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.
