My bookshelf has five
or six books about the “defense of the faith” in which the authors attempt to
assuage the doubts of the readers and prove, once and for all, to the critics
that Christianity is not only a reasonable faith to have, but the only
reasonable choice to make!
These books disgust me.
I remember when I was
an undergraduate, starting my career in religious studies, and feeling like my
back was against the wall in the classroom. I had been warned when I was a
young Christian in middle and high school that I would go to college and my
professors would try and destroy my faith. So I read these books and practiced
the defense in my head. At the instance that one of my professors cast doubt on
the doctrine I had been taught in Sunday School, my hand would shoot into the
air with an answer pre-packaged from my books tumbling out of my
mouth. And I would leave class feeling gratified that I had stood stalwart in
the face of those who mean to destroy Christianity.
But as I practiced
these answers in my head, I found that I was actually battling my own doubt – a
doubt that was based on my own experience and reason. I was attempting to shape
my faith in God into something someone else told me it was supposed to be. It
was exhausting. And I found myself being a person I didn't like. After all, I
read the Bible on my own; I studied it. I kept a notebook full of questions and
observations that I made. And these questions, often times, were the same
questions that professors and scholars were asking.
I wasn't being honest
with myself. And I wasn't being honest with what I thought the Truth of God
might be.
Why did God endorse
slavery? Why did God require genocide? Does that mean those things aren't
intrinsically wrong? How do I reconcile dramatic changes throughout history and
the way that we make moral decisions? Would God really eternally reward
terrible people who believe in him and eternally punish beautiful good-hearted
people who struggle with assenting to that belief? Does God really answer
prayers to help American Christians find their car keys but not save thousands
from a tsunami? What do I do when my experience and reason contradicts Christian
dogma and the Bible? Is God’s truth bigger than Christianity? How do I deal
with an evil Church (not just imperfect, but evil)? If certain parts of
Christian history were proved inaccurate, does my faith in a living God go
away?
The problem I had with
these books and this entire area of Christian discipleship (labeled “apologetics”)
is that it wants to say that there are answers to these questions and those
answers are CERTAIN. Not only can we have faith in these answers, but there ARE
NO OTHER ANSWERS. They believe, and teach, that good Christians can and will be
certain about these answers. There is no room for dissent. Otherwise, it is an “attack
on the faith.”
But there is no “the
faith.”
There is my faith. And
there is your faith. And there is our faith. But there is no one “The Faith” to
which we all must attempt to wall ourselves into.
I was recently speaking
with an undergrad in my class and she was relating similar feelings as I had of
constantly being on guard and on the defensive against professors who want to
destroy “the faith.” And I was part of a lovely book club that read a book by a
prominent anti-religious intellectual where several of the Christian members
said they had a knee-jerk reaction to defend Christianity against his attacks.
My first reaction to both was, “Why?”
I've been there and it’s
exhausting trying to adopt a faith that isn't my own. My faith must be built on
my answers, my reasons, my experiences of the living God and the world she
created, and my understanding of the holy texts.
Eventually, I realized those
questions I had (see above) needed to be answered and they needed to be
answered in light of the Truth. And if Truth existed, I needed to find it on my
own and not take people’s word for it. I realized I had been defending this
Truth (or what I thought it was) from these questions. To do that, I had my
back turned to Truth and stood in between it and the questions, attempting to
deflect those attacks. My eyes weren't on the Truth; my back was turned to it.
So I stopped. I let the questions fly by and I lobbed some of my own.
If Truth exists, it can
defend itself. It doesn't need me to defend it.
In this, I realized
that the things I had been taught (as “truth” or “the faith”) was really just a
bunch of stuff built onto Truth. (Or in place of it.)
But Truth, the Truth of
God, is elusive. We can never be certain of it. That, after all, is the key to
faith! “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” (John 20:29)
Embrace your doubt!
When you hear someone casting doubt or aspersions on Christianity, don’t turn
your back on the Truth. Let those questions become your own and let them break
away the pieces of your faith that someone else built up onto it.
It isn't our job to defend
God and Truth. But, as Christians, it is our job to seek him and his Truth.
If you do this, I think
you will find it is freeing.
You get to live your faith, not someone else’s.
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