Culture, society, technology, news and opinions – almost everything today is moving at a distressingly fast pace. The next new shiny thing, the next world disaster, the next scientific and technological breakthrough and (dare I say it) the next Brexit update often sees us getting into bed each night with our heads spinning, and our hearts racing. Curiosity is celebrated, risk is generally admired, truth is relative and we are told there are absolutely no absolutes – except death of course. The currency of our culture is measured in likes and followers, but really for the most part, it’s simply a bandage that is doing a bad job of trying to hide rising levels of anxiety and uncertainty their much of our culture are feeling. This is a collage of the world we live in.
Sandwiched in and amongst this amalgamation of progress and chaos, followers of ‘the way’, who are nestled in every nook, corner and cranny of the world continue to try and work out what it means to apprentice themselves to Jesus. Over two thousand years the Great Commission has not changed an iota, but the cultural landscape, especially in the west is vastly different. Let’s not kid ourselves that we now have the hardest job of any generation when it comes to ‘knowing Jesus and making him known’ – because every single generation, including those first disciples had a whole heap of cultural and societal challenges themselves – echoes of which are seen in many countries in the East today.
However, the church, for all its perceived (sometimes fairly, and often times unfairly) stereotypes, through all the knock backs and knock downs, after every time it has been written off by the crowd as irrelevant or dying, continues nevertheless undeterred and unperturbed in its march towards its mission, to make Jesus known. A far cry away from the doom and gloom reports of a limping and corrupted institution of outdated religion – certainly from where I’m sitting – couldn’t be further from the truth. The message and mission of the church is as powerful, as transformative and as heart stoppingly beautiful as it was at its inception.
With all this being said though, I have found contextually in the UK, that many of the churches casualties are often it’s children who grow up within her. Particularly, when leaving their home, town or city to start pursuing further education, a new career or to begin their own lives anew in some other way.
Why is this so? This question can’t be answered in a single blog post – or indeed probably not even in a single book, but being privileged to be in a leadership position in the local church for just 7 years, there is one issue I have seen surface continually – the subject of doubt.
Doubt is an issue I think we in the church have historically been afraid of. Doubt has the ability and tenacity to tear down and destroy, however, often unbeknown to us, it also has the ability to lead to a more robust and resilient faith, and even bring the most hardened sceptics to the foot of the cross.[1]
Doubt is an issue I think we in the church have historically been afraid of. Doubt has the ability to tear down and destroy, however, it can also be the catalyst to a more robust and resilient faith. Click To TweetWe often don’t see doubt as an opportunity though, we can’t get past viewing it as an enemy, not knowing it can just as easily become a double agent and an ally. We try desperately to quash doubt in its infancy, when we see it pop its head above the parapet in our congregation and acquaintances, not realising rarely is it demolished but continues to grow and bubble under the surface.
If you were brought up in a Christian home, with a loving Christian family, a local church community and mixing mostly with people who believe what you do, and do what you do, inevitably, your worldview will have been shaped and formed through a Christian lens. For all intents and purposes as you grew up this worldview has been left untampered and seems largely impenetrable, you never have had need to question or explore its intricacies and nuances – it is, just what it is.
However, all this can change on a pinpoint when you move away from home, going off to university for example. As you move into your new halls, you’ll be greeted by people who are totally unlike you – they don’t dress the same, speak the same, and definitely do not believe the same!
As your assaulted senses adjust to the cacophony of sights, smells and sounds that are totally foreign to you, you slowly begin to adjust to life outside of the safety net of home. As the days turn to weeks, and weeks to months, both you and your flatmates begin to explore, talking to each other and sharing your stories. You will soon find that, that worldview that has been left largely untouched, and the one you have been totally invested in will inevitably begin to be poked, prodded and challenged.
Finding yourself in the midst of people who are totally unlike you in every way shape or form can be disarmingly unnerving. Each, including you, holds to their own specific paradigm, and each for the most part, thinks that theirs is best and only correct one.
Incrementally all the things that you have unswervingly held as ‘gospel truth’ are being not only questioned, but pulled apart. The beliefs that have formed not only your thinking are sneered at and pulled apart (funnily often by people who you perceive as much more intelligent than you!). Not only your peers are doing this but as it becomes known you are a Christian, maybe even your professors, who command respect across campus, and have multiple letters after their name, say with calm confidence that your beliefs simply are playful fantasies. Piece by piece confidence in your faith begin to ebb, and then flow away.
It is estimated that upwards of 70% of churched young adults who go off to university don’t connect with a church in their new towns or cities[2]. I would not be ignorant enough to surmise that this is purely because when they get there, their Christian worldviews are challenged by their peers (and sometimes even their professors) but surely somewhere hidden in that huge percentage this plays significant part.
As conversation evolves, cracks begin to appear in everything you have held dear, and doubt begins to seep into the principles and beliefs that are the foundation of who you are. A sense of unease begins to mount within you as you begin to question the unquestionable and doubt the divine.
Of course this situation plays itself out thousands of times a day, and by no means is it bound just to young adults in university halls and lecture theatres but this same scenario plays itself out day in and day out in indefinable guises to men and women of all ages in office cubicles, cafés, new relationships, family get together and innumerable other places. The feelings this evokes though are always the same. It can feel like a death sentence to all you have ever known.
We have two options when we face this type of situation– get defensive, talk louder than the critics (who more often than not if they’re in relationship with you aren’t doing this from a place of angst but rather to understand) holding a hand in front of their face whilst extracting ourselves from the conversations. Or front up, take its hand and begin a journey of exploration and understanding seeking to find out not only why you believe what you believe, but why you should believe what you believe.
Of course the second option is always the better one. The first wraps a fragile faith in cotton wool, and often makes you look stubborn and unreasonable. We can only piggy back on the faith of our parents, friends or pastors for so long before we have to learn to stand on our own two feet, there must be a time when we have to stop being childish relying on everyone else and simply what we have been told, and instead begin to make our own way in our faith (see 1 Corinthians 13:11).
My eldest son Judah is five, and at the minute is going through a season where he is waking up in the night crying with growing pains. As his muscles and bones begin to stretch and grow, it is enabling him to one day become a man. We all want to grow – we often forget that this means growing pains, and what is true physically is true spiritually too. Growing can be difficult. It is hard to front up to difficult questions that come at us, and consequently the doubt that can often rise within us.
Doubt can almost be perceived as a swear world in faith circles, a young person asking probing and difficult questions can be seen as annoying, irreverent or even rebellious. Often times those who shut down the difficult questions promptly and curtly, and without explanation, do so because they have gone through the same experiences but instead to chosen the first option – to blindly believe everything their parents or pastors have said and never experienced the truth of what they have been told for themselves.
Experience. Here is a key and catalytic word that we must not pass over quickly. Experienced truth, or how I want to better define it KNOWLEDGE, I believe is the linchpin to the ‘abundant life’ Jesus calls us to in John 10:10. It is knowledge of Jesus which evolves a seemingly dead, cold faith made up of information, rules and regulation to a vibrant multifaceted faith that results in real and authentic relationship with Jesus.
There is a huge disparity between information and knowledge although often times these words are used interchangeably. For clarity, this is how I would define them:
INFORMATION: Fact that is stated.
KNOWLEDGE: Fact that is felt and experienced.
Or think of it like this, information is what is needed to pass a history test, knowledge is what is needed to pass your practical driving test. Cold stated facts, dates time and places for the first test, movement, experience and ‘felt information’ for the second. This is why (certainly in my opinion) that the most ingeniously communicated sermons, the funniest illustrations and most skilfully played worship songs pale in front of the nerve-racked teenager, who stands up on a platform, with shaking hands and a crumpled piece of paper and simply, and stutteringly shares their journey of faith.
Piggy-backed faith (believing because that’s what others have told you to believe) is made up primarily of information sharing. Facts, times dates and places passed down through the generations, handed down through dusty tomes – memorised scripture that makes you look clever, but the truth of which has never hit the soil of your spirit and come to fruition. Knowledge though, whilst I believe can certainly be imparted through books and preaching of the word by the power and work of the Holy Spirit – is something we are invited to partake in ourselves. It is the invitation to stop listening to the person who is neck deep in the pool explain the temperature and feeling of the water, and instead to shed your towel, walk to side and jump in – experiencing it for yourself. We must not simply believe because someone tells us too, we should believe because we have immersed ourselves in a search of truth. Information will fill our brain, knowledge will aid formation of our soul.
We must not simply believe because someone tells us too, we should believe because we have immersed ourselves in a search of truth. Information will fill our brain, knowledge will aid formation of our soul. Click To Tweet
Life changing questions can be shooed away as an inconvenience, with the searcher left feeling rebuked and lacking in faith, yet many times these questions are not to disrupt the order of how things are done, and they’re not disobedient acts of a rebellious person, instead they are the corridor the searcher is walking to get to the door that opens to an arena of experience. Doubt, and questioning are so often framed as the enemy when in actual fact they are just a step on the stairway to discovery.
Thomas the Apostle has been (unfairly in my opinion!) etched forever in history as doubting Thomas, yet at the time he acquired this not-so-catchy nickname, he was the only disciple who had not yet seen Jesus (John 20:24-29). We conveniently forget that none of the other disciples believed Mary when she first told them that Jesus had risen too! (Mark 16:11). As soon Thomas doubted, Jesus didn’t hide himself away, he turned up! His whole life has been marked by a moment of doubt, which ended up being the very catalyst to propel him to a new revelation of Jesus. Doubt should not be perceived as an enemy, and questions not as disobedient or disrespectful – instead let’s see them both as opportunities, catalysts, to shape a more informed, robust and resilient faith.
Doubt should not be perceived as an enemy, and questions not as disobedient or disrespectful – instead let’s see them both as opportunities, catalysts, to shape a more informed, robust and resilient faith. Click To Tweet
Doubt is most certainly uncomfortable when it is first felt…for the searcher and for the support network that had instilled the worldview that the searcher has been formed by– but when doubt is pursued and not left unchecked, time and time again an opportunities to evolve information into knowledge will present itself.
When we have the confidence and the audacity to front up, and engage with our doubts, making an informed and concerted effort to explore, rarely will we leave unsatisfied. Our faith will grow, the leaks will be stoppered up and we will have a newfound confidence, that even when questions are asked of us, and we don’t immediately have a vigorous and buoyant answer, we will have no qualms in simply saying “That’s a great question, I really don’t know the answer – but please allow me to get back to you”.
Sometimes these explorations will take minutes, sometimes it may take years, but we shouldn’t be afraid to explore seeking the help and advice of people who are further on the journey than us. In a world that is moving at an alarmingly unprecedented rate in nearly every sector, where truth is non-existent and we are often reminded that our tomorrows are not guaranteed, live in pursuit of knowledge asking the Holy Spirit to guide you into a deeper, experiential, childlike, yet not childish faith, that will see the Kingdom of heaven not just be something to look forward to ‘later on’ but is evidently ‘here and now’ through you and I, the body of Christ.
[1] For a really good example of this let me recommend three fantastic books of authors who emphasise this:
1. The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
2. Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi
3. Letters from a Skeptic by Gregory A. Boyd.
[2] I think it was Fusion who presented this stat although I can’t be sure!
