10 Misconceptions About Questioning Your Faith
Hello, friend. I see you. We’re standing here together in the middle ground.
If you’re anything like me, you probably didn’t expect to be here; it wasn’t in my five-year plan. Maybe you’re relieved. Maybe you’re terrified. Maybe you’re some of both. I sure am.
If you’re anything like me, you grew up with internalized ideas about “those people,” people that maybe we are now. Those internalized ideas have caused me to make a lot of assumptions about myself, and they’ve caused a lot of people to make assumptions about me.
So wherever you’re at in your faith journey, I want you to know that it’s okay. I want to share a few misconceptions that have held me back, condemned me, and guilted me until I realized… they weren’t true about me. They don’t have to be true about you either. These are the misconceptions I have faced.
1. You’re alone.
It sure felt that way for a long time. Especially for those of us whose communities are mostly Christian, it’s easy to feel like we’re the only one seriously questioning because it’s kept pretty quiet. When I finally spoke up to close friends, I found that many of them were experiencing similar questions. And when I was finally public about it, I was inundated with messages from people in every area of my life who were feeling the same way but had never spoken it. It’s becoming a new life goal of mine to help the silent, lonely questioner discover that they are not alone. People have questioned their faith — and changed their beliefs — as long as faith and beliefs have existed. Let’s create space for us to do this together.
2. You’ve “walked away” from your faith/Christianity.
All-in or all-out: that’s the mentality we’ve been given by much of the Christian church, particularly the fundamentalist evangelical component. What that meant was: as soon as I felt like I wasn’t sure if I was a traditional “Christian,” I thought I must be a non-Christian. I started disqualifying myself from Christian things. I told myself I shouldn’t sing worship music or even Christmas carols, couldn’t celebrate Easter, and needed to lose the title of “Christian.” But slowly, I realized I was doing this to myself. Sure, some major doctrinal issues were no longer certain for me, but I didn’t want to be “all out.” I didn’t feel like I had “walked away,” but other people started assuming I had. A friend of mine realized that she thought she was “irreversibly non-Christian;” she’s since learned that it is not a linear journey. Now, I recognize that Christianity is not precisely defined anywhere (why are there countless denominations?), and so as long as I want to be a Christian, I can be. I am no longer disqualifying myself.
3. Your faith must never have been real or sincere.
This misconception was probably one of the most terrifying and most hurtful, at least for me. Terrifying because I was suddenly wondering whether some of the most profound, beautiful, and powerful moments in my life were real or just figments of my religious psychology. Like Misconception #2, I thought that questioning my faith meant I had to rule out my past experiences with prayer, healing, prophecy, and the like. Now I realize that I don’t have to mock or understand those experiences. I know that every step of my journey, I was doing the best I could and following Jesus with my whole heart. Everything about me has always been sincere, and I can let that be enough for now.
4. You haven’t tried hard enough to learn or believe.
I got a lot of recommended reading, listening, and watching when I was honest about my questions. A lot of people are pretty sure that if I really understood ______ about God or Christianity or the Bible or theology or evil and suffering, I wouldn’t be doing this questioning. I can’t totally write that off; sure, maybe the “answers” are right around the corner. But I have learned that it is not intellectually or spiritually inferior to question or even lose faith. There are brilliant minds within Christianity and brilliant minds without Christianity. There are full-time theologians and bible scholars inside and outside the Church. Yes, there are things I don’t know, but that’s true of everyone. Faith isn’t about trying harder to believe. It’s about an open-ended journey that just takes the next step.
5. You want the easy path of culture.
No one who has actually experienced serious doubt or deconstruction believes this one. Growing up in church, we’re usually told to watch out that we don’t “backslide” or become too “influenced by the culture.” We’re told that people who leave the faith “just wanted to have drugs and sex without feeling guilty.” People who struggle with their faith are told their faith is “weak,” that faith is a muscle you have to work in order to stay strong. But what if questioning and willingness to sit in unknowns is also a muscle that needs work? In a sense, faith is actually a framework that holds you, and thus is easier in many ways. For me, questioning my faith felt like risking my entire identity, worldview, inner peace, community, and best friend. Easy path? I think not.
6. You’re angry and holding onto bitterness.
Many people who have left Christianity are angry at the Church, usually for good reasons: abuse, hypocrisy, toxic relationships, etc. Or maybe they’re angry at God, as I was, for allowing such massive injustices and suffering in the world. Either way, that anger is often used as a way to write off the person. I went back to counseling for the sole purpose of trying to get un-angry at God in the hopes that my faith would return. Emotionally, I don’t feel so angry anymore, but my doubts and questions have only grown bigger, and I think they’re pretty legitimate. Sure, anger can sometimes blind us. But anger can also be one of the greatest tools for recognizing what is wrong. Whether angry or not, my questions are valid.
7. You’re just creating your own truth.
I was a national competitor in apologetics and I aced my Christian worldview class, so don’t worry, I know all about the problems with “relative truth.” What I didn’t know was that there were a lot of problems with “absolute truth” too, namely: we don’t know what it is. I’ve been told I’m just taking pieces I like and ditching pieces I don’t, but I’d venture to say that to some extent, pretty much everyone else is too (I haven’t been to a church that enforces head coverings for women per 1 Corinthians 11 in a while). Yes, I am stepping back from what I grew up thinking absolute truth was. That doesn’t mean there is no truth or that I’m making mine up. I hope, slowly, I’ll just keep discovering it. My guess is I’ll be discovering things that deep down I’ve always known.
8. You don’t value the Bible or Jesus.
Some people do feel the need to throw out everything related to Christianity, and that’s okay. But not me. My master’s in biblical studies has given me an appreciation for the Bible that goes far deeper than a divine doctrinal statement. Now I read it as a diverse collection of a lot of humans’ experiences with a mysterious Being, and that is literature I want to glean from. My favorite part of the Bible, of course, are the accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings. Contrary to popular opinion, I feel like I love Jesus more now than I ever have, but it’s different than it used to be. It’s a lot more unknown: I’m not certain who he was or what exactly he said and did. But the Jesus who is written about in the Gospels (inside and outside the Bible) is someone I want to be like. I have a hunch there is more to what he’s been saying than I even realize, and so I’m drawing closer. Christianity doesn’t own Jesus; I can leave one without leaving the other.
9. You’re becoming a different person.
Yes and no. In a lot of ways I am a different person than I was before all this faith questioning: I am more confident and compassionate with myself, more accepting of uncertainties, more open to people. Those are changes we expect to see in maturing human beings; if you’re the same person at 30 that you were at 15, there’s an issue. But in the deepest ways, I am still me. It has hurt to feel like I’ve lost the trust of people who used to know me simply because I’m not sure if I’m a Christian and they’re not sure if they “know me anymore.” I want them to know that I’m still Shelby, their friend. We don’t have to be brothers and sisters only in Christ; we can just be brothers and sisters.
10. You won’t have a purpose, values, or a happy and fulfilled life.
Sometimes I still struggle with this question; I often wonder if I’ll find out what purpose is. In the meantime, my purpose is to just be here, to exist, to try to know myself and my world as deeply as possible. As for values, I am grateful for how Christianity has shaped many of my values growing up, but I recognize now that values can be grown and developed outside religion as well. And I still have values aplenty: I’m pretty seriously against racism even without Genesis 1 telling me to be, I’m still truthful even without the Ten Commandments. And I’ve noticed that Christianity hasn’t seemed to be the foolproof key to a happy and fulfilled life either, at least not for everyone.
And that’s really the key: it’s not the same for everyone. We’re in the middle ground together, but even the pieces of ground we’re standing on are different. No one gets to tell you where to stand. No one gets to tell you where your faith journey goes or what your doubts mean about you. No one gets to tell you when to speak out; you don’t even have to.
People will make lots of assumptions based on misconceptions, but you are your own.
Your place — wherever you go — is your own. Be there.
