Rachel Held Evans

Good Doubt vs. Bad Doubt: Six Indicators

I know we have spent a lot of time talking about doubt here, and I promise to take a break from the subject over the next few weeks. (Perhaps I should consider giving it up for Lent!) But a few things made another post seem like a good idea.

The first was your response to last week’s post about “Embracing Doubt.” Several of your comments really got me thinking. The second was a blog post written by Mike Duran in which he fairly and respectfully criticizes me and other “emerging” Christians for glorifying doubt. The conversation that followed his post made me realize that perhaps I need to be clearer about what I mean when I talk about doubt.  And the third was an absolutely fantastic post by Dr. Richard Beck entitled “Faith and Doubt After the Cognitive Turn,” which was brought to my attention by a reader. I highly recommend reading the whole piece, but here a few highlights:

…Intellectual doubt has become particularly acute for many Christians due to the fact that there has been a hollowing out of faith in many sectors of Christianity. More specifically, for many Christians faith simply means "belief." Further, "belief" is taken to mean "I think proposition x is true.”…Faith becomes an abstract, intellectual, cognitive, and rationalistic process. And the implication is that if you can't get your intellect in line then you don't have faith...In the bible faith is never understood to be unshakable intellectual confidence. In the bible faith is more similar to perseverance, obedience, covenant faithfulness or worship.

When I read those last few words, I felt as though Beck had said what I’ve been trying to get at for years—that the most important indicator of unhealthy doubt is not having intellectual questions about your beliefs, but failing to obey.

As I’ve said before, the line between healthy doubt (doubting one’s beliefs about God) and unhealthy doubt (doubting God Himself) often gets blurred. Having been through both, I know from experience that one can lead to stronger faith and one can lead to sin.

So with that in mind, I compiled a list of six indicators that can help us measure the health of our doubt.

Three Indicators of Bad Doubt

1. Disobedience

My friend Dave puts it this way, “Belief is always a risk, a gamble—an adventure, if you will. The line between faith and doubt is the point of action. You don't need certainty to obey, just the willingness to risk being wrong.”

When I allow my questions about God to stop me from taking the risk of obedience, I am guilty of sin. When I let intellectual certainty dictate whether I continue to love my neighbors, care for the poor, fellowship with other Christ-followers, study Scripture, pray, serve and love, I become “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6), for I am slave to my cognitive whims.

For example, it is not a sin to have questions about my interpretation of Genesis in light of the science that supports evolution.  It is a sin to allow these questions to kill my prayer life or keep me from reading the Bible altogether.

2.  Entitlement

Entitlement happens when I start demanding answers from God, as if he owes me an explanation for everything.

In the book of Job, God rebukes both Job and his friends. Job was rebuked for his entitlement, for acting as a “faultfinder contending with the Almighty” (Job 40: 1).  Job’s friends were rebuked for claiming to know all the answers about why Job was suffering (Job 42:7). Job repented. His friends did not.  It seems to me that we have to avoid both the sin of entitlement (demanding an explanation) and the sin of pride (assuming we already know it all). Unfortunately, I’ve spent far too much time bouncing between these extremes.

3. Cynicism

As Jeff noted in the comments last week, “I have found it important to not pair up cynicism with my doubt. It's easy to do that, and it does more bad than good, only leading to more restlessness.”

Boy, I can relate to that! There have been times when I have allowed my intellectual objections to some of the tenants of conservative evangelical Christianity turn me into a bitter, argumentative person, eager to play the devil’s advocate at every opportunity. I become cynical of everything evangelical, and I look for ways to belittle those with whom I disagree. This is clearly a sin. Even if I’m right about something, without love, I become nothing more than an annoying, clanging symbol (1 Corinthians 13:1). When I am cynical, I am rendered useless in the Kingdom of God, which is inherited by the poor, the gentle, the meek, and the merciful.

Three Indicators of Good Doubt

1. Obedience

One thing I love about Mother Teresa is that, despite experiencing many days of dark doubt, she continued to serve the people around her.  To me, obedience in the face of doubt is perhaps the strongest kind of faith there is.  

2.  Humility

The best kind of doubt is the kind that springs from humility—from an acknowledgment that we haven’t got God figured out, from a willingness to admit we can be wrong, and from a commitment to think critically about our beliefs. We doubt with humility when we recognize that our theology is not the moon, but rather the finger pointing at the moon.  In this way, I think it is essential that we doubt, for we are not doubting God, but rather ourselves. If we do not learn to question our beliefs, we will grow arrogant and prideful, unwilling to change our minds even when it’s the right thing to do.

3. Love

Love should be our motivation behind everything, particularly doubt. The person who loves God will often choose to struggle through intellectual objections rather than ignore them or succumb to them. The person who loves his neighbors and his enemies will often ask serious questions of himself, of the Church, and of God about how to truly care for them. 

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimply, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:12-13)

In order to embrace the tension between knowing fully and being fully known, we must learn to abide in love. It is even more important than faith.

So, what would you add? What are some other indicators that your doubt is hurting your faith? What are some other indicators that your doubt is strengthening your faith?

What’s on your mind?

I had so much fun interacting with those of you who participated in the “Ask Me Anything” post. The best thing about blogging is the opportunity to connect with smart, fun, and interesting people, and I’m convinced my readers are the best in the blogosphere!

So today I thought I’d turn the tables and ask a few open-ended questions that will give you the chance to share whatever’s on your mind.

Feel free to take the opportunity to pimp your blog, to make Super Bowl predictions, to share with us the challenges you face, to tell a story, to express an opinion, to let us know what you’re reading, to include a link or two, to vent, to celebrate. Think of it as open mic night on the blog.

So,

What have you been thinking about?

What have you been writing about?

What have you been praying about?

Ask me anything!

A few of my blogging buddies—Anne, Jason, and Matt—have tried this recently, so I thought we’d give it a go.

Today you can ask me anything, and I’ll answer.

Well, almost anything. Obviously, I won’t answer questions that are wildly inappropriate or in any way related to math.  I will not give you money, adopt your pets, or pitch your book to my agent unless we have already talked about that. Also, you should know that Dan and I have yet to watch last night’s season premiere of LOST, so theories will have to wait until tomorrow, after we’ve seen it on Hulu.

Besides that, you can ask me anything—about writing, about theology, about politics, about small-town life, about the blog, about The Mission, about monkeys, about Alabama Crimson Tide football, about doubt, about faith, about music, about movies, about publishing, about life. 

Just leave your question in the comments and I'll use the reply feature to respond.

(I’ll answer each question just once, so as to avoid overly lengthy discussions about predestination and free will.)

As Jason said in his post, “If you don't ask any questions, this will be the worst blog post ever. So I'm counting on you.”

Ask away!

Are you a fundamentalist?

Brian McLaren asks that question on his blog today, and frames it like this:

Quiz—

When I am presented with a new idea or proposal, my first question is more likely to be ...

___A. Is it acceptable to my religious/ideological community or belief system?
___B. Is it possibly true, valuable, and worth exploring?

According to McLaren, if your answer is ‘A,’ you are a fundamentalist, and if your answer is ‘B’ then you are curious.

McLaren draws his inspiration from Seth Godin’s definitions for fundamentalism and curiosity. In his excellent book, Tribes, Godin writes:

A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it.  As opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not he wants to accept the ramifications.  A curious person embraces the tension between his religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it.

When I first encountered the quiz, my reaction was, Why of course I’m not a fundamentalist! At least not anymore. I approach every new idea with an open mind and a willingness to embrace the truth no matter the consequences. I’ve voluntarily studied the science behind evolution, despite being told my whole life that it’s incompatible with my faith. I’ve read Richard Dawkins, Thich Nhat Hahn, and Friedrich Nietzsche. I’ve re-evaluated my position on politics, on homosexuality, on biblical inerrancy, on religious pluralism, and on church. I may be a person of faith, but I’m no fundamentalist!

But upon further reflection, I realized that if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that my first question when encountering a new idea is almost always, Does this fit with my faith?  It’s my default—perhaps out of habit, perhaps out of fear, perhaps because it’s part of the human condition to be wary of anything that might upset one’s current paradigm.

In fact, I have the same initial reaction when I am presented with a new perspective on politics or theology. My first question is almost always, Does this fit with what I already believe?  I hate to admit it, but my enthusiasm for exploring a subject is directly proportional to the degree to which I want to change my mind.

The difference, I suppose, is that over the past few years I’ve learned that my faith is strong enough to withstand new ideas and hard questions. I no longer let the question Does this fit with my faith? stop me from exploring. If all truth is God’s truth, then I figure I’ve got nothing to be afraid of.

I love Godin's perspective on fundamentalism and curiosity, and I'd like to think that I’m the kind of person who “embraces the tension between [her] religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it.”

But this is a learned response for me, not a natural one. I’m afraid that my gut reaction will always be A, not B. I'm afraid that, deep down, I'm a fundamentalist at heart.

What about you? Based on this quiz, are you a fundamentalist?

Embracing Doubt

So Jason Boyett and I have been talking about the fact that we’re not the only ones writing about doubt these days. In addition to Jason’s memoir, O Me of Little Faith (due out in May), and my memoir, Evolving in Monkey Town (due out in July), Zondervan has re-released John Ortberg’s book on the subject, now entitled Know Doubt.

Either the folks at Zondervan are having a collective faith crisis, or the evangelical community is finally opening up about doubt.

On the blogosphere this week, Scot McKnight posted a letter from a young adult wrestling with doubts about his faith. Scot’s response was absolutely fantastic, and something I desperately wish I had encountered five years ago, when I first started asking serious questions about Christianity.  He recommended a few books that I plan to order on my oh-so-old-school Kindle: The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor and Faith at the Edge by Robert Wennberg.

Also online, check out John Frye’s piece entitled “Doubters Arise!” and the very cool illustrations of David Hayward at NakedPastor.com, from where I got the illustration above, (after buying David a beer, of course). 

And finally, I thought the conversation that followed Monday's post, "Does God Speak to You?" was one of the best we have ever had here, and I was so moved by your stories, many of which included your struggles with doubt.

All of this points to what I hope is a trend toward talking more openly about doubt and acknowledging the vital role it can play in shaping our faith. As I’ve mentioned before, doubt can take two forms—questioning God and questioning what we believe about God. Having experienced both, I know that the first can be destructive, while the second can be enriching and beneficial, though admittedly the line between them can sometimes get blurred.  But I remain convinced that serious doubt, the kind that leads to despair, does not begin when we start asking God questions, but when out of fear, we stop.

What do you think? Are Christians developing a more nuanced attitude toward doubt? Do you feel it is becoming less  taboo to talk openly about your questions about Christianity? Is this a good thing?

Send us a postcard!

Here’s a fun way to get to know one another better.

Send a “postcard” from:

1. Your current hometown.

2. The most far-away place you have ever been.

3. The place you would most want to be if you could snap your fingers and go now.

Feel free to include as many details as you please!

I’ll start.

1. Dayton, Tennessee—home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.

2. India—where the sights, sounds, colors, tastes and smells are impossible to describe. (I took the picture at the Red Fort in Delhi.)

3. Glacier National Park, Montana—the most beautiful spot in America, though I would want to wait until summer to be there!