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.

What Will You Do With Your Doubt?

DISTRESS

Richard Beck shared some of his thoughts on Christianity as something that for many of us is our “native religion”…something we were born into and that is, to quote Wendell Berry, “an intimate belonging of our being; it informs our consciousness, our language, and our dreams.” With Christianity so foundational to our identities, doubt is a scary (and necessary) thing. What will you do with your doubt?

Richard observes that:

A lot of people who have decided to leave the faith are still, for lack of a better word, shadow Christians, still haunted by God. In the words of Flannery O’Connor, Jesus remains for many this wild, ragged figure moving from tree to tree in the back their minds.

But for others the “better possibility” has been for us to intentionally step out of the liminal space, away from the cognitive dissonance, to invest in, cultivate, and renew our native religion.

For those of you who are in the thick of your doubt, you might want to pick up a copy of Greg’s book, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty.

Image by Davi Ozolin via Compfight

Related Reading

Why Bart Ehrman Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Christmas (Or Your Faith) Part 7

This is the seventh of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? In this segment, Greg argues against Ehrman’s claim that the Roman census in the birth narrative was fabricated. If you missed the first six installments you can find them here, here, here, here, here and here.

Why Isn’t God More Clear?

Ever wonder why God isn’t more clear and obvious? Here’s Greg’s take on that question.

Do Something Beautiful

Wonderlane via Compfight Richard Beck posted this reflection of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with her hair and the idea of a Christian aesthetic. It’s inspiring. From the blog: More and more, I’ve come to describe my faith in similar terms, in aesthetic terms. Some things in the world–big global things and small things I…

Does God Still Heal?

In the ancient world Jesus was known first and foremost as an exorcist and a healer. These two activities are mentioned in every summary of Jesus’s ministry found in the Gospels. It’s common for Western Christians today to accept that infirmities (sickness, disease, injuries, disabilities and deformities) are part of God’s mysterious plan for their…

The God Who Embraces Our Doubt

Lawrence OP via Compfight Zack Hunt over at The American Jesus posted some of his thoughts on doubt, and it seemed fitting on this week before the Doubt, Faith & the Idol of Certainty conference to share what he had to say. We’re thinking he must have stumbled on Greg’s book or maybe God is…

Sermon Clip: Mark Moore Israel Week 2

In this sermon clip, Mark Moore talks about how God interrupts Abrahams life by asking him to have huge faith.  In week two of The Forest In The Trees, Woodland Hills takes a look at the early history of the Hebrew people and the formation of the nation of Israel. Throughout these stories, we see…