In late 2006, I left the church, disillusioned with the self-centered nature of the Christian experience and the church’s near inability to reach out to those beyond its own walls. For a brief period, I was part of a local iteration of the Emergent Church movement, though that was short lived, as the group I was a part of were interested in a kind of faith experience that did not appeal to me.
Around the same time, something happened that raised in my mind a number of questions that I considered very serious, which completely shook my world and threatened tremendous possible ramifications for my faith as a Christian. A series of unexpected sources of inspiration, confusion, and clarity took me on a journey filled with numerous difficult questions, considerable doubt, ample inaction, and far too much wasted time. I questioned Christianity at a level more basic than I had ever before thought I would, and as my old roommate Dave recently said to me, “I tell you, if you’ve never had to question even the most basic tenets of Christianity, it can be brutal. Really brutal.” Dave was unequivocally correct.
Somewhere along the way, answers that had not seemed suitable to me, when I had first asked the questions, began to make sense, and became acceptable. No, that’s not quite correct — saying that in the passive voice makes it sound as though I figured it all out. The truth is that these answers that had previously seemed unsuitable were made to make sense by people smarter or (more accurately and importantly) wiser than myself.
These things — the questions I asked; the effects those questions had on my faith and, by extension, my life; and the answers I eventually found — are what I am trying to articulate here. And to be honest, I have waited far too long to do this. As you may recall, my disillusionment with the traditional church, followed shortly by my dissatisfaction with the primary alternative I’d had exposure to, led me to disconnect from the church in general, and more importantly, to remove myself from the conversation altogether.
In hindsight, this is something I regret quite a bit. From a certain perspective, you might see it as a sort of perfect storm in my life: My departure from the church, my inability to find a suitable replacement, and my complete removal from the ever-ongoing discussion on religion, faith, philosophy, and spirituality — all culminating, with perfect timing, in a state of spiritual isolation and apathy. What better moment for a crisis of faith? The result was a spiritual problem that I was either unable or unwilling to solve. Probably both.
In retrospect, I wish I had at the very least continued to write. I wish I had remained involved in the conversation, that I had attempted to address these issues and seek answers to my questions. Instead, as much as possible I avoided all things faith-related, because it was impossible to involve myself in such things without confronting the very uncomfortable questions that waited tirelessly beyond the wall of spiritual paralysis that I had raised. Facing my doubts, and the questions which had caused them, would be a time-consuming and difficult process, not to mention a frightening one; ignoring them was much easier, and enabled me to put on hold my fear that the answers to my questions might turn what was as yet only doubt into full-scale disbelief.
In time, spiritual limbo became less and less tolerable. I mentioned my struggles to very few people, and even to them, only in bits and pieces. The reason for this, again, was that complacency was both easiest and safest, and that required spiritual isolation. Explaining what was going on with me would have required me to do the one thing I was trying to escape — facing and confronting the issues I was struggling with.
Eventually, feeling as though I were living in secret and isolation grew less and less bearable. The possibility that I might not like the answers to the questions I was repressing contributed largely to the fear that kept me from seeking those answers. The ramifications of that possibility ate away at me. What would that mean for my marriage? How would I raise my kids? What would that mean for me, if I was ultimately wrong? When my wife fell in love with me, I was a youth pastor and former missionary kid, the son of a Bible scholar, and on my way to a degree in Biblical studies and church ministry. I felt guilty for not providing the spiritual leadership that I knew my wife had expected when she married me. Fear and discomfort had led me to procrastinate facing my issues, but eventually, these nagging questions, the loneliness of being so disconnected, the emptiness and tension of living without spiritual resolution, and the guilt of what I was surely putting my wife through finally forced me to get my hands dirty, put in the work, and face the risk of finding some answers.
So it is, if we stick with the cliché-but-effective idea of a journey as metaphor for this spiritual crisis (and its eventual resolution), that this one was actually fairly short in distance, but long in travel time. I spent most of the time in rest stops, gas stations and hotel rooms along the way, living adequately but not well, until the malaise and guilt of irresolution outweighed the discomfort of the journey itself, finally propelling me into action. Now, on the other side, I’m trying to pick up the pieces, to put it all back together, and to feel the resolution I now know. I have spent the last three years allowing the doubt in my mind to take root in my heart; now that the doubt in my mind has been replaced with knowledge and belief, I find that translating that belief from my mind to my heart is not a switch that can simply be flipped, but a process that takes time. I have become accustomed to the feeling of doubt and disconnectedness, and it is taking some time to once again get used to the feeling of belief and, eventually, spiritual enthusiasm. Writing my experiences and articulating outside of my own head the ideas that I struggled with will hopefully be part of that process.
A final note: No doubt many, more convinced than I of the direct involvement of Satan in every single obstacle that challenges a Christian’s faith, would attribute the perfect storm of doubt and disconnectedness that so intensified this spiritual dilemma to the plans and actions of “the enemy.” I do not. Perhaps I remain too rational for my own good, but while it would seem likely that the devil—and I do consider him real—may have taken advantage of the condition in which I found myself, I think it far more likely that the primary cause of my own struggles was, in fact, me.
I am an extremely rational person, sometimes to a fault. As I have mentioned previously, my faith expresses itself intellectually, and I have rarely (perhaps never) had any sort of emotional experience in my “relationship,” if such it can be called, with Christ. I also don’t really feel that I have any sort of intimate, friend-like relationship with God — at least, not anything like the kind of relationship that I experience with human beings, involving communication, personal closeness, intimacy, etc. At times, I have struggled with this, mainly because that emotional, relational faith experience, in some form or other, is the only one that the Church (be it traditional, emergent or other) teaches. While the intellectual aspects of study, wisdom, and understanding are taught as parts of the faith experience in many Christian circles (mostly traditional), I can’t recall ever hearing anyone entertain the idea of a personal faith that is primarily intellectual in its nature, experience, and expression.
But that is my faith, and I no longer struggle with it. If you are not like me, then you may see my intellectually-oriented faith as dry and unfulfilling. For me, the reality is quite the contrary. I find ideas more moving than any emotion. For me, to understand God is every bit as powerful as to experience him emotionally or relationally — in fact, it is precisely in understanding God that I do experience Him. Perhaps you know God experientially, through some sort of felt connection; I know Him intellectually and conceptually. You may have come to know Him by hearing the things He has spoken to you; I have come to know Him by learning to understand how he speaks, through what He has spoken in the past. You may ask him where to go or what to do; I ask him to help me learn wisdom, so that I can make the right decisions.
I think I might have gotten along splendidly with St. Jerome of Stridonium, who translated the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament into Latin, resulting in the Latin Bible used by Catholics and known as the Vulgate. Jerome intended the Vulgate to bring the Scriptures to the masses — ironic, because the church used it to do the exact opposite. Jerome is known for saying, “Not to know the Scriptures is not to know Christ.” What speaks to me about this is that knowing the Bible refers to understanding and knowledge, not to emotion or relationship. Thus, Jerome is saying that understanding and knowledge, through study rather than experience, are acceptable, perhaps even critical, ways of knowing God. Perhaps this is why, during the majority of my life in which my faith hasn’t been in limbo, the Bible has always played such an important role in my faith. Knowledge and understanding of His history, character, personality, desires and plan, and the wisdom and understanding I gain from that knowledge, are how I know God. The Scriptures, therefore, are the primary avenue through which I get to know Him; the use of my own intellect and my reasoning abilities—which I believe God gave me—in concert with those of others (in literature, discussion, debates, etc.), is another way that I get to know God.
I am okay with this. I like my faith, and I don’t believe it is in any way inferior to a more emotional, relational or experiential faith. I believe that both have strengths and weaknesses — and often, the very same things that are their strengths are also their weaknesses.
For me, my rational and intellectual nature is quite often a strength, and one that I thoroughly enjoy. But it can also be my downfall. The irony of this entire situation—and this will become more clear in my next post, when I get into the details of the issues I dealt with—is that my frustration was transformed into doubt because of ideas and claims that, while plausible, were ultimately baseless and ridiculous. Should not intellect and reason have quickly found that out, dismissed these faulty notions, and invalidated the entire thought process? Unfortunately, it can take very little to set my mind in motion. In this case, the truth is that I never once accepted as true, or even reliable, the specific ideas and claims that inspired my questions — but while they proved to be untrue, they inspired a thought process and eventually a series of entirely different questions and ideas that ultimately led to doubt.
The irony is that a less intellectually-oriented person might not have been as easily capable recognizing the errancy of the original assertions that inspired my questions — and yet, such person would likely not have been inspired by such ideas to consider the further possibilities that ended up shaking my faith. If that seems confusing, let me put it this way: What I did when presented with certain claims and ideas was first to realize, fairly quickly, that the specific claims made were quite ridiculous; from there, however, I made the next step of considering whether it would be possible for claims of that type to have validity, even if these specific ones did not. The dilemma that presented itself was that such a possibility seemed entirely plausible. The irony I speak of, then, is that while another person might have needed to put much more study into the original claims, such a person would likely have answered those specific questions, been satisfied with the answer, and been done with the issue entirely.
I have often wished that I could turn off this need for rational, intellectual understanding — that I could turn off that voice in my head that says things like, “What if…?” and, “That doesn’t make sense!” I’ve often wished I had the ability to simply accept that which I am told is true and right and good, via whatever source feels authoritative (pastor, parents, the Bible). There are times when I would gladly give up my capacity for intellectual understanding, if it meant I could also give up my need for intellectual understanding.
The cause for my crisis of faith was my own need for rational explanation and understanding. That need demanded answers to questions that others are able to accept “on faith,” based largely on their own personal experience of God.
Do I make sense? Perhaps not. I know all of two or three people that might be like me, at least to a large extent. Even to me, much of this is only beginning to become clear; perhaps to you, being like me makes no sense (wouldn’t that be ironic?). But if you’re still with me, then I suppose it’s time for me to cease prattling on, and actually get into the specific ideas and issues that became so troublesome for me.
This process is more involved than I had expected.