Welcome to the World of Tough Questions

I didn’t start with such long-winded ambitions, but here I am and below you’ll find a high-level and incomplete summary of what I’ve been walking through over the past 3 years. I don’t explain everything - I think that would take 100 pages. So, here’s the Norm’s Notes version. Please be gracious. It’s hard to articulate tone in written word. I’m not writing from a position of accomplishment or arrival. I’m simply trying to give you a window into my world of doubt, wonder, and struggle.


In his book, "Velvet Elvis", Rob Bell uses the metaphor of a brick wall to describe the faith of many Christians. For those of you who are familiar with philosophy, I think he’s referring to "modern" Christian faith. And by "modern", I don’t mean "current" or "new" - in fact it’s very much the opposite. Someday I’ll post something long and painful contrasting modernism with the wonder of post-modernism (which is so misunderstood among evangelicals that its killing our credibility).
　
Anyway, back to the brick wall. Rob explains that Christians build their faith piece by piece, adding a new brick as we become certain of some new belief. We add the new belief or doctrine on top of all the previously accepted beliefs - of which we have previously become certain. My faith was a brick wall. As far as I could tell, my wall was big, straight, solid - made out of the finest and sturdiest bricks and mortar. I added to it periodically, but that wasn’t necessarily a priority, since I had already reached a certain level of maturity. Maturity is partly defined by the strength of our faith, which is largely defined by how certain (and unwilling to question) we are about the things we believe. I now believe that is a terribly foolish definition of maturity, despite its widespread acceptance.
　
Whenever certainty is the mark of maturity, we’ve missed something. Whenever searching hard after God, asking tough questions, and wrestling with the apparent inconsistencies in the Bible (and there are so many to wrestle through) are signs of immaturity, we have a problem. It would be different if God was comprehendible, small enough for us to fully understand. It would be different if the Bible was the complete revelation of who God is - as if God could be contained and summarized in 1500 pages. If God were that small, then certainty of understanding would make a great measure of maturity. Kind of like calculus. However, God is not containable and the Bible is not a textbook - despite the fact that we’ve cheapened it and treated it as such. God is beyond our imagination in brilliance, creativity, wisdom, and apparently love. If we’ve reached a point of confident certainty - where we’re comfortable in our faith and understanding - I think we’re naive, not mature. I’m not saying we can’t be sure of some things, but we ought to always be searching and wrestling to understand more of who Jesus is and what His life on earth teaches us. Searching, questioning, and wondering are not signs of "floundering". They are the natural response to the realization that we are seeking to follow a God who cannot be contained by our brains.

Again, back to the brick wall. The problem with brick wall faith is that if, as you grow into a greater understanding of who Jesus is, you realize that some of your previous beliefs or doctrines (bricks) were incomplete or totally wrong (which really ought to happen as we mature), that will impact the structural integrity of the wall. That described my faith. As I was forced to think through elements of my faith that had previously been unquestioned, I realized that some bricks needed to go. Recognizing that the bricks needed to go was the easy part, the pain came in trying to deal with the faulty, unstable remnant of a brick wall that remained. It was ready to crash - and I was standing in just the right spot to get pummelled by the bricks. Putting into words the pain, despair, and loneliness that I experienced is extremely hard to do. I seem to able to channel frustration into words - the other emotions don’t come so easy. Back in 2008 (at which time I thought I was losing my faith altogether) I wrote a few pages trying to summarize the situation and how I felt about it. Perhaps I’ll post that sometime if I get the courage.

I used the phrase "forced to think through". "Forced" is the relevant word because, at the time, I wouldn’t have chosen the path of pain, especially with no guaranteed result.

There were some experiential things that led to my crisis. I won’t share them all, but one of them was my struggle with what to do with my career at that point - whether to stay at my job in Toronto, or to move back. There were pros and cons to both at the time and I really had a hard time deciding (regardless of what I let on publicly). And God was quiet, the totally silent kind of quiet. Painfully absent, it seemed. And through this experience (and a few others), I began to wonder how much my previous nudges from and experiences with God were a figment of my imagination. I wouldn’t be the first Christian misled by my impression that God was leading me (see the following church history chapters: crusades, witch hunts, slavery - and perhaps on occasion I’ll share my thoughts on the several sad chapters we’re writing in our generation).

In addition to experiences, I started to ask questions I had never asked before - or questions that I had asked, but the old, simple answers that I’d been given no longer sufficed. At the same time, a good friend started asking tough questions and I quickly realized that his questions were better than my answers (I stole that line from "A New Kind of Christian", but it’s exactly what I experienced). And so his questions became my questions. My friend is the thoughtful and skeptical type - he’d like to believe, but finds much of it all (particularly the lives and politics of Christians) unbelievable.

At this point I don’t feel I can be totally transparent. I’d like to share the questions that I had at that point. But there are 2 problems that I can see with that. Firstly, it would distract from what I’m trying to accomplish (which is not to stage a debate). Secondly, I really believe that we all formed "brick wall" faith. Conservative evangelicalism seems to foster that way of thinking, that type of faith development (that is entirely focussed on believing in and adhering to particular propositions or doctrines or theologies as the central part of our religion). I’m not saying that’s all bad (although, it needs some serious tweaking) - what I’m saying is that I don’t want to be responsible for hampering the stability of anyone’s brick wall. I think that would be foolish. I don’t want to cause anyone that kind of pain - especially since I could be wrong.

I will give one example and hopefully it won’t cause a problem. I’ll leave out most of the details to avoid debate. I started to have really strong doubts about 6 day literal creation theory/theology, whatever you want to call it. As I started to wrestle with this, I turned to what seemed like a logical source to quell my doubts: Christian science. It had the opposite effect.

For so much of my life, I had always said that creation vs. evolution was a non-issue. Arguing about the truth on the issue wasn’t relevant - you still have to explain why Jesus isn’t in a tomb. You still have to have an explanation for what Jesus was all about. By the way, I’m back to thinking that. But, at this time, now in the summer of 2007, it wasn’t so simple, as many of you are probably thinking. If you can’t trust the 1st few chapters of the Bible, you can’t trust any of it. However, I took this logic one step further: wanting to establish credibility for the rest of the Bible doesn’t mean you should stick your head in the sand in other parts. Being naive about Genesis doesn’t make the rest of the Bible more true.

Make no mistake. This was not my only question or issue. I just figured it’d be the easiest to summarize. But it was one of my bricks.

Now, for those who are looking for my doctrinal position on this (which would have been my 1st question 3 years ago): I don’t know. Is it possible that God created the earth in 6 literal days less than 10,000 years ago? Sure. Is it possible that He created a "mature" earth that would appear to be billions of years old? Yes. There are still some big evidential issues with those, but it’s certainly possible. Who knows what God did? I’m really not sure. And apparently I’m not the only one. Theologians from Augustine to C.S. Lewis have been wrestling with this and not falling on the side of literal creationism. I took comfort in not being alone, at least at the time.

This and other questions forced me to take a big step back. And that’s a bigger deal than it sounds like. I think this is true universally (and I might be wrong), but it was certainly true for me: I saw my faith, my traditions and practices, and my interpretive use and abuse of the Bible in a totally new way when I stepped back. There are some things that you just can’t see from the inside. And, there are certainly a lot of things you can’t see from the outside. But my new vantage point gave me a very different perspective. I hope you don’t find that offensive - it was totally true for me - and was further confirmed in conversations we’ve had (try explaining church culture to a group of elders who’ve never seen the church from the outside - simply impossible). It’s part of the reason why Evangelicals need to stop shouting at their detractors for just long enough to hear what their detractors are saying - they have some very relevant feedback from the outside. I find it sad that "Unchristian" was such a revelation to the Christian audience. For those who have friends outside our faith, it’s no surprise that Christians are perceived as anything but Christlike.

While on the outside (I really started to think of myself as outsider even though we were still at church), I started working through a whole new set of questions, that I thought were non-theological in nature. However, I’ve since realized that these questions were and are deeply theological - in fact probably closer to God’s heart than my questions about creation, atonement, or election that were causing so much pain. Here’s a sampling of the new questions:

- Why does the general public hate Christians? What have we done to cause it?

- Why are we running from the world? We’ve created Christian schools, Christian music, Christian sports leagues, Christian board games, Christian housing complexes, all so that we can avoid the very people who need to know Jesus. How does that make any sense?

- Why are the people who lack credibility in business as likely to be Christian as non-Christian?

- Why have we so passionately joined the fight against homosexuals? And why are we fighting people we’re supposed to love?

- Why is it the Christians who refuse to believe in global warming? And regardless of global warming, shouldn’t it be the Christians who are the most passionate about caring for God’s creation?

- Jesus is the "Prince of Peace" and taught about forgiveness and turning the other cheek. So, why are Christians (in the US) so unwaveringly supportive of "pre-emptive strikes" and other military aggression?

- Why are the political ideologies of conservative Christians (particularly in the US, but also in Canada) so "anti-poor"? More recently, why is it the other side of the political spectrum fighting for health coverage for the poor? And why are Christians against that?

- Why are we addicted to debates about theology and propositions when Jesus’ life and theology was so practical?

- Has anybody ever read Matthew 25:31-46 (sheep and goats)? Haven’t we missed something really critical about what a truly transformed follower of Jesus looks like? Have we incorrectly defined what it means to be a follower of Jesus?

- Why have I heard more about God’s concern and our responsibility for the poor from Bono than I have in church?

- How about Luke 16:19-31 (rich man and Lazarus)? Isn’t that a crushing indictment of us North American Christians (who are wealthier than 95%+ of the world’s population). Wouldn’t that make the "you can’t take money with you when you die" excuse for shopping a particularly hellish one?

- At what point will Christians get interested in other social justice issues: ie. child sex trade in Cambodia, and the pervasive child slavery that supplies us with all of our clothes and much of our food (and makes our shopping possible)? If we understand Jesus correctly, aren't those the very issues that should be consuming our energy?
　
And there are countless more questions. I don’t see these as arbitrary or unconnected questions just used to poke holes in our faith. I see them as absolutely central and essential in the teachings of Christ. To me, you have to ignore most of the teaching of Jesus to avoid things like social justice, forgiveness, loving your neighbour, and consumerism. And, before you get mad at me, I don’t raise those questions from a position of righteous accomplishment. I raise the questions as a baby follower of Jesus trying to figure out what my faith needs to look like. As I’ve read and re-read the gospels several times over the last 3 years, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve never known Jesus. And, based on my inactivity, it’s hard to know if that’s changed.

But here’s what these questions (and others like them) have made me wonder: if my evangelical faith is unable to answer these questions (or, for the ones that it answers, it answers contrary to the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ), what exactly are evangelicals trying to preserve? One of the major tenants of evangelicalism is the goal of protecting and preserving doctrine, truth, morality, and society. But my questions seem to indicate that what evangelicals want to preserve is void of much of what Christ actually represented. So, in light of these questions, how can we NOT want to rethink our faith (and our Biblical interpretations that underlie it)? How can we NOT wonder what needs to change? Shouldn’t this lead to a new humility where we stop vilifying everyone who happens to think differently than we do (or, more personally, who dares to ask these questions)? Perhaps they’re on to something.

Back when we were still at church, one of the pastors spoke on a passage in the Gospels where Jesus says something to the Pharisees that so infuriates them that they want to kill Him. The pastor pointed out that the Pharisees had 2 problems with their plan/dream of killing Jesus. 1) They were under Roman rule and had no such authority. 2) The general public (the people) loved Jesus. To kill Jesus at that point would have been a PR nightmare. This was a side-bar to the message, but it’s the only part I still remember.

Consider that. The people really liked Jesus (not the religious and political elite, of course, they were the ones who killed Christ and made life miserable for the early church). And contrast that with the reputation of the evangelical church in North America. Jesus came healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the outcast, and preaching a message of repentance and hope - and the people loved Him. We, on the other hand, devote more energy to condemning gay people, vilifying pro-choice supporters, and debating our theories and propositions than we ever give to the poor or any of the other things Jesus did while on earth. Should we be surprised that we're hated? Is it possible that we’re missing the point? Is it possible that we’re mis-interpreting the Bible (if those interpretations seem to foster behaviour and attitudes that are so un-Christlike)? What are we really preserving?

So these are things we’ve been wrestling through, with no noticeable progress. It’s depressing how little our actions have changed. Sometimes it seems like living out the life of Christ is nearly impossible in North America, where our consumption-obsessed culture (inside the church and out) is so void of the heart of Jesus. It’s a sad observation, but not as sad as the reality that my own lifestyle is more at home in North American culture than it would be in Jesus’ world of self-denial and self-sacrifice.

There’s so much more I could say - not in the way of advice - I’m not worth following. There’s just so much more we could share about how our perspective has been transformed. And that’s the point of this blog - not that you would be convinced by us, but rather that you could know us. Maybe it’ll make you think, but please don’t let it make you mad (at us, anyway).

I’m not sure where this all leads - and I really don’t know where our place in it is. I guess that’s the nature of this journey.