Doubt: Part 1.5

I’ve been asked to follow-up with my thoughts in my “Doubt” entry awhile ago. I don’t think this is exactly a full follow-up to my last entry, but more of an extension. Anyway. I’ve had many discussions with just as many people since I wrote that. I’m very thankful for all of them.

I still don’t know what I believe, other than I have hope. Awhile ago, I changed my Facebook religious status to “Hopeful Skeptic”  after reading Nick Fiedler’s blog. Since then, I’ve had a couple interesting responses to it, one of which was a person completely discounting my thoughts on absolutely everything, especially in regards to Christianity. I found it amusing.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I love Jesus’ teachings, but not so much his Church’s teachings, which seem to rarely coincide with one another. I’ve found that the majority of my problem with Christianity and God comes from observing the people who claim to love and follow this religion and that Being, but don’t put their faith into action (save to declare that so-and-so’s cancer is gone or that-guy’s girl problems will go away “in the name of Jesus”).

I recently received a dvd sampler of Donald Miller’s new small group series. He has an interview with Lauren Winner (one of my new favorite authors) who talks about growing up Jewish and her conversion to Christianity. She makes a note along the lines of Christianity is about knowing what you believe while Judaism is about doing what you believe. In Judaism, your faithfulness is shown by how you keep God’s commands, while in Christianity, it’s more of a matter of you saying “I believe” while not having to put anything into practice. I don’t know how many times I’ve expressed my frustration with Christian leaders who are frankly just not good people only to be met with the explanation “Well, all fall short. No one’s perfect.” I think this is such a cop-out answer. If you’re claiming to follow a man who taught his followers to love their neighbors as well as their enemies, how do you find room to do anything except that? How can a Christian be a pastor who likes to spend his time sitting around making fun of others or a worship leader who gives his friends preferential treatment when it comes to being in the worship band?

My other issue, I’ve realized, is that I can’t get behind Western Christianity as a movement because it’s so far from what it started out to be. One of the books I’m reading right now is Lauren Winner’s Girl Meets God. In the first chapter, she talks about how she never liked Messianic Jews. Her friend Stephen tells her, “I like it here [at a Messianic church] because these people are pariahs. They don’t fit in anywhere — not with Jews, not with Christians. Being a Christian means being a pariah, Lauren, it means not fitting in anywhere in this world. Your Episcopalians are no pariahs.” Any denominational name can be put in for Episcopalians. Honestly, I never had an issue with the Church until I started going to a Pentecostal college. I can’t blame all of my problems on the people here, as much as I want to. I think that, like everyone, the people who have made me re-think the whole Christianity thing are just products of their environment, both family and church. I can’t fault them for the way they were raised. I just wish more people were open to questioning the things they’ve been taught to believe.

I still doubt the existence of God on a daily basis, which I’ve realized is not a bad thing, no matter how much my former church(es) would have told me otherwise. I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it again: I might not know what I believe about the existence of God, but it’s hard to get past how much goodness is in Jesus’ teachings. There’s something about them (and him) that I just can’t give up on like I want to. I still have specific questions I’m trying to find answers to, like “What’s the point of prayer?” and “How can people be so sure of what they believe?” Maybe I’ll find out one day.

Since I wrote my first entry, I’ve been actively seeking out what I believe. I’ve been reading a lot of conversion stories (Again, I need to plug Lauren Winner. If you haven’t picked up her book, you really, really should.) and de-conversion stories, lots of early church accounts, and I’ve started going back through Scripture, which is something I haven’t done in a long time.

I’m hopeful that there is a God, particularly one that loves me and everyone else, despite how terrible or how good we are. I’m hopeful that I will learn to love the people who frustrate me, just as I love those who don’t. I’m hopeful that one day I’ll get an answer to all of my questions, whether in this life or the next.

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