Let the doubt shine in

What would the world look like if we all allowed some doubt to shine in on our thoughts, actions, and relationships?

Am I really in the right? Do I really want to say that? Do I really want to trust this person? Do I really want to spend the rest of my life feeling this way?

In church, doubt is usually demonized. In some circles quite literally, with preachers deliberately “casting out” the “demons of doubt.” (I’ll try, but if I were to use quotation marks for every instance of Christianese jargon, these posts would become quite unreadable).

That demonization almost sets you up for failure right from the start, doesn’t it? After all, to doubt is natural, especially when you want to conceive of a realm you can’t see.

And when you think about it, the collection of doctrines the church is in the business of selling has only been growing throughout history. A case in point: the Apostles’ Creed (a confession of faith from the 5th century AD) is 12 lines long, and already there are quite a few statements there that beg some serious unpacking (in the light of quantum physics, what would be “the resurrection of the body,” for example?). The Westminster Confession of Faith from 1646 is already 33 chapters long. The last time I checked the creed of a local denomination that interested me, its teaching was described in 44 founder sermons, New Testament glosses, 26 articles of faith, two confessions of faith, and two separate sets of principles (general and social). This, of course, apart from the internal church law, which ran into about a hundred articles.

No wonder the taboo against doubt is so strong—it needs to be. So is the recurring motif of the modern generations who dare to “pick and choose” what they “want” to believe. You don’t rock the table while playing the Jenga; that much is clear to all players.

But you don’t need to read the creed (!) to get overwhelmed in church. Whatever your beliefs, you’ll likely go there eventually—for better or worse, we are homo religiosus much more than homo sapiens (I think the last two centuries alone have proven that the latter term is merely wishful thinking, a self-aggrandization of an idiot).

So you come to church—and you leave breathless and dizzy, your face muscles cramping up from the smiling, with an extensive add-on to your already chock-full week (quiet time, worship service, prayer group, ministry involvement, family cookout, girls’ night OUT!), a political affiliation, a fresh bout of spiritual hypochondria, and an updated list of people who are ruining the world with their abominable sins. (Isn’t that what toxic partners do? “So you’re thinking of leaving? Wait till you see what’s out there. You’ll never find anybody better”).

It’s impossible to keep up with that long-term. And churches know that, deep down. But they still perpetuate this situation in which the curriculum, as if, is written with the implicit assumption that the students will cheat at exams. So it doesn’t matter how high the bar is set, the exam score will still be acceptable—though the students won’t learn and won’t care.

Any belief likely to emerge in such circumstances will be based on banalities, strawmen arguments, and an insomnia-fueled rut. When questions come, the bluff will be called. I think this is why troubles come, actually— to get us curious first and foremost.

But even without the tough times, the faith of many churchgoers will likely be marred by that cardinal sin: boredom.

In a way, doubt is the act of catching yourself—and I’ll be using this expression a lot in this newsletter (catch yourself offering to help when you can’t afford to, catch yourself socializing when you know you need to spend time alone, catch yourself nodding along to the barrage of Christianese).

As such, doubt has a lot in common with the Christian notion of repentance: it encourages you to tune in to that still small voice that tells you something is not quite right. That whisper of discomfort fades in and out at first, now you hear me now you don’t, and then slowly, seductively, surreptitiously, it just doesn’t go away anymore.

What does it mean?

Do I have to?

Is my body trying to tell me something? (One of my first doubts was, in fact, quite straightforward: If the Holy Spirit really renews our strength, why do I keep feeling so tired all the time? My youth leader listened to my rant, patted me sympathetically on the shoulder, and said, borrowing words from English, “You seem to be going through some tough time.” A short 15 years later, I finally figured it out).

What does it mean to me?

What does this anger tell me?

What does it mean?

What is this triggering, and why?

How does it resonate within me?

What does it mean for me?

This process can be complex and painful, but it needn’t be—it can be freeing and simple (“Do you remember who you were before the world told you who you need to be?”).

However, I do believe much of the stress involved is unnecessarily compounded by the modern (Western?) insistence on resolving this right now, demanding answers right now.

And let’s not forget that in “entertaining” questions, you’re actually courting “spiritual death,” which is quite a scary stick to see wielded at you. Of course, depending on where you are in your doubting journey, you’re soon bound to know this logic for the desperate manipulation it is. But it takes getting there. And you cannot cheat that.

Doubt is a maddeningly slow burn. There is something mystical, almost, in the way it unfolds in unison with the events in your life. Sometimes it circles around you like a roaring lion. Sometimes it breaks your soul in a soft whisper of the wind.

Then maybe, one day, a ghost of an answer calls, so soft-footed and familiar you don’t even recognize it as a stranger at first—is it really a stranger? How long has it been there anyway?

And with a flowering of excitement in the body, you move on in your journey.

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A word of caution: I am not a religious trauma counselor. If you have been hurt by institutionalized religion to the point that it is seriously affecting your daily life (panic attacks, uncontrollable anger, loss of focus, constant triggering, numbness, and out-of-body experiences), I strongly urge you to stop reading and contact a health professional near you. Your pain is real and should be attended to.

For those who care about such matters, the title is inspired by the song Let the sun shine in by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity.