Posted by Rachel on: 07.09.2007 /
On the Laughing at People thread, Eliza posted this comment:
Rachel & Doreen - I’d be interested in hearing more about doubt has strengthened your faith, if you’d be open to saying a bit more about your experiences & thoughts around this…
Eliza’s question got me thinking and here are some of my reflections on the subject. I hope that many of you will comment and share your own experience and perspective about faith and doubt as well.
Thanks for asking, Eliza. The first thing that comes to mind is a podcast I was listening to recently by Diana Butler Bass, a religion scholar (and 2007 OTM conference speaker -hooray!). Diana talked about the difference between inherited and negotiated faith. She described inherited faith as that which is passed down from generation to generation, whereas negotiated faith is self-selected, often through a lengthy process of exploration. Diana explained that inherited faith was the dominant form of religion for most of US history. People were Baptists or Episcopalians or Catholics because their parents were — it was part of their inherited identity.
Diana suggests that the baby boomers were the first American generation to make a large scale rejection of the concept of inherited faith. In the 60s, huge numbers of young people rejected the institutions of their youth and explored new options, such as atheism or new age religions. Some eventually returned to the faith of their parents — Diana calls these people “returnees” — but large numbers did not. And the belief system they ended up with was negotiated, not inherited.
Today negotiated faith has become the dominant paradigm in our culture. For many children raised in religious homes, this evaluation and subsequent rejection, acceptance, or modification of their parents’ beliefs comes in the teenage or college years. Personally, I was a late bloomer and didn’t really begin this process in earnest until my late 20s and early 30s. My friend Staci, who has known me since the 6th Grade, says that since I didn’t rebel as teenager, so I am rebelling now! (he-he)
I think that what so often happens is that religion is sold to us as a package deal, not just a set of core faith beliefs, but a whole theological, social and political construct. We are told, directly or indirectly, that we have to accept or reject the whole package, we can’t pick and choose (sounds like cable tv!). This can cause a considerable amount of anxiety for the individual who is in that negotiation process, especially when they want to embrace parts of the package and are replussed by others.
Over the last several years I have gotten plugged into this emerging church/progressive evangelical movement/exploration/conversation. Part of what this movement has been about, especially among younger people, is breaking apart that package, separating for example, following Jesus from right wing political views. For many of us, this has reinvigorated our faith because what we do embrace, we embrace whole heartedly. Often the things we have rejected, or renegotiated, were things that were weighing down our souls and drawing us closer to rejecting our faith completely, an idea that leaves us feeling completely bereft.
So it is painful and scary but also a joy and a relief to doubt, to question, to reexamine everything and select what we believe to be real and authentic and beautiful. And the faith that emerges from that process is stronger. At least that has been my experience, and that of some of my close friends who are also Christian.
Comment by: Helen
1Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Rachel.
As a general principle, I could see that something unbendable is at risk of breaking, whereas something flexible is stronger; I think that people who move from a more rigid to less rigid faith probably are less at risk of having it ‘break’ altogether.
For what it’s worth, a more flexible faith wasn’t an option for me because I start having problems as soon as I approach the concept of God. I have a flexible worldview with respect to God rather than a flexible faith i.e. maybe God exists, maybe not.
Rachel, I think I rebelled late, also :-).
Comment by: David H
2My experience with Christian faith and re-evaluation of the beliefs has been remarkable similar to that of Rachel. I have also heard the “package deal” pitch. However, when I started to re-examine that package of faith I discovered that my parents and many of the old-line fundamentalists had turned Christianity into a bill from Congress. They had attached so many amendments and riders and earmarks that the original faith was hardly recognizable amidst all of the nationalistic, denominational, self-serving me-first crap.
It can be a mistake to try and cherry-pick faith or anything else. As Rachel points out, there are core beliefs and to leave those out obviates even the idea of Christianity. Love over all is one of those beliefs. If you don’t believe that Christ-love blesses self-sacrifice and opposes the sacrifice of others, then you have thrown out something so foundational that your faith (if you have one) can no longer be called Christianity.
It seems that is what so-called fundamentalist Christianity has done. They have buried some of those core issues so deeply beneath all other aspects of their faith that things like “love your neighbor as yourself” have either died or moved out. In reality, they have done exactly what they accuse others of doing: They have crossed out Bible passages (especially those that often appear in red-letters) in order to mold a system that best fits how their leaders see the world and the role of their followers in that world. They have cherry-picked beliefs in order to elevate themselves over their neighbors and maybe God, too.
For me the issue was not really ever about doubting God or Jesus, it was doubting what people had told me about them for my entire life. The process or re-examination certainly involved looking inside myself, but also looking inside the Bible and seeking the insight of others outside the conservative Christian camp. In large measure the process was looking at what I had been told was Christianity and asking: “Did Jesus teach that? Would Jesus even believe that?” If I don’t think something is what Jesus would believe, then my response to it is easy. If I’m not sure, then I simply put it aside (maybe someday, in this life or the next, the answer will come). Living with, even embracing doubt on an ongoing basis can be a faith-strengthener. My faith tells me there are answers even if I dont or can’t know them. My faith tells me there is something outside of myself that knows infinitely more than me.
If that is picking and choosing, I can live with that. I would rather have a faith pared down to its essentials, then one covered with fat and rot. I would rather have a faith simple and small (at least in the parts I can see and understand) than one that is so ornate and complex (in the eyes of men) that I am judged too small to consider or question it. A faith that allows doubt leaves room for a God who has answers. A faith without doubt only allows for a God no bigger than me.
Comment by: Rachel
3I completely agree, Helen.
Exactly, David! And I had become so sick to death of that self-righteous religion, yet I was starving for Jesus.
Comment by: Karen
4I definitely did. I couldn’t rebel as a teenager - my mother and younger siblings needed me too much. Unfortunately, rebelling late in life sometimes has worse repercussions because you have so many responsibilities and people depending upon you by then. Not that anyone really has a choice, of course.
I think it’s interesting that each side in the liberal/fundamental debate accuses the other of “cherry-picking.” It seems to me that the bible is so ambiguous on so many vital concepts that every Christian group can and does have its own “legitimate” interpretation. So that means everyone’s really cherry-picking to some extent what they do and don’t want to believe, when you get down to it.
If you decide what to believe by looking solely at Jesus, he said some pretty harsh things - such as condemning all non-Christians to hell. Yet it seems to me that many liberal believers disregard the teaching about hell entirely.
Comment by: Helen
5I was just writing about cherry-picking for my next newspaper response. I think everyone does it but some people are more aware they do it than others.
When people claim not to, I don’t think they’re lying - I think they don’t realize that they make the text fit their beliefs rather than the other way around.
Comment by: Eliza
6Thanks for sharing your thoughts & your experience on this. I like the “inherited” v. “negotiated” model - that’s a useful way to think about faith.
When you first rebelled & started questioning your inherited faith, did the baby go out with the bathwater at first? (Did you find yourself rejecting the whole kit & caboodle, then adding back the core beliefs to build your negotiated faith?)
Or, was it more of a re-evaluation of each of the parts that had made up your inherited faith - discarding some, modifying others, keeping some, and perhaps even adding some?
Comment by: Rachel
7Eliza, I think that in my case it was more the second option. I never reached a point of completely throwing out the whole package. Jesus has always seemed very real to me so I knew I wanted to continue as a Christian. But I had to figure out what that would look like if I rejected big pieces of the package I had been handed.
That’s not to say that I didn’t have times of existential doubt - does God really exist? is there any purpose for my life? is everything just an accident or an illusion? I think I have always asked those questions at times and I expect I always will. To me, doubt is a signal that we are still alive, like being able to feel pain.
Comment by: David H
8Jesus was pretty direct and unambiguous on what he considered the two most vital concepts (perhaps he was just selective). Yet those concepts seem so frequently forgotten by some “Christians.” I don’t want to come off wrong, but I’m not sure how love God above everything and love your neighbor as yourself can be interpreted into the America first, monuments for the commandments, God hates fags, kill abortionists, riches equal blessings, etc., etc. variety of “Christianity” I see floating around. I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to believe that, I just don’t see how it can be called following Jesus.
I don’t see what I am talking about as cherry-picking. There are a great many things I don’t understand and have not heard interpretations of that fit into my understanding of God. So I put them aside. There are a few things that seem fairly certain about God as presented by Jesus. When someone tells me something that appears to contradict what Jesus says about God or how I should live in the world, even if they have Bible verses to “prove” their interpretation, I have to respectfully disagree and suggest that if their belief runs counter to Christ then they need to reconsider calling themselves Christ-followers or Christians. I think the names Godians and Old Testamites are available, but judges and executioners are already taken.
Picking and choosing what you believe out of the great grab-bag of available things seems terribly random. And, in the end, you are only following yourself (based on whatever your thoughts and emotions are at any given time). And there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that. However, I hope that I am trying to understand how to follow something much bigger than me — Truth with a capital T. I do make mistakes and come to some stupid conclusions, but I try to test and re-test everything against the two core concepts of Jesus in the belief that there is Truth and that Truth can be known (at least in small part). When a piece of Truth is found, then I hope for the courage to live within it even if it is uncomfortable, unpopular and inconvenient — for me.
Comment by: Rachel
9Karen, we would say that we aren’t disregarding it - just interpreting it differently. ;-)
Comment by: Karen
10LOL Rachel - I know, I know! :-)
Comment by: Karen
11I think love your neighbor as you’d love yourself is a perfectly excellent concept for living a good life. But that concept pre-dates Jesus by quite a while, and doesn’t need the supernatural component in order to validate it.
I agree with you, but all of those things get justified by some group or other by particular interpretations of various things said in the bible. I never agreed with them myself, being a round peg in the square hole of fundamentalism for many years, but they’re not arrived at randomly. Someone can find “biblical justification” for those positions, whether we consider those justifications good ones or not.
The flip side is that many of the “Christians” who believe all those things also tend to believe that liberal interpretations of scripture aren’t valid and those who follow them aren’t real “Christians” either, or at least not “good Christians.” That’s certainly what I was taught. So I think it goes both ways.
Comment by: David H
12I don’t claim Jesus originated those concepts. I wasn’t around to even know that he lived them. But those who believe the Bible must accept that he said them. What’s more, for those who believe that book, Jesus made clear it was the most important thing out of all the scriptures. So, for those who believe in that man and that book, how is it possible to ignore that statement?
Those who don’t believe in God, Jesus or the Bible, have no obligation to that concept — with or without a supernatural component. They can do it or not, it is entirely up tho them. Those who claim to be Christians don’t have such a choice. They have made a covenant to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as best they can. Following the golden rule isn’t optional.
As for biblical justification, anyone can do it. But coming up with a rationale for doing something wrong doesn’t make it right. It is really hard to justify around Jesus saying: Love your enemies, do good to those that harm you. If someone claims to be a Christian and says: it is OK to hate, it is OK to kill, then they are wrong. They can point to a thousand verses in the Old Testament where people hated and killed and that doesn’t change that they promised to try and follow Jesus.
I can’t argue that the Bible has been, is being and will be used for bad purposes. I can’t argue that there are things in it about God that I neither like, nor understand — such as ordering the eradication of entire groups of people. I’m not going to ignore the former and I can’t simply discard the latter (just cause I don’t like or understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t true, so I have to decide whether I can live with a God like that).
Were I too ignore the clear teachings of Jesus, gloss over the difficult aspects of the Old Testament or claim to know exactly what God is and wants (from me and everyone else), then maybe I would be picking and choosing. I’m trying not to.
But if I am to be labeled as someone who is selective in my beliefs, so be it. I select the two verses of the Bible that aren’t open to interpretation and I will try to live them.
Comment by: Karen
13Sounds like a reasonable plan!
Comment by: Rachel
14Karen, I think that parents and other family members are always hoping that their child will accept their values, beliefs, lifestyle. But they know that the child has a choice. So once we reach a certain age, maybe mid-twenties, and we have accepted their package, it seems they breathe a sigh of relief. So if we rebel later, it is even more of a shock because they thought the danger zone was past.
Comment by: Rachel
15Another thought… I have not actually rebelled all THAT much if one looks at the spectrum of possible options and how far I have actually moved along that spectrum. But the relatively small amount of movement I have made has caused some of my family members to howl with protest. This only serves to illustrate how isolated they are and how limited their ROAA really is. And this only turns me off even more to their worldview.
Comment by: Karen
16Yeah, that’s interesting. My therapist once made the suggestion that once we reach adulthood it’s like we’re expected never to change. Like we’re some sort of immutable objects, rather than living beings constantly learning new things, processing new information and even aging physically.
If our bodies continue to change, why shouldn’t our outlooks, values and paradigms about the world? Yes, probably most people’s personality types are fairly well set, perhaps from the womb.
But when you think about how much a child changes from age 0 to 7, 7 to 14, 14 to 21, it amazing, right? So why don’t we assume that change continues unabated, rather than that it just stops at some point? I mean, who really wants to hit 30 and stagnate, you know? ;-)
I don’t blame you. It’s interesting, in my case, that my major life changes came about during my mom’s final illness. So she never knew about them. My gay brother also came out of the closet after mom died. Freud would probably say there was some maternal repression going on there!
Comment by: Doreen A Mannion
17Hi Eliza and everyone. Eliza, thanks for asking.
I think we are encouraged to doubt. People who never doubt are rather frightening to me. We have many examples in history of those who are so certain of their beliefs and what that certainty looks like when implemented politically or otherwise. It’s not always a pretty picture.
The model I like is the one described by Brian McLaren in “Searching for What Makes Sense.” The stages are Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Humility.
In the Simplicity stage, God is the ultimate authority figure or ultimate friend. Our focus is on belonging to the “right” group and our beliefs are that all truth is known or knowable, there are right answers to every question, and the right answers are held by the authority figures. In this stage, we may be able to reduce our beliefs down to one or two tenets such as “love thy neighbor” or “turn the other cheek.”
We may be like the astronomer who sat adjacent to a minister on an airplane. When the astronomer discovered the vocation of his companion, he said, “My view of religion is ‘Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.’ That’s all that’s really important, don’t you think?”
The minister paused thoughtfully and said, “My view of astronomy is, ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star.’ That’s all that’s really important, don’t you think?”
In Stage 2, Complexity, God is the ultimate guide or coach. Our focus is on accomplishing and winning, and our belief is that everything is doable — we just need to find the best approach and method. We need to remember that while we may believe, “I can do all things through God who gives me strength,”" this does not necessarily mean we can personally cure our father’s alcoholism or our workplace’s toxicity.
In Perplexity, Stage 3, God is either a mythic authority figure we have outgrown, an opiate of the masses, or a mystery we are seeking. The focus is on understanding and seeing through appearances and illusions to reality. Our beliefs are that all is questionable, that the only certainty is uncertainty, and that everything is relative. I find myself in this stage frequently, especially the part about the only certainty being uncertainty.
In the fourth and final stage, Humility, God is knowable in part, but mysterious; present, but transcendent; just, yet merciful. The focus is on fulfilling potential and making the most out of life. In this stage, we have learned to listen when God is speaking.
McLaren’s thesis is that as we outgrow the faith of earlier stages, it feels like doubt. This doubt makes us uncomfortable and we equate doubt with losing faith, not as having outgrown our previous faith stage. He also points out that our faith can really be shaken if we believe we’ve landed at a place where we are comfortable with the dichotomy of God being both partially knowable and mysterious only to have life’s events quickly bring us back to trying to find that one right answer for every question.
I like this definition of doubt by Frederick Buechner. “Doubt are the ants in the pants of faith; they keep it awake and moving.”
I preached on faith & doubt in April, and some of what I’ve written here is taken from that sermon. I was pleased that I could work both “twinkle twinkle little star” and “ants in the pants” into a sermon!
doreen
poetcomic.blogspot.com
Comment by: Rachel
18Sounds like it was a great sermon, Doreen! And thanks for sharing that model of faith from Brian McLaren. That man has helped me SO much in my journey of faith and doubt, and I know he has you as well.
Comment by: Helen
19I really liked A Generous Orthodoxy (by Brian McLaren). I found it helpful because it’s similar to the approach I take - looking for what seems good to me in traditions and also being honest about my concerns. It helps me feel less alone when I run across someone else who has done something I’ve done :) (I guess I do feel like a lot of the things I’ve done/experienced are different enough that there aren’t lots of people out there who ‘get it’)
Comment by: Doreen A Mannion
20I came across this quote today from MA Corey in the book “God and the new cosmotology”:
God might actually prefer the critical-thinking agnostic, who comes to Him through a hard-won battle of conflicting beliefs, to the mindlessly subservient ‘believer’ who hasn’t even bothered to examine his or her belief structure.”