I'm a Christian who struggles with lots of doubts. So I'm very sympathetic to those who struggle with doubts. Whether it's other Christians or those outside the faith who wrestle with their own doubts about becoming Christian. But there's also something I've begun noticing in myself that gives me pause.
Judgementalism.
I've detected this not because I have a window into another's soul. It's my own darkness. I'm guilty. I've detected this because it's a sin I've succumbed to. You look at people who don't struggle with doubts -- don't struggle with the reality of horrific suffering or problems with the biblical text -- and wonder if there isn't something wrong with them. Maybe they are just too fearful. Maybe they just aren't smart enough.
Me? Well, I'm smart and courageous. So I doubt.
I'm tempted here to go off into another riff about how we tend to build our self-esteem over against others. In this case, religious doubt is used to pat ourselves on the back, to enhance our self-concept, a means to engage in self-flattery in relation to the mindless crowds going to church on Sunday.
Our doubts, rooted as they are in our fearless questioning, set us apart from the blinkered, believing masses in the pews.
I'm over-stating all this, I know. But you get the idea. This dynamic is real. It's widespread. And I'm tired of it in myself.
So, what I'm asking others to help me with is to develop a more gracious doubt. A doubt that is generous to others, no matter how they read the Bible, or pray, or worship, or seek divine intervention, or handle the problem of pain.
There's nothing in your doubt or lack of doubt, your questioning or your certainty, that has anything to do with me. We are all, to use a biblical phrase, working out our own salvation with great fear and trembling. So let us be generous and welcoming of each other. Let us make room for each other. Especially in our hearts.
This past weekend I experienced this level of judgmentalism for my own doubts and it's bothered me ever since.
May we learn to be gracious doubters.