I’ve got one more burst on this conversation about doubt and faith to follow up my last post.  This all started with an article I recently read at Sojourners in which the author described his journey through and with doubt.  I was encouraged to read how he has been able to find a place for doubt without abandoning faith.

I have this occasional “problem” of over-sympathizing with atheists.  I will sometimes read atheist forums or will be especially interested in following conversation threads in which the most foundational beliefs I have are questioned in very astute ways. Perhaps I do this because at some point I also have critiqued almost every belief I was handed down.  Faith is no cakewalk; this stuff is tough to wrestle with.  I understand the struggle and I don’t think the answer is to fabricate a narrative about how atheists are out there waging a “war” on Christians.  That kind of perspective on the conversation only results in loud talking and no listening (something it would be just as well to do in a room by yourself).

I view my tendency to critique as a good thing.  The last thing I want is a naive faith, in which I mindlessly swallow whatever I’m told, especially when it’s someone’s interpretation of the Bible.  That approach doesn’t work very well when discussing a document that is thousands of years old, written by many different authors in a wide range of contexts, and being interpreted by millions of different people, all with their own unique contexts.

However, I want to acknowledge that there are too many areas in which I’ve been left with a theological vacuum. I’ve critiqued and deconstructed, but have struggled to rebuild.  I won’t go into all those areas here, but I’m still working to fill that void with something more than questions and doubt.  This period of theological deconstruction has been ongoing for a while now and I’m ready to start building something.

I’ve got a few friends who are good to ask me what I’m doing to move forward, out of a cyclical pattern of doubt and criticism.  Along with great conversations with friends via the internet or in person, I’m also reading Brian McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christianity, as a guiding support for this rebuilding.  It’s an excellent read, highlighting a lot of the foundational questions that we must wrestle with if we are to stay engaged through times of questioning our faith.

The hardest part of all this is to continue to engage, even with it becomes exhausting and I just want to sit back in my theological la-z-boy chair and think through something easy.

But as usual, the hard stuff is what the most rewarding life is made of.