Creating Space for Doubt
How to listen, empathize, and love well (Pt. I)
Doubts are seldom allowed in the church. There’s an unspoken agreement that we’ll keep such thoughts to ourselves — that we won’t sully an otherwise pleasant Sunday morning, create tension at a comfortable Wednesday night bible study, or spark controversy among content believers. Instead, we’ll pretend to be equally comfortable and content.
Since we don’t share doubts, we can’t discuss them, learn from them, or deepen our faith thanks to them. We either feel alone in our questioning or remain blissfully ignorant of the questioners in our midst. Many of those questioners may struggle in their faith while “alone together” in a faith community. Some may lose and leave their faith.
Worse yet, fellow believers often shut down doubters who manage to voice their thoughts. Doubters marshal their courage, pick a “safe” person, and then open their hearts, only to be rewarded with trite clichés about faith, simplistic “bible school answers,” and unsatisfactory appeals to mystery — “God works in mysterious ways.” When doubters dig deeper, they unearth defensiveness and hostility in their fellow believers rather than love and acceptance.
We need to create space for doubt. We need to engage doubters.
