Doubt and Certainty

After taking a few days off from the blog to prepare and participate in the religious observances of Easter weekend I’m back at it. I had hoped to finish this series during Holy Week but found that I ran out of time and energy. This is the eighth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It is a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

I participate in a church culture in which any kind of doubt is viewed as suspect and I tend to hide my own struggles with faith behind a veneer of certainty. For that I am sorry.

Well, I did it again. Just yesterday. As the pastor who led Easter worship said, “He is risen!” I responded, “He is risen indeed!” The thing is, I didn’t just join in this Easter tradition.  I was the one who pieced together the parts of the liturgy in which we said it. I was responsible for including it in our worship.

For a Christian there is no more important article of belief. We believe that Jesus rose from the dead. To affirm that belief with certainty has been the definition of Christianity for a very long time. A Christian is someone who believes that Jesus is God and that he died on a cross and was raised from the dead. It has codified in creeds and doctrines for thousands of years. For many, many people, if you can’t say that Jesus is risen from the dead with certainty then you aren’t really a Christian.

As a part of the religious establishment I find myself participating in this culture out of habit and out of a sense of obligation. These are the things that have been passed on to me. It is what I have been taught in my upbringing and in seminary. It would seem downright weird to hear the congregation respond to “He is risen!” with a resounding, “We have no doubt something important happened but can’t be certain exactly what.” I can call what I do tradition but when tradition fails to convey meaning then it has simply devolved into a habit for me.

The problem is that traditions do carry meaning for a lot of people. Just because it has lost its meaning in my life doesn’t mean that it has lost meaning for everyone. So I feel obligated to use forms of liturgy that convey certainty of belief for other’s sake.

One of the biggest surprises I have found in ministry is the way people pin their beliefs on their pastor. Peter Rollins explores this in his book Insurrection at length. In my experience people have attacked me for expressing even the slightest bit of doubt or for even questioning an article of faith. It seems that many people simply want to believe in belief. When they struggle in their own lives to believe, they want to know that someone has the kind of unshakable belief they aspire to. Often that person is a pastor. So when the pastor hints at personal doubt it forces others to deal with their own questions and uncertainty.  Maybe forcing them to do that is the loving thing to do. But this comes at a pretty serious cost to the pastor who is willing to do that. People will try to destroy or get rid of pastor as being “unfaithful” before they turn to the pain of their own shaky faith.

The other reason I hide my own struggles with faith is because it can indeed feel like I have lost my faith. It can feel like I’m abandoning so much of what I believe when I start asking myself questions like, “Can I be a Christian even if I admit some uncertainty about Jesus’ resurrection?” or “Is this passage from the Bible really what God wants for us or was it inserted by someone for other reasons?”  If I combine these feelings of lost faith with the insistence of others to be rock-solid-certain of my beliefs then add that to the sense of obligation I have for those who rely on the traditional forms of expressing faith, I sometimes feel like I have no choice but to hide my struggles behind a veneer of certainty.

One of the most amazing discoveries that I have made recently is that I can enter these places of doubt and questioning and still have a strong faith without ever coming to a resolution about them. There is something much deeper than the questions and doubts. And as unsettling as doubts and questions can be I also find a great comfort and even joy in the fact that I can explore these dark places. Now as I read the Bible I see more and more uncertainty written within its pages. I see people and communities struggling to come to grips with the meaning of life. Sometimes they choose ways that prove to be beneficial and sometimes they choose ways that aren’t.  I’m also finding that I enjoy working with people who want to engage their own faith on a deeper level by struggling with questions and doubt.

The question that haunts me right now is whether or not the culture of certainty that has taken root in the church can be transformed. I am skeptical but not without hope. When I read articles by people who are leaving the church but staying engaged in their faith it gives me hope that even if the church can’t be transformed, a new way of being church will be born that will welcome all doubts and questions as a path to greater faith.