We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Benefit of the Doubt: Sneak Peek
We’ll be leaking little tidbits from Greg’s soon-to-be-released book Benefit of the Doubt from today until the book release. We’re really excited about the potential of this book to impact the lives of those who have limped along with the assumption that doubts and questions disqualify them as “faithful”. Here’s today’s snippet:
The truth is, the process of learning and growing almost always involves a certain amount of pain. Perhaps you, like me, were a child who found it very hard to accept that Santa Claus wasn’t real. I fought my doubt for at least a year, and when my older brother finally convinced me, I cried. Then I got angry—very angry. Feeling I’d been duped, I vowed I’d never believe anything anyone ever told me again. While this pledge thankfully didn’t stick, I sometimes wonder if this experience is part of the reason I have always had a skeptical streak. I don’t like being fooled.
This experience illustrates how painful growing out of old, cherished beliefs can be, which is why we sometimes fight tenaciously, and often irrationally, to resist letting them go, or even letting go of our certainty about them. And yet, if we want to continue to grow, and if we are genuinely concerned with believing the truth, there is no way to avoid this pain. Indeed, having the courage to embrace the pain of doubt and to face unpleasant facts, as well as to embrace challenging questions and to live with ambiguity, is the hallmark of a mature and responsible human being. As we’ll see in the next chapter, one of the unfortunate consequences of the certainty-seeking model of faith is that it encourages pain-avoidance and thus keeps people from learning, growing, and maturing.
Boyd, Gregory, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty, Baker, 2013
Also, today and tomorrow are the last days to get the early bird registration rate for ReKnew’s upcoming conference Faith, Doubt & the Idol of Certainty. Hope to see you all there!
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Doubt, Doubt and the Idol of Certainty, Faith, ReKnew
Related Reading

Drum Roll Please: Greg’s Final Critique of Bart Ehrman’s Article
This is the ninth and final of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? Thanks for hanging in there for this last one. I know it was a long wait, but the holidays got inordinately busy for Greg. In this segment, Greg talks…

Happy Birthday to Us
A♥ via Compfight It’s hard to believe, but it was on this day (June 30) one year ago that we launched the ReKnew website. Happy Birthday ReKnew!! As reflected in the ReKnew Manifesto, our goal is to stimulate Christians to rethink foundational aspects of the faith they embrace and to motivate skeptics to take a…

Podcast: Can a Person Come Back to God if They Lose Their Faith?
Greg considers the nature of faith and unbelief and offers some enlightening insight that may surprise you. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0316.mp3

Lighten Up: You Gotta Believe In Something, Man!
Two things here: 1) How does this philosopher not see that “not believing in believing” is itself a belief? 2) Is that a turtleneck or is that philosopher just really hairy?

ReKnew Retreat
The ReKnew team met this weekend for a retreat. We dreamed some dreams and set some new things in motion. You’ll be hearing more about that in the coming days and weeks, but for now, would you keep this ministry in your prayers if you care about the work we’re doing? We’re all feeling the…

Why Doesn’t God Heal When We Ask?
If we are called to manifest what Jesus manifested and revolt against what Jesus revolted against, and Jesus carried out the kingdom through healing, then why doesn’t God heal those we pray for? One of my personal kingdom heroes is a Vietnamese lady named Dr. Huyen Tranberg. She is a medical doctor who works with…