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.

Faith, Doubt and Agnosticism

Visual Psychology

 Hartwig HKD via Compfight

Greg was recently interviewed by Premier Radio in the UK for the program Unbelievable? along with Andrew Whyte (an agnostic) on the topic of faith and doubt. They discuss their personal journeys of doubt and how this led them on vastly different paths. You can find the interview by clicking here. You can get a feel for Greg’s process of coming to question the prevailing notion of faith from the quote below taken from his book Benefit of the Doubt.

As I studied issues surrounding Scripture, however, I occasionally encountered data that seemed to undermine the historical veracity of certain narratives. When this happened, I would feel pressured by my belief in inspiration to spin the data in a way that would instead support the narrative’s historical accuracy. While I was aware that evangelical and non-evangelical scholars frequently do this, it felt disingenuous to me. Is this really what God would want me to do, I wondered?

Over the years, I have increasingly felt there is something amiss with a concept of faith that inclines me to be anything but totally honest with whatever my research uncovers. At the same time, I have gradually seen less and less reason why my belief in inspiration should require that every story conforms to our modern concept of historical veracity, and even less reason why my life-giving relationship with Christ, which has come to form the very core of my being, should be affected by how I evaluate the evidence for any particular biblical story.2 There is, I concluded, something fundamentally wrong with this “house-of-cards” model of faith, as I shall call it.

Related Reading

Put on the Armor of God

The whole of the Christian life is an act of war against the enemy as we follow Jesus in storming the gates of hell (See post.) No passage better illustrates this than Paul’s metaphor of spiritual armor from Ephesians 6. He writes that Christians are to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength…

Making Room for Doubt and Questions in Our Youth Curriculum

This article from a Christianity Today blog was sent to us from a reader (Thanks Laura!) reflecting on the need for making space for doubt and questions in our youth curriculum. From the article: In our Sticky Faith research, geared to help young people develop a Christian faith that lasts, a common narrative emerged: When young people asked…

Tags: ,

Honesty, However Ugly

For last week’s sermon at Woodland Hills Church, Greg spoke about the importance of being honest with God about our struggles and doubts. This is part of what it means to be in a genuine relationship with God, and the Bible is full of characters who demonstrate this for us. Is it difficult for you…

When You Doubt the Bible

Kit via Compfight Many people enter into conversations with ReKnew and Greg’s writings because they have questions and doubts about the Bible which they do not feel they can ask within their current church tradition. When they arise, and they will, what do we do with them? How do we process them in a healthy…

The Cross Above All Else

The way to know what a person or people group really believes is not to ask them but to watch them. Christians frequently say, “It’s all about Jesus,” but our actions betray us. Judging by the amount of time, energy, and emotion that many put into fighting a multitude of battles, ranging from the defense…

Dallas Willard on Doubt and Belief

http://youtu.be/xiOIyP4VHOk One of our Facebook friends pointed out this video to us (Thanks Lukasz!) The comments in this interview on the benefits of fellowship when it comes to doubt and belief are excellent. We’re really going to miss Dallas.