Faith in the Fog: On Losing Beliefs and Finding God

 

This is Part 5 of my ‘Faith In The Fog’ series on my experiences with doubt, skepticism, mental health and forging a different kind of faith.

< Part 4: Love as our Compass

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There are certain ways Christians talk about God that turn me into an atheist.

I can’t help it. As much as I try to ignore it, my inner skeptic is constantly on the lookout for holes in the God theory. It will find a loose thread and keep tugging until the whole thing unravels. Before I know it, my cherished beliefs in a loving God have disintegrated and I’ve unwittingly written off the entire Christian faith as superstitious nonsense.

Any troubling question or rogue thought can trigger this unravelling process. But few things give my inner skeptic a firmer foothold than Christians making statements of apparent certainty regarding their beliefs.

We are certain that God will prevent this bad thing from happening.

This is definitely what will happen when we die.

This is the one correct interpretation of this two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old passage of Hebrew scripture.

Really?

Sometimes I feel like being a Christian requires me to switch off my brain altogether.

Now, this confidence and assuredness seems to work for a lot of people. But for me, an assertion like that is all it takes for the fog to descend. Questions and doubts start spinning around my overzealous monkey brain, rapidly eroding any hope I had that this Christianity thing might be true.

You see, I was brought up to believe that Christianity was mainly about believing in certain doctrines. The main function of the church seemed to be to help me understand these doctrines, and to convince me of just how correct they were. If I was ever to lose my faith in said doctrines, well, let’s just say my fire insurance policy would be null and void.

The lingering effect of this particular introduction to Christianity is that I still have an underlying, often subconscious assumption that correct beliefs are the point of it all. So when doubt sets in and my beliefs begin to evaporate before my eyes, it’s no surprise that my gut response is usually to panic.

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A different kind of knowing

I strongly suspect that whenever any of us get too caught up in the specifics of belief – whether we are confidently asserting faith in a particular doctrine or being thrown into blind panic by our doubt – we are missing the point.

The thing about a subject like God is that it is, by definition, beyond our understanding. So when we use language to describe God, our words are never going to accurately represent the reality we are describing.

The writers of the Bible use metaphors, symbolism and poetic language to describe their experiences of God, simply because this is the closest we humans can get to conveying a reality so far beyond ourselves. These poems and metaphors can be true in the deepest sense without being scientifically provable.

We Christians tend to cling to our beliefs because they provide a reassuring framework in which everything is categorised and understood. But in doing so we risk losing the very heart of Jesus himself, who insisted upon disrupting our ideological constructs, defying our expectations and merging our categories.

This does not sit well with us. We modern, post-enlightenment folk like to have control; to have things neatly encapsulated within our understanding. If something is true, surely we must be able to nail it down and explain how it works. We like to think we can know about God in the same way we can know about the mechanics of a car or the anatomy of an insect. But seeking objective knowledge about God is like chasing the wind. A subject like God requires a different kind of knowing.

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So when the questions start to whirl and the and the panic of unwilling atheism sets in (which it does on a fairly regular basis), I have to remind myself that my beliefs about God are not the foundation of my faith.

I will not find God by thinking harder, by using the power of reason to convince myself intellectually that a particular set of beliefs are true.

But if I instead focus my energy on walking in the way of Jesus – loving my neighbour, practising forgiveness, standing against injustice and speaking out for those who have no voice – I wonder if I might just find myself staring God in the face.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable. I would love to have all the answers. But I think that would make me God, and I suspect I don’t have the qualifications.

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Expanding our God vocabulary

I wonder if the church might have an easier time relating to people today if it was willing to think creatively and expand its vocabulary of God metaphors.

I think one of our biggest problems is that we are still a bit stuck with the idea of God being up there, occasionally intervening down here. Like some sort of cosmic super-genie, granting wishes from above. But the whole point of the Jesus story is that God is with us. The curtain in the temple was torn in two, and there is no longer any separation. God is not looking down on us, demanding appeasement and hurling blessings and curses from on high – that’s what every other god in the ancient world did. According to the New Testament, this God is in the sweat, blood and dirt of our lives, with us in our weakness and in some mind-boggling way, suffering alongside us.

If my doubt and confusion feel like a fog, then God is in that fog, not hidden behind it.

When I’m losing faith in a particular statement or belief about God, it helps me to remember that there are many other God metaphors I can turn to if the more traditional ones lose their appeal.

I can choose to think of God as Source, breath, ultimate reality, Ground of Being…

The energy and luminescence behind all of life…

The Divine Mother who nourishes us within her womb…

The unquenchable spark of humanity…

The light that pierces the darkness…

The ocean that surrounds us, saturating all things…

The unspeakable beauty woven into the very fabric of the universe.

These ideas are deliberately vague; they aren’t meant to stand up to scientific scrutiny. Some things can only be described poetically, because to try and literalise them would reduce their meaning. As with all language attempting to describe the indescribable, they are abstract words, none of which contain God, so I hold them with a loose grip. But with a wide repertoire of God metaphors at hand, it’s easier to prevent my inner skeptic from denying God’s existence altogether.

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In letting go of concrete beliefs as the foundation of my faith, I dare to hope that I am more open to experiencing the reality of the presence of God in this moment. God in the soil, in the breeze, in laughter, in the faces of strangers I would usually avoid, and in the last places on earth I would think to look.

Without my own fixed ideas and constructs limiting my perception, my eyes can be opened to the mystery of the divine, loving presence that infuses everything, pulsing through my veins and filling the air I breath.

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“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands…

…For in him we live and move and have our being.”         Acts 17:24,28

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I have lots more to say. Subscribe via email to receive updates when I publish posts.

If you want to get in touch and share your own thoughts or experiences you can leave comments, find me on Facebook or Twitter or email musicineverysound@gmail.com.

< Part 4: Love as our Compass

 

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A Biblical Case for the Support of Same-Sex Marriage

 

This guest post was written by Katie van Santen

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One of two statements is often heard in regards to an individual’s position on same-sex attraction, which can be paraphrased as:

“I take the ‘traditional’ view because I believe what’s in the Bible”

or

“I take the ‘reformed’ view because of a family member or friend”.

However, both views have the support of biblical interpretation. Those taking the ‘reformed’ view do not reject biblical authority, but have a different interpretation of the texts to those who take the ‘traditional’ view.

Sometimes the context of a passage means the ‘surface’ or literal reading is the least important in terms of truth about God and our relationship with Him. Scripture is authoritative because it is the Word of God, and we must seek what God says through the Bible, rather than what the Bible says: ‘the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ (2 Corinthians 3:6).

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History

Views on marriage have changed dramatically over time, and our perception of ‘biblical’ marriage is very different to that of the Israelites or first-century Jews. Only relatively recently have we begun to understand the biology, psychology and sociology that underpins the human condition. The definition of ‘traditional, biblical’ marriage as ‘a covenant between one man and one woman for life’ also raises questions regarding the changing attitudes to divorce and remarriage, which won’t be covered further here.

For most of history women were property (Exodus 20:17). The purpose of marriage was to produce legitimate heirs to inherit without dispute. In Hebrew culture, marriages were arranged by the fathers and were purely civil, with no religious ceremony. Often while still children, a bride-price was agreed, a contract was signed, and the couple were betrothed. The bride remained in her father’s house. Once the couple were both old enough, and the money had been saved, a date for the wedding was set. The groom and companions came to the bride’s home, paid the bride-price, and the marriage was consummated. Thus, Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, Ephesians 5:31: ‘a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’. The whole wedding party then processed to the groom’s house for the wedding feast, where the bride remained in her husband’s house. The Bible is unclear as to what defines marriage: in the Old Testament wives and concubines held different status, yet Jesus says that once two become ‘one flesh’ God has joined them together (Matthew 19:5-6), and Paul (1 Corinthians 6:15-16) uses the same ‘one flesh’ language for sex with a prostitute as for marriage.

Priests only became involved in Christian marriages the 12th Century and it became a sacrament of the church in the 16th Century. The Reformers declared that marriage was purely secular. The Book of Common Prayer (1662) lists the purpose of marriage as “the procreation of children; a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; and the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other” without reference to love. The idea of romantic attraction and personal choice of partner were raised in the Enlightenment and popularised only by the Victorians. The Old Testament permitted polygamy (Deuteronomy 21:16-17), handmaids (Genesis 16:1-4) and concubines (Genesis 22:24), along with slavery; women had to marry their rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). There are still Christians who believe that 1 Corinthians 7:4 and Ephesians 5:23 permits marital rape as an outworking of the husband’s authority.

Sexuality is a term created by psychologists in the late 19th century. Prior to that there was no concept of sexual orientation, only heterosexual and homosexual practices. From the 14th Century, a ‘sodomite’ was one who performed the act of ‘sodomy’ (anal sex with the same or opposite sex). Therefore there is no concept of our modern understanding of homosexuality in the Bible, nor of monogamous homosexual relationships; the term “homosexuality” was first used in a biblical translation in 1946. As marriage was for procreation and property, there could be no concept of same-sexual marriage until the recent changes in attitudes towards love, women and legitimacy. That there are no examples in the Bible doesn’t stop us driving cars, using plastic, and eating chocolate.

Therefore our ‘traditional’ and ‘biblical’ understanding of marriage, and our ‘traditional’ position on monogamous same-sex relationships has very little historical basis.

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Scripture

There are few mentions of homosexual activity in the bible. Those that are presented as condemning homosexuality are discussed here with contextual and cultural background that point to a different interpretation.

Genesis 19:1-10

Gang rape has nothing to do with homosexuality. It is an act of power and violence. In the similar story of Judges 19:22-26, the men were satisfied to rape a woman instead of the man they asked for. In addition to inhospitality, Ezekiel 16:49 says that the sin of Sodom was arrogance, greed, neglect of the poor and needy, and pride.

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13

Some Levitical laws make sense to us today, clearly intending to keep the population healthy and free from disease (i.e. blood, mildew, pork). Other laws were for ritual purity, setting Israel apart from the surrounding nations (Leviticus 18:1-5, 20:23-24). Some we accept as still being ‘applicable’ (murder, theft, incest) while others we have allowed to be ‘of their time’ (cloth made of two fibres, shellfish, sideburns). Some authors put these verses into a temple-prostitution context: the Hebrew tow’ebah elsewhere means ritual impurity and idolatry. Adrian Thatcher (2011) suggests that, in the context of the patriarchal society, it is the phrase ‘as a woman’ that is most informative: treating a man as a woman, therefore degrading his status to that of property, is the catastrophic transgression.

Romans 1:26-27

Paul was writing to Christians in Rome, a place that worshipped a pantheon of gods, including acts of both male and female temple prostitution to confer favourable fertility. Paul condemns men and women who glorify false gods and give up their ‘natural relations’ for shameful acts ‘inflamed with lust’: idolatry, promiscuity, and temple prostitution for self-seeking ends are Paul’s target. If these men and women gave up their ‘natural’ desires they were not, by our current understanding, homosexual.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10

The NIVUK (2011) translates 1 Corinthians 6 as “nor men who have sex with men… will inherit the kingdom of God” with a footnote referencing two Greek terms meaning “the passive and active participants in homosexual acts”. The terms are malakos and arsenokoites. The latter of these also appears in 1 Timothy 1.

Malakos appears four times in the New Testament, of which three are translated as ‘soft’ in relation to fine clothing (Matthew 11:8; Like 7:25). In other Greek texts it is used to mean metaphorically ‘soft’, i.e. spineless in the face of injustice, or lacking self-control, rather than effeminate or homosexual.

Arsenokoites appears only in these two passages. In other Greek literature it references exploitation and abuse of the poor. In 1 Timothy 1 it is sandwiched between pornos, a male/boy prostitute, and andrapodistes, a slave dealer. Therefore arsenokoites (literally ‘male-bedder’) appears in the context of abuses of power rather than a loving, monogamous homosexual relationship. Many believe it refers to ‘pederasty’ – the normal Greek and Roman practice of an older man having a sexual relationship with a younger man or boy, slave, or social inferior, in addition to his wife and/or male and female prostitutes.

Without support from these six scriptures, there is nothing biblically that condemns monogamous homosexual relationships. In the context of the Bible as a whole, these passages are better interpreted as speaking against social injustice, exploitation of power, and idolatry for one’s own gain. Scripture also tells us that it is ‘not good for [a hu]man to be alone’ (Genesis 2:18), that not all are called to singleness (1 Corinthians 7:9), and that a tree is recognised by its fruit (Luke 6:43-44). 

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Celebrating Diversity

Humanity, in its collective entirety, was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27: in the image of God… he created them). God is not gendered or sexual. In the second account of creation (Genesis 2:4ff) God made Adam (2:7), and later Eve (2:21). There is no record of any in-between, yet Jesus mentions eunuchs that were ‘born that way’ (Matthew 19:12). There are individuals who are born with ambiguous anatomy, mono- or poly-sex chromosomes, excess or deficiency in hormone production and/or hormone receptors. Anatomical and hormonal changes can also be acquired. There is a spectrum in sexual desire from asexual to hypersexual, and in sexual attraction from heterosexual through bisexual to homosexual. There is diversity in human biology and sexuality beyond the simple ‘male’ and ‘female’ dichotomy.

Creation is full of glorious diversity and God saw that creation was ‘very good’. Yet we inconsistently label some of this diversity as ‘good’ and some a ‘result of the fall’. This means that questions of affirming LBGTQ+ identity also must extend to other aspects of diversity: how we treat people based on their race, gender, ethnicity, ability, class, age, wealth, size, health, as well as sexuality. The primary ‘label’ of a human is just that: a human, a person, a child of God. All other aspects of their identity are secondary to the core that they are created loved and lovable.

Over history the Church (as a whole) has acted, in its well-intentioned desire to authentically follow Jesus, to make individuals feel that they are unworthy of love because of their identity. The Church took a ‘biblical’ position on slavery, racism, anti-Semitism, and the inferiority of women until reason and experience prevailed. Then a fresh understanding of the context of the supporting texts allowed reinterpretation of the Bible and consequentially a changed belief.

Dr David Gushee reminds us: “We must cling to Jesus’ example and the way he conducted his ministry… If we do we might notice his warnings about religious self-righteousness and contempt for others deemed to be sinners; his embrace of outcasts and marginalized people; his attacks on those religious leader types who block access to God’s grace…; and perhaps above all his death on the cross for the sins of all of us, beginning with each of us as “chief of sinners.” We must focus tightly on Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. 

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Sources/Further reading

Rev KV Alias on biblical marriage
Rev Lindsay Louise Biddle on homosexuality in the Bible
Rev Justin Canon on homosexuality in the Bible
Rev Justin Gau on Kingdom Values: Mercy
Dr David Gushee on LGBT in church
Justin Lee on homosexuality in the Bible
Adam Philips on homosexuality in the Bible
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy Homosexuality
Prof Adrian Thatcher on LGBT inclusion (pdf)
Prof Adrian Thatcher on biblical interpretation (pdf)
Prof Adrian Thatcher (2011) God, Sex and Gender: An Introduction (Wiley Blackwell)

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Katie van Santen lives in Plymouth with some lego and quite a few books. She has just completed her Certificate of Higher Education in Theology, Ministry and Mission. Currently she is not a marine biologist or science teacher due to disability, but keeps herself busy as a volunteer aquarium host, visiting preacher, and Fairy Godmother.

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Image via Pixabay

 

Faith in the Fog: Love as our Compass

 

This is Part 4 of my ‘Faith In The Fog’ series on my experiences with doubt, skepticism, mental health and forging a different kind of faith.

< Part 3: Making Peace with the Messiness of the Bible

Part 5: On Losing Beliefs and Finding God >

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‘Deconstruction‘ is a bit of a buzzword at the moment in some Christian circles. For various reasons, many of us have found ourselves dismantling our belief systems and questioning long-held assumptions.

For some people, the deconstruction experience can be overwhelmingly positive and freeing. They are able to see things from refreshing new perspectives and discard aspects of their belief system that were oppressive or harmful.

For others, faith deconstruction can be like losing a parent. Utterly devastating and disorientating.

My experience has been a bit of both. Sometimes, deconstructing feels great. It feels like I’m standing on the edge of a whole new world of possibilities. My faith is renewed and I am filled with hope, content to revel in the mystery and wonder of it all.

Other times I feel like I’m stumbling around in a dense fog, desperately grasping for something to help me find my way, something to give meaning and assurance. (I plan to address the emotional and mental health issues surrounding faith deconstruction later in this series.)

I used to find meaning and assurance in my firm beliefs, based on the solid foundation of the Bible. My belief system was the anchor of my faith, and offered a neat, static framework within which to understand the world.

As my belief system crumbled and my view of the Bible changed, I was left searching for something to anchor my faith to. I had to be sure about something, or what was the point? How could I call myself a Christian if I wasn’t sure what I believed?

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Love is all you need

I know, it’s the ultimate cliché.

It took me a long time to come to terms with this, but for me, right now, love is what it’s all about. It’s the whole point.

You see, my faith deconstruction has gradually revealed to me how little we can ever really know. Any ideas or theories we have about God and the meaning of existence are bound to be hopelessly inadequate. And you know what? That’s OK. I don’t think we are supposed to have an intellectual grasp on those sorts of things, they go beyond intellect and reason.

I still have beliefs and hopes about things like Jesus and the Holy Spirit and prayer and the Kingdom of God. But they are no longer set in stone.

I have stopped searching for an anchor; a solid, static set of beliefs I can cling to. Instead, love is my compass and my guiding light for life, here and now. That’s the foundation on which I’m reconstructing my faith. My beliefs will probably change, but love remains.

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Love is not the easy option

The conservative evangelical voice in my head still occasionally wonders if this is wishful thinking. An attempt to soften the Truth, to make it all sound nicer and more palatable.

It sounds suspiciously like wishy-washy, fluffy, hippy nonsense doesn’t it?

Well, that depends on how you define love. The Biblical accounts of the life and death of Jesus are still, for me, the ultimate definition of love.

Sacrificial. Radically inclusive. Painful. Dirty.

Real love can bring life in all its fullness, but it is far from easy.

You know what is easy? Signing a doctrinal statement to show that you’re a real Christian. Asserting an intellectual belief in a particular theory of the afterlife. Those things aren’t exactly difficult.

But reorienting your entire life towards radical, sacrificial, Earth-transforming love – now that takes some commitment.

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Christ is bigger than Christianity

Jesus demonstrated a radical way of being in the world that undermined and transcended the human need for separation, hierarchy and systems of control.

I can choose to see Jesus as the ultimate revelation of God, whilst acknowledging that the power and influence of his message is not limited to those who adhere to the Christian religion.

Of course we naturally want to create “in groups”. Of course we think everyone would be better off if they were like us. That’s human nature. The human nature that Jesus and the New Testament writers challenged relentlessly.

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Why bother with religion at all?

I think that some people reach a point where the healthiest and most life-giving thing to do is to disassociate themselves from religion and faith altogether, at least for a time.

Religion can be toxic. And to be honest, it seems to me that humanists are often far more on Jesus’ wavelength than many Christians.

But. 

I don’t entirely buy the atheist argument that we don’t need God to be moral. I’m sure biology, sociology, psychology and neuroscience have a lot to say about how we have evolved to live in relationship and, in general day-to-day life, refrain from killing one another.

But I don’t believe that the kind of love demonstrated by Jesus comes naturally. Love our enemies? That goes completely against our human instincts, our ‘worldly wisdom’, and when truly lived out, can have life-transforming and world-changing effects. It interrupts the status quo and creates something entirely new.

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Following Jesus was never supposed to be about having a static set of beliefs.

To have faith in Jesus is to embrace a new way of being in the world; a way of upside-down priorities, counter-cultural inclusion, radical forgiveness and ultimate sacrifice.

And the best word we have for that is love.

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Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. (1 Corinthians 13:1)

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I have lots more to say. Subscribe via email to receive updates when I publish posts.

If you want to get in touch and share your own thoughts or experiences you can leave comments, find me on Facebook or Twitter or email musicineverysound@gmail.com.

< Part 3: Making Peace with the Messiness of the Bible

Part 5: On Losing Beliefs and Finding God >

 

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Faith in the Fog: Making Peace with the Messiness of the Bible

 

This is Part 3 of my ‘Faith In The Fog’ series on my experiences with doubt, skepticism, mental health and forging a different kind of faith.

< Part 2: Science, Atheism and the Search for Proof

Part 4: Love as our Compass >

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My Christian faith has undergone some drastic changes in recent years.

I’ve often wondered if my growing skepticism would eventually lead me to abandon faith altogether.

As it turns out, diving all the way in to my deepest doubts and fears hasn’t led me away from Christianity, but instead has revealed a richness and beauty to the Christian faith I had never known. It now resonates on a much deeper level, and seems to speak more profound truth than it ever did before.

This sort of faith can be difficult and frustratingly foggy at times, but it has an honesty and authenticity that allows it to exist comfortably alongside my skepticism. It allows me to fully engage my brain as well as my heart, and isn’t so easily shaken when faced with the inevitable tough questions.

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One of the most significant changes has been to the way I see the Bible.

Contrary to well-meaning advice from many a concerned Christian, reading the Bible is not a good cure for skepticism. In my experience, it usually magnifies it.

The Bible is messy.

It’s confusing and contradictory and just plain weird in some places. For a skeptic like me, every passage raises new questions and doubts, and shines a floodlight on any that were already lurking in the shadows. For a while I actually refused to read the Bible at all, for fear that my faith might not make it out alive.

I’m not proud to admit it, but whenever someone tries to tell me what “the Bible clearly says”, a large part of me wants to smack them over the head with it.

I wish the Bible was clear. It would make things so much easier, wouldn’t it?

I don’t think I ever believed God literally wrote the Bible.

Even in the early days, that idea seemed a bit farfetched. But almost without realising, I had been grasping onto the idea that it couldn’t just be a load of old books written by people. People get things wrong. I wanted the Bible to be more than that. It had to have some sort of divine, supernatural powers that made it worth all this attention. If not, what made it different to anything else people have written? How could I trust it at all?

I was clinging tightly to the belief that God had in some abstract way written and compiled the Bible. And it was killing my faith.

Letting go of this belief felt a bit like letting go of a cliff edge. Or choosing the red pill in the Matrix. It felt like was choosing to see things how they really were, and I wasn’t sure my faith would be able to survive. My belief in the Bible as the authoritative Word of God was a comfort blanket, but it was full of holes. I either had to spend my life desperately trying to sew up the holes, or get rid of the blanket altogether and face whatever might happen as a result.

To cut a long story short, I took the plunge and my faith survived. In fact, I found I was able to see things in a whole new light, with a fresh perspective and a renewed sense of hope. It actually made the whole thing seem more plausible, meaningful and exciting, not less.

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To explain a bit more about how I got to this point, here are some of my thought processes presented as a conversation between myself (Me Now) and an imagined version of myself from ten years ago (Me Then)…

MT: What do you mean the Bible isn’t the authoritative Word of God? Isn’t that, like, the most central belief of Christianity?

MN: I don’t think so.

MT: OK… what do you think Christians should believe?

MN: The life and teachings of Jesus are a good place to start.

MT: …which we wouldn’t know about without the Bible!

MN: Absolutely – I didn’t say we should get rid of the Bible altogether. It’s still a central part of my faith, and massively influences how I understand and relate to God. I just approach it a bit differently now.

MT: Wait, doesn’t the Bible talk about itself as the Word of God?

MN: The Bible as we know it didn’t exist in Biblical times, did it? When it talks about ‘The Word’, it’s talking about Jesus. Scripture is important of course, but seeing it as The Authoritative Word of God causes a lot of problems. For instance, if you believe it’s God saying all those things, then God must be mean and violent as well as the very definition of love. It’s hard to make sense of that. You end up putting so much effort into defending the authority of the Bible in its ancient, messy weirdness that you can miss the actual revelations of God within it.

MT: But if it’s not the authoritative Word of God, then it’s just…

MN: …a remarkable collection of ancient stories, myths, poems, songs and letters, written by people from different countries and cultures within a 1500-or-so year timespan, all with their own culturally, socially and politically-soaked perspectives and agendas, conveying their wisdom and understanding of the nature of God and how to live well in the world.

MT: Right. I guess that would explain a lot. So do you think the Bible gets things wrong, if it’s basically just different people saying what they think? 

MN: Potentially, yes.

MT: So what use is it then, if we can’t trust that it’s true?

MN: What do you mean, ‘true’?

MT: Well, accurate I guess. Trustworthy. I want the Bible to tell me how to live. Guide me, comfort me, explain why things are the way they are.

MN: And it can do all those things. But it doesn’t need to be The Authoritative Word of God for God to offer you comfort and wisdom through it.

MT: But I want it to give clarity, I want answers!

MN: Me too. I still crave that sometimes. But let’s be honest, the Bible’s not very good at clarity, is it?

MT: No, I suppose not. Look at all the different denominations within Christianity, all claiming to have correctly interpreted the Bible. If it was clear, we wouldn’t be so divided. 

MN: Exactly.

MT: Well how we know anything then, if we can’t rely on the Bible? How can we prove God even exists?

MN: There are more important things in life than knowing things objectively and proving that we’re right. If God did write us a letter revealing the meaning of “life, the universe and everything” once and for all, what would we do then? What kind of people would we become?

MT: Pretty arrogant I guess! But rightly so, if we actually knew all the answers. OK, I see your point about the Bible not being an answer book. But isn’t it supposed to be inspired, “God-breathed”?

MN: For sure. At the very least, I believe the people who wrote the Bible were inspired by their experiences of God. I’d also say God’s Spirit breathes into the words of the Bible, using these people’s experiences and shared wisdom to bring new hope, light and life into the world. But you could also say that we are “God-breathed”. Human beings somehow bear the image of God; we have been “breathed into” by the divine spirit. That phrase “God-breathed” isn’t exclusive to the Bible.

MT: Why read the Bible then? What makes it special?

MN: Because it’s a rich and fascinating story of human beings developing in their understanding of God and of what it means to live on this planet. It tells of God interacting with humans and calling them into greater love and freedom. If you really read the Bible, study it in its historical and religious context and figure out what the writers were actually trying to say, you discover a depth of meaning and significance that you miss entirely if you try and read it as a factual textbook or instruction manual. It contains layer upon layer of subversive, progressive wisdom that was utterly groundbreaking then and is still incredibly relevant, challenging and inspiring today. For anyone seek to deepen their experience of life, and to know God, the Bible holds infinite value.

MT: Except that it might be wrong.

MN: Maybe our purpose in life is not to find all the correct answers. Jesus, as portrayed in the Bible, shows us a way to know God through living a life of love. It’s about practising a way of life and being transformed from the inside out. That doesn’t come through having all the answers.

MT: I don’t like it. I still want something more concrete to base my life on, something I know I can trust. 

MN: I think we are supposed to put our trust in God, not the Bible. Yes, the Bible can point us to God, but the Bible itself isn’t God. I think people sometimes get confused about that.

MT: But how do we know what God is like without the Bible?

MN: We still have the Bible! It contains the most valuable revelations of God’s character we have. But knowing God, being transformed… those things come through a lifetime of wrestling with questions, struggles and doubts, and learning how to relate to one another and to God. Faith is a way of life, not a set of static beliefs.

I’m not going to lie, these changes can be unsettling and scary. I definitely experienced a loss of security which was pretty hard to deal with. But we have to let the Bible be what it is. By forcing it to be something it was never supposed to be, we run the serious risk of missing the point entirely, and doing a lot of damage in the process.

We can’t know it all, but we can let go of our need to know, and trust God. It’s messy and foggy and difficult, but there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

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I have lots more to say. Subscribe via email to receive updates when I publish posts.

If you want to get in touch and share your own thoughts or experiences you can leave comments, find me on Facebook or Twitter or email musicineverysound@gmail.com.

< Part 2: Science, Atheism and the Search for Proof

Part 4: Love as our Compass >

 

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Faith in the Fog: Science, Atheism and the Search for Proof

 

This is Part 2 of my ‘Faith In The Fog’ series on my experiences with doubt, skepticism, mental health and forging a different kind of faith.

< Part 1: Surviving as a Skeptical Christian

Part 3: Faith in the Fog: Making Peace with the Messiness of the Bible >

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The Fear of Science

One of the biggest steps towards learning to deal with my own crippling skepticism has been to convince myself that Christianity is not irrational.

Deep down I had always feared that if I thought too deeply or learned too much about science, this faith that brought hope and meaning to my life would eventually be exposed as wishful thinking, no more credible than an ancient myth or fairy tale.

You know what I’m talking about.

That nagging suspicion that if the beliefs at the centre of our faith were examined under a microscope for too long they might disappear into nothing, revealed to be unfounded and delusional.

The fear that science might disprove God.

In its more extreme forms, this fear of science leads some Christians to make absurd claims about the historical and scientific accuracy of Biblical texts. They fear that if even one aspect of their belief system is proved to be false, the whole thing might collapse. In the eyes of these Christians, scientists must be either deluded or evil, deliberately trying to distort the truth.

My fear of science came in subtler forms. For example, it concerned me that spiritual experiences and ‘answers to prayer’ could be explained away by psychology and neuroscience. How could I fully trust the Christian story if science was able to give equally, often more credible explanations?

I wanted proof of God’s existence, and science seemed to be eroding all my evidence. Skepticism was gradually gnawing away at my faith.

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The Rise of New Atheism

It’s pretty hard to ignore atheism these days. The atheist voice in our culture is loud, angry and very convincing at times. So much so that belief in God can seem a bit silly, like still believing in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.

This quote is from the British comedian, Jimmy Carr:

“When I was a kid, I used to have an imaginary friend. I thought he went everywhere with me. I could talk to him and he could hear me, and he could grant me wishes and stuff too. But then I grew up, and stopped going to church.”

Ouch! That hurts, doesn’t it?

More and more I found myself wondering if people like Jimmy were right – the whole Christianity thing was one giant hoax, a distraction from reality.

In a discussion between atheists and Christians, I would nearly always find myself siding with the atheists. The thing is, Christians are irrational a lot of the time, and atheists are actually doing important work in exposing the bad side of religion.

I was never really fussed about the finer points of Christian belief. They differ from one denomination to the next, from one church to the next. Heck, for me they can change from one week to the next. I was concerned with the BIG questions. Was the universe designed by a supreme Being? Is there such thing as a spiritual realm? Does life have ultimate purpose and meaning?

(I should mention at this point that I am married to a biologist, who is also a Christian. For him, science and faith are entirely compatible, and atheism is no more rational than Christianity. It is through many lengthy discussions with him, and through reading the work of other like-minded thinkers, that I have been able to come to the following conclusions.)

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Science has its limits

Jimmy Carr was brought up Catholic and, like many others, became an atheist after reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion.

In this hugely influential book, Dawkins’ argues that:

• Evolution through natural selection provides evidence against intelligent design by a Creator.
• We don’t need religion to be good.
• Religion is bad for the world.
• The God Hypothesis cannot be proven and is highly improbable, therefore God almost certainly doesn’t exist.

I actually agree with many of his arguments, and would probably be a convert if it weren’t for the following points:

• There are a great number of scientists, including biologists, who believe in God.
• There is some scientific evidence that religious belief can have benefits for general wellbeing. This doesn’t mean that it is definitely a good thing for the planet as a whole, but it makes the blanket statement “religion is bad” scientifically untenable. (Mike McHargue’s Finding God In The Waves explores some of this research in fascinating detail).
• The God Hypothesis cannot be proven, but neither can the Atheist Hypothesis.

Science is the study of the natural world. It is very good at showing us how things work. But it cannot comment on the why questions. It can tell us how the universe came to be and how complex life evolved through natural selection, but it is not qualified to make statements about meaning or purpose.

The Christian scientists I have come across tend to all say a similar thing: science tells us how life works, faith gives it meaning. They are not in opposition. Christianity and Rationalism are examples of interpretive frameworks or narratives used to explain what we see in the world around us – science itself doesn’t take sides.

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The Very Unsatisfactory Conclusion

I think it’s reasonable to conclude that ultimately, none of us can know the answers to these big questions. If we delve as far as we can into theology, philosophy, science, history and any other discipline we can think of, at the centre we find a deep mystery. A fog. We humans just aren’t capable of grasping ultimate knowledge about divine things.

This is very disappointing news for, well, all of us really. It’s not at all fun being in the fog. We want clarity. We crave answers and neat explanations. We long for the power to understand everything and the ability to prove everyone else wrong. We’ve mastered everything else, why can’t we prove or disprove the existence of God?

Because we’re only human, that’s why. As much as we would like to be, we are not omniscient.

This means that whether I believe in God or not, it’s a choice. It takes faith to believe in God, and it takes faith to believe that there is no God. (Any atheists reading this will have smashed their screens by now). I can’t prove it either way, so I make up my mind as best I can based on the evidence I have.

This is bad news for many atheists, for whom getting rid of the fog means wiping out all religion and holding rationalism as the only form of truth. It’s also bad news for many Christians, for whom getting rid of the fog means proving the existence of God once and for all.

We have to learn to live in the fog, which means admitting that whatever our position, we could be wrong.

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Reimagining Faith

I remember having a mini-revelation about all this while walking along the canal in my parents’ village one afternoon in late summer. I was grilling my husband (again) about science and faith issues and how we can know we’re not deluding ourselves… when the most blindingly obvious but soul-stirringly profound thought struck me. That’s what faith is. If we could prove it, it wouldn’t be faith.

I longed so much for proof. I felt sure that if only I could know for certain that God existed, I would find assurance and peace of mind.

I have to tell you, figuring out that there are no absolute answers available to me didn’t do much for my peace of mind. But having confidence that to be a person of faith is just as intellectually valid as being an atheist was a good starting point. It gave me intellectual permission to continue calling myself a Christian, and to seek to deepen my experience of life through faith in an ultimate Source and a deeper meaning. It also gave me intellectual permission to read as many “secular” books as I liked without fearing that they might disprove God.

To conclude, we return to the problem I explored in Part 1 of this series, of faith being primarily about intellectual beliefs held as objective fact. If my faith is based entirely on a solid framework of beliefs, then if any of them are challenged I’m in trouble. (Or I can just put my fingers in my ears and sing loudly). My faith has to be based on more than intellectual reasoning. I simply can’t prove my beliefs rationally to anyone else, so I have to hold onto them lightly, respect the views of others and be genuinely open to changing my mind.

As I said, this was a starting point for me. Part 3 coming soon…

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If you want to get in touch and share your own thoughts or experiences you can leave comments, find me on Facebook or Twitter or email musicineverysound@gmail.com.

< Part 1: Surviving as a Skeptical Christian

Part 3: Faith in the Fog: Making Peace with the Messiness of the Bible >

 

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Faith in the Fog: Surviving as a Skeptical Christian

 

This is the first post in my ‘Faith In The Fog’ series on my experiences with doubt, skepticism, mental health and forging a different kind of faith.

Part 2: Science, Atheism and the Search for Proof >

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How do I trust God when I’m no longer convinced he even exists?

How do I stop myself from being swallowed whole by the fear and despair that can come from seriously rethinking my beliefs?

How do I pray when it seems like there’s probably no-one listening?

Can my faith survive this?

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If you have ever asked questions like these, I hope you know that you are not alone.

If your doubts become so overwhelming that you wonder if you are losing your faith altogether, then you are in good company.

Having serious doubts about the faith that has been a (possibly the) central part of your life can be unsettling, confusing and scary.

I don’t know many things for sure these days, but I am fairly certain that it’s possible to have an authentic, healthy and soul-nourishing faith whilst also being a skeptic. I continue to wrestle with these questions almost daily, but I no longer fear that I am losing my faith. I actually think these questions are a valuable part of my faith.

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One of the biggest shifts in my thinking has been the realisation that faith is not supposed to be about having strong beliefs.

It’s still a pretty widespread assumption that being a Christian is mostly about what you believe. Of course, how you choose to live is important – there are very few Christians who would deny that. But it seems to me that what matters most to the majority of Christians is believing certain doctrinal statements. If you accept these statement as fact, you are saved; not by doing good works, but by asserting the validity of a particular set of intellectual propositions.

I’m not saying beliefs don’t matter at all. What we believe to be true drastically affects how we live our lives. It’s just that when we’re talking about things like God and the nature of reality and the future of the cosmos, we can never really know, can we? We are human beings, by definition limited in our capacity to understand such things.

It’s fine (and necessary) to have ideas and theories and doctrines about God, provided we remember that as long as they are contained within language and can fit neatly into human brains, they are utterly inadequate. A human claiming to understand God is not dissimilar a fruit fly landing on the tail of a Boeing 747 and claiming to understand the intricacies of aeronautical engineering.

(This may seem obvious to some, but it took me a long, long time to come to this realisation).

Once I started letting go of intellectual beliefs as the centre of my faith, things started to get decidedly foggy. My beliefs had been a sturdy framework on which to build my life; an interpretive lens through which I made sense of the world. When those beliefs started to shake and evolve, it was unnerving to say the least.

I’ve asked about every troubling question you can imagine, and yet my faith remains intact. It’s a lot less comfortable than before, and in some ways barely recognisable, but it’s also deeper, richer and more authentic. It’s constantly changing too, which can be exhausting, but also kind of exhilarating.

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Forging a different kind of faith

In this Faith in the Fog series I plan to go into detail about various aspects of my evolving faith, coping with skepticism, and ways of thinking about things that have helped me navigate uncertainty and doubt.

I have things I want to say about the Bible, science, learning to trust again, prayer and spiritual practices, and mental health.

Mental health has been a particular interest of mine for over a decade now and it has become intertwined with my understanding of spirituality and faith. I think the two are inextricably linked in many ways. I particularly want to explore the mental health issues that can arise as the result of a “crisis of faith”, and share some coping strategies I have picked up along the way. (My life has been one long “crisis of faith” in recent years, and as someone prone to anxiety I have worked hard to find ways of maintaining some sense of equilibrium in the midst of existential chaos).

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Experiencing serious doubt and skepticism can be tough, scary and depressing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re losing your faith. It could be the first step into a deeper, richer, more authentic faith.

You can take the plunge and face the difficult questions head on. Your faith might change beyond recognition, but it can survive.

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If you want to get in touch and share your own experiences you can leave comments, find me on Facebook or Twitter or email musicineverysound@gmail.com.

Part 2: Science, Atheism and the Search for Proof >

 

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Dear God, help me to believe in you.

 

Dear God,

Today I am not sure you exist, but I’m praying anyway.

It seems as though the older I get and the more I learn, the less sure I am about anything.

I never used to doubt you, not really. I was taught that I could have absolute confidence and certainty in my beliefs, and I did. I was taught that there were clear explanations for everything if I was just clever enough to understand. We had the answers, others needed to hear them before it was too late. I suppose we thought we owned you, in a way.

Now I look around and see how this sort of “strong faith” so often leads to a closed-minded, blinding arrogance that causes people to justify oppression, violence and destruction of our planet, and I find myself siding with the atheists.

I was taught that you always answer prayer, and that if I fully trusted you and prayed with faith, all would be well.

Now I see images of boats crammed full of desperate families in life-jackets, surely praying harder and with more faith than I could ever possibly muster, whose cries for help apparently go unanswered. If you don’t answer those prayers, how can I be so arrogant to think that you will answer mine?

I was taught that I could have a relationship with you, but how do I silence the voice in my head that tells me you are a figment of my imagination, a kind of Santa Claus for grown-ups? How can I trust and rely on you as my closest friend and Father when you might not exist?

I suspect I am never going to stop asking these questions, but I know I will never give up my faith. The Jesus story (although not the penal-substitution-soaked, exclusive, it’s-all-about-avoiding-hell one) remains the best, most beautiful, fascinating and potentially world-changing story I have ever heard. Whether or not it’s factually true, I still believe it could save us. I am clinging to that.

The uncomfortable truth is that none of us can ever really know what all of this is about. But I would rather live with hope and be wrong than become a nihilist and be right.

So I will continue praying, even when I am convinced I am deluding myself. And maybe, just maybe, that is what faith is supposed to be about.

Maybe “strong faith” doesn’t mean having absolute certainty in my beliefs. Maybe it means refusing to let go of hope even when it seems entirely implausible that there is any deeper meaning to life.

Maybe faith is more like floating on the surface of a deep ocean than standing on a mountain top.

So God, if you are there, help me never to doubt you so much that I lose hope, but never to be so certain about you that I lose faith.

Amen.

“If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith.”

Søren Kierkegaard

 

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Confessions of a Doubting Christian

 

Some days I find it really hard to believe in God.

I sit in church surrounded by the familiar, friendly faces, perusing the notice sheet as the worship band finish their sound check with a chorus of ‘10,000 Reasons’, and I’m convinced we’ve made it all up.

We’re kidding ourselves, aren’t we? It’s obviously just wishful thinking. A fairy story. A diversion from reality, far too good to be true.

The questions rage, unfiltered, through my mind.

‘If there is a God, why would he answer our prayers about the weather for the summer youth camp whilst ignoring the cries of a Syrian mother begging for her three young children to be spared?’

‘Even if there is a God who answers prayer, how likely is it that we predominantly white, middle class Baptists in 21st Century Britain have him/her all figured out?’

‘Isn’t it perfectly possible that all our ‘spiritual’ experiences and answers to prayer can be explained away by psychology and neuroscience?’

I look around at other people in the congregation and wonder, is it just me? Or are there others who have these same doubts but are too afraid to admit it?

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It seems to me that people are walking out of church and losing their faith altogether because they are never given space to ask the tough questions. When their worldview expands and the ‘truth’ they were taught in Sunday School stops making sense, the church responds by praying for their poor, backsliding souls and offering easy answers and carefully selected Bible verses.

We have a tendency to take the deepest mysteries of the universe and try to condense them down into straight forward language and neat formulas. Of course, there are names, stories and metaphors that can give us some sense of understanding of God, but they are only useful as long as we remember that we can never really know what we’re talking about. These metaphors can speak deep, transformative truth into our lives, but if we start trying to speak of this truth in terms of factual reality, we start to lose the plot.

Questions are inevitable. Doubt is a healthy part of faith – it shows we are living, feeling, thinking human beings, and if God is real, I think he can handle it.

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I am generally suspicious of Christians who claim to be certain about what they believe.

I think religious certainty is one of the biggest problems in the world today, and I think it is driving people out of the church.

Religious certainty tends to make us judgemental of others. We become very good at categorising people into those who are in and those who are not.

Religious certainty can make us so focussed on the spiritual realm and the afterlife that we ignore, or even justify the catastrophic effect our lifestyles are having on the planet.

Religious certainty leads to violence. If any group holds their beliefs above all else, eventually destroying the “other” using violence will seem justifiable.

Religious certainty has the potential to tear the world apart.

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That said, I do totally get it – religious certainty feels great.

I think back to the time when I felt certain about my beliefs, the Bible was clear and I had no need to question it. In many ways, I really miss that kind of faith. I’m still mourning the loss of the certainty I once felt in Christianity and the cosy sense of security that came with it.

I completely understand why some Christians are so fiercely defensive about their beliefs. They insist that we can be certain because the Bible is inerrant and infallible. They respond to questions and doubts by putting their fingers in their ears and singing louder, or by shaming the one who is doubting.

Life is so much easier when you’re certain about everything. To let doubt have a voice is to risk losing that certainty, or even losing faith altogether, and that can be terrifying.

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As uncomfortable and unsettling as it can be, I am learning to embrace doubt as an essential part of my faith. If God exists, he is beyond any of my wildest thoughts, deeper than my deepest fears and able to withstand my most troubling questions.

Some days my faith is strong. I am filled with hope, I sense that I am part of a greater story and I feel consumed by a love wider than the universe.

Other days my faith feels like fumbling around in the dark for a rope, or steering in the vague direction of a small flicker of light on the horizon.

And I think that’s OK. It’s scary, but facing up to my unknowing is often exhilarating and always humbling. If my faith is not at its core a deep, unfathomable mystery, then I’ve lost my way.

‘I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything … the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.’

Anne Lamott

 

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Lover of Darkness: A Winter Solstice Reflection

 

This guest post was written by Adam Couchman

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December 21st, in the northern hemisphere, is the Winter Solstice – the ‘shortest’ day of the year. Except it’s not the shortest day really. It’s still 24 hours long, I’ll still sleep for the same amount of time. I won’t be losing time. But we call it the shortest day because it is the day when the sun is risen for the least amount of time. Here along latitude 51 we will get, give or take, just shy of 8 hours of daylight on Wednesday. That means 16 hours of darkness.

It’s the dark hours that got me thinking this week. Darkness has always been a strange place to me. It’s been a place of comfort and fear, a place of loneliness and company, boredom and creativity. Things that go ‘bump’ in the night hold a certain appeal to me. I’m not necessarily talking ghosts and goblins, although they come into it, but the parts of our own minds that race in the dark hours. The parts of our conscience that drink deep of the blackness and spins the ether to create stories of intrigue and mystery. Is it any wonder that some of the world’s darkest and most fanciful tales emerge out of the black Scandinavian winters?

I find it easier to look inward on myself in darkness, I find my mind opens to other possibilities when the lights go down. I can better order my rambling thoughts of the light hours into a deeper understanding, under the shadow of the moon.

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But darkness has a negative connotation in my culture. Particularly that of the Christian faith. We are led to believe that the dark is where the bad stuff hides. We must constantly be shining bright lights into all the dark places of the world and of ourselves. Now, largely I agree; when darkness is used to describe a place of actual evil, then yes. I do believe that God’s ‘light’ is a real thing, but I’m not arrogant enough to just go throwing it around…at least I hope not.

Darkness is, after all, the absence of light. But equally, light is the absence of darkness. There is this perfect, beautiful marriage between the two. We can have no understanding of light without first experiencing the darkness, and vice versa. We use darkness to grow and mature. Darkness is the only base line we have to measure light. And if we extrapolate that idea we can arrive at the result of good being only ever measured by the depth of bad. Few things in this world can be solely experienced as good without having first been experienced as bad…but we’ll come to that later.

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When God caused the universe to come into being there was at first, only darkness. Then light was caused to become and the light and dark where separated. The light became day and the dark, night. If darkness was so bad then surely God would have just made light? We need the night. We need to rest, we need to collate the information gleamed during our waking hours and make sense. Since the dawn of time when darkness descends mankind has looked up to the heavens and sought meaning. The darkness gives us our meanings, it balances the light.

If we lose a loved one, or we lose a job, or any number of things; there is a saying that we use: ‘we’re in a dark place’. Granted they are often low points, but it is only after the low, dark points does the light seem effective. It is only after bad situations that we can see the good – we need a marker.

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Now, I said there are few things that can be solely experienced as good without having first been experienced as bad; that require no marker. But to be honest, there’s only one I can think of…

Love.

Some people do go through the hell of experiencing bad, evil and horrendous ‘love’. But that isn’t real love and we know it. I know what human love is. I love my wife and kids, I love my parents and siblings, I love my friends and others. But I’ve never experienced ‘bad love’, so what’s my marker?

Love requires no rules, love isn’t subservient to anyone, love is free and love is boundless. Love is present in light and darkness, in the hearts of evildoers and the good. Love can set us free!

What love is this? It is the love of humanity, the love in the fabric of the universe…the Love of the One who is.

Now tell me there is no love in darkness. Truly… love is eternal.

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Adam lives in Southern England with his wife and 2 kids. He is a landscape gardener by day and amateur theologian by night. He is an avid reader, cyclist and walker. Very occasional speaker, preacher and community theatre actor. And he is on a quest to seek wisdom wherever it is found.

 

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‘Finding God In The Waves: How I Lost My Faith And Found It Again Through Science’, by Mike McHargue

 

Reviewed by Emma Higgs

In a time of extreme rationalism and extreme religion, with anti-religious sentiments at an all-time high and religious violence and bigotry often dominating our headlines, Mike McHargue’s Finding God in the Waves offers a timely, profound and fascinating discussion on the relationship between religion and science, faith and doubt.

Finding God in the Waves is first and foremost for those who feel trapped between faith and reason; those who desire some kind of faith or sense a deeper meaning to life, but feel unable to reconcile this with science and rational thought. It offers a lifeline to those who are struggling with doubt or mourning a loss of faith; providing satisfying, empirical evidence that faith in God is not a foolish superstition or a dangerous diversion from reality. Using evidence from studies into neuroscience and faith, Mike McHargue (AKA ‘Science Mike’) shows the positive effects faith and prayer in particular can have on people’s lives, and gives practical advice on how someone desiring faith can develop brain tissue to make them more likely to experience God. The book also gives valuable insight into both conservative evangelical Christianity and atheism, showing the goodness, authenticity and compassion within both sides that can so easily be overlooked in intellectual debate.

Mike tells his story of growing up as a Southern Baptist, suffering the devastating loss of his faith and spending two years as an undercover atheist (“the world’s least interesting secret agent”) within his beloved Baptist community. He is then profoundly impacted by a mystical experience on a beach, which sparks his gradual return to a form of faith that could withstand his own skepticism and sit comfortably within his extensive understanding of science.

Mike writes in an accessible, conversational style, combining his own incredible story with fascinating excursions into cosmology and neuroscience. His ability to communicate complex scientific theories in a compelling and comprehensible way is quite extraordinary; he provides detailed, scientifically credible explanations, whilst keeping me (a non-scientist with a short attention span) glued to the page. This is no mean feat. Mike is brutally honest and open in telling his story, and the account of his loss of faith cuts right to the heart of the fears and doubts experienced by many Christians. He is also hilarious – there are regular ‘laugh out loud’ moments, interspersed between the existential crises and the mind-blowing scientific insights.

The first half of the book is a compelling and heart-wrenching account of Mike’s experiences of finding, losing and finding faith. Starting with his days as an overweight science nerd talking to Jesus as he hid from bullies in the woods, he describes how his faith became his source of comfort and hope, and the foundation on which his whole world was built. When he is rocked by the news of his parents’ marriage break up, Mike seeks comfort and guidance from the Bible, “binge-reading” it four times through, desperately looking for answers and clarity “with the fervour of a man trapped in a well”. Instead, his faith unravels. He embarks on a truth-seeking mission which ultimately leads him to the devastating conclusion that there is no evidence of the existence of God. Mike describes the turmoil, anxiety and depression that comes with loss of faith, and the gradual process of coming to terms with reality without God. After two years as a closeted atheist, Mike has an experience on a beach in California which leaves him feeling like he had met with God. This marks the start of his gradual return to faith, but it is by no means a straight forward ‘happy ending’, and the faith he finds is very different from the one he had lost two years previously.

In the second half of the book, Mike takes us through the detailed reasoning behind his faith reconstruction. He never seeks to prove the existence of God, but rather seeks to show that the pursuit of faith is rational and healthy. He talks about finding God in cosmology, and about the effect that different forms of faith have on the brain. He provides practical steps that a skeptical person can take to develop faith and experience God without feeling like they have to abandon all rational thought. He discusses the meaning and significance of Jesus, the role of the church, and Biblical interpretation (a way of reading the Bible that doesn’t result in atheism). Underpinning Science Mike’s reasoning are a set of axioms about aspects of the Christian faith – self-evident statements that provide a foundation for faith to grow, and act as a barrier against skepticism and doubt. These have the potential to be profoundly helpful and significant for anyone wrestling with doubt and skepticism who is seeking to strengthen their faith.

This is one of those books that I shall be coming back to again and again. For me it’s been a game changer – simultaneously deeply unsettling and profoundly comforting. It has given me a way to move forward in my faith, to fully embrace science and rationalism whilst remaining open to the greater mysteries of reality, and the deeper meaning behind it all.

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‘Finding God in the Waves’ by Mike McHargue was released on 13th Sept 2016.

 

Images used with permission from publisher