. Scott Peck’s “The Different Drum” as it explores this topic very well.
Peace,
Jamie
Thanks Jamie, your post is a good one. For me part of the tension is that i have grown up in churches that have emphasised that God is tangibly knowable – whether through bible study [my conservative upbringing] or through immediacy of worship [charismatic church going.
For me that has created an expectation that i would always know God and then through the natural crap of life i end up in a position where i can’t experience God and i suffer doubt…
I wonder whether in churches which maintain more of a tradition of liturgical calander, with feasting and fasting, ordinary time, a sense of God close and God faraway and a lexicon to help encounter people in the bible in their moments of doubt, actually helps?
To learn that sometimes for instance Jesus intentionally withholds his identity/presence e.g. the story of the 2 discipes on the rd to emaeus is refreshing to hear. That my own feelings/experience of God and the present of God can be 2 different things etc.
Paul,
Good thoughts. I had not considered the Emaeus road story in that way before. Thanks. As for the liturgical approaches, I think you are right for many people.
Peace,
Jamie