If you are one of the many Christians struggling with doubt, then congratulations – you are perfectly normal.

You may not feel normal.  Increasingly, you may feel displaced among Christian friends, perhaps a little phony for conforming to their expectations.  Their confidence seems to come so effortlessly, and while you remain fluent in the language of faith, your mind takes secret excursions into the realm of doubt.  If they only knew!  Like waves lapping at your feet, skeptical questions keep niggling away.  You try harder to believe, desperately brushing the doubts aside.  Yet an unfamiliar tide continues to swell, as you anxiously contemplate losing your faith entirely.

This situation is a shame, because it needn't be this way.  To begin with, Christian faith is something that sincerely desires scrutiny, and requires rejection if it turns out to be mistaken.  We see it portrayed this way by the apostle Paul in his first letter to believers at Corinth.  He points out that our faith would be “futile” and pitiful if Jesus hadn’t actually risen from the grave.  In other words, even the greatest story ever told is not worth believing if it's only fiction.  Right now that may be your suspicion, and as we set out to properly address those concerns it is worth noting that faith has nothing to fear from the truth.

More than that, genuine faith is supposed to be comfortable with doubt, to be sympathetic and responsive to skeptical concerns.  I don't know who was responsible for making doubt taboo in Christian circles, but they were wrong!  It has only led to unnecessary heartache, insinuation, feelings of inferiority and most ironically, increased doubt.

The Bible itself says, “show mercy to those who doubt.”  What this implies is that we shouldn't judge people in this matter, as if they were doing something wrong.  We shouldn't make it harder for them by setting an unrealistic standard for faith, that God himself does not require.

To be sure, Jesus chided many for their lack of faith, including His own disciples, but immediately after one such occasion He healed the son of a man who pleaded, “I do believe - help me overcome my unbelief!”  He was equally gracious to one of His own disciples (known to this day as Doubting Thomas), whose skeptical mind wanted conclusive evidence that Jesus had come back to life.  We will return to this subject later – the nature and basis for faith – since it is as critical for properly rejecting Christianity, with integrity, as it is for salvaging your beliefs.

With all this in mind, it seems clear that if your church isn't resourced to help you address sincere questions, they have been letting you down.  If your Christian friends are trying to minimise your concerns, offering platitudes instead of doing their best to help you address the issues, then their well-meaning efforts are also missing the mark.  Here is an example of one such platitude: “Don't tell God how big your storm is, tell the storm how big your God is.”  Feel better?  I didn’t think so.

Don't blame your church or your friends, however, because the responsibility for working through your beliefs ultimately rests with you.

With that in mind, will you commit to engaging this article series, in the hope that it might offer some assistance?  Even if you are a Christian who doesn’t struggle with doubt, you still need to be aware of its role in the life of faith, so you can be a source of encouragement and help to others.

The Social Dimension

A moment ago I said that your beliefs are your responsibility.  That’s true, but there’s a good reason to take into consideration the inadequacies of your Christian influences and experience.  We are complex creatures.  Not only rational, but also emotional and social.  Truth itself is a matter of utmost concern that is rightly approached rationally.  However, plausibility is a related factor that we do approach much more holistically.  Plausibility is a tentative stage, prior to full acceptance.  Our sense of plausibility is a powerful influence on our willingness to consider whether something is true.  Understanding how you process it and what influences your processing, could be one of the keys to addressing confusion and doubt.

Throughout your life you've developed a skill that instinctively trusts whatever seems most plausible, or most likely to be true.  In any given moment, your mind is processing your experience, often subconsciously.  Some things we reject outright, such as patently absurd things, but also trivial and redundant information such as how to drive home from your workplace (which you don’t need to keep figuring out every day!).  We are prepared to at least consider everything else, but we normally don’t have time in the moment for proper evaluation, which is where our sense of plausibility comes in, and why it’s such a critical faculty.

Rather than having a mental meltdown whenever we don’t have time to give something the consideration it deserves (which is most of the time), all we need is a moment or two to file it for later review.  How we file it is fascinating.  It doesn’t just stay in the “in tray” of our brain.  Instead it gets stamped “tentative,” and after a moment’s processing that could best be described as “hmmm...,” it is filed somewhere appropriate within our existing belief system.  What has taken place is a quick consideration of the information’s source and apparent credibility, a check for any unstated assumptions and implications, a comparison against existing expectations, and so on.

It is then believed tentatively, as something plausible, but not fully settled.  If our circumstances prevent us from maintaining this level of processing, we may notice mild confusion and rising stress levels.  Sleep gives us a natural break, and indeed one theory of why we dream is that it helps us to process and file the day’s events.

However, there is no substitute for conscious, intentional thought.  We must convert the currency of plausibility into more solid convictions about what’s true, but rarely do we set our minds to this critical task.  The pace of modern life and a barrage of information to our senses ensures we hardly ever really stop and think.

What happens to us as a result?  Our sense of what’s plausible accumulates and becomes bloated.  Meanwhile, the bulk of our more solid convictions is unattended, in danger of malnourishment.  We have neglected intentional use of our minds, and in such a rational void we have little alternative but to go on accepting merely plausible things.  Taking things as granted without proper consideration is not faith, however, and it’s not healthy either.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to fudge my beliefs like that.  Cartoon characters may be able to tread on thin air while that scenario seems slightly plausible to them, but even they can’t persist that way for very long.  Of course we don’t need to entertain the impossible, or the implausible.  We can and should reject them.  The plausible, on the other hand, is a sort of middle ground that needs more processing, either way.

Before we move on we should consider several key influences on your sense of plausibility, of which you may not even be aware.  These have been called “plausibility structures,” and essentially they are the social contexts in which you operate: your circle of friends, your church, and your society among others.  Here is how Os Guiness describes them:

The degree to which a belief (or disbelief) seems convincing is directly related to its "plausibility structure" - that is, the group or community which provides the social and psychological support for the belief. If the support's structure is strong, it is easy to believe; if the support's structure is weak, it is difficult to believe. The question of whether the group's belief is actually true or not may never become an issue.

– Os Guiness, The Gravedigger File

It is the fact that truth may never become an issue that we have to watch out for!  Your Christian community functions to either reinforce or undermine the plausibility of what it represents.  Of course you do know, intellectually, that what people do and say can't change whether Christianity is true, but you can't help but be affected, for good or ill, by their collective expression if it.

Without dismissing the substance of your doubts and concerns (which we will try to address later in this article series), do you think it's possible that the plausibility of Christian faith for you has been gradually eroded, in very subtle ways, through your social experiences?

Think about your journey.  Have you been feeling jaded, and cynical toward at least some Christians?  Has your “great crowd of witnesses” failed to materialise?  Perhaps you are making social inroads into other communities, with competing belief systems.  Have you been noticing that many nonchristians seem to be fairly happy, successful people – even at times more “Christian” than some of the believers you know?  Could these things have been subconsciously spurring you on, even as  you work through your specific doubts?  Consider the role this kind of socialisation played in famous skeptic Michael Shermer's journey away from faith:

Socially, when I moved from theism to atheism, and science as a worldview, I guess, to be honest, I just liked the people in science, and the scientists, and their books, and just the lifestyle, and the way of living. I liked that better than the religious books, the religious people I was hanging out with – just socially.  It just felt more comfortable for me.  In reality I think most of us arrive at most of our beliefs for non-rational reasons, and then we justify them with these reasons after the fact.

– Michael Shermer, Nine Conversations, The Question of God

It will be clear enough that reasons for belief should primarily be rational.  Yet the point being made here is that we are complex beings, with other interests and motivations.  Just how far some are prepared to go in suspending their interest in the truth, is something we will treat later in this series.  For now, we are considering truth’s shadow, or its effects in the realm of experience, and how in turn we use this social demonstration to measure plausibility.

We may therefore ask, what was the authentic Christian church intended to be in this regard?  Is it falling short of this ideal today?  You may recall Jesus’ new commandment to his followers.  After so many burdensome requirements placed upon people under the old covenant (the purpose of which was to demonstrate our inability to live righteous lives), Jesus as the righteous One fulfilled them all.  Our obligation to do so is thereby removed if we trust in Him whose life conquered sin.  Since He has offered to meet these requirements on our behalf, it’s no wonder He beckons us by saying “My burden is light.”  He issues us with but one new commandment, “Love each other, just as I have loved you!” and gives us the reason for it, “That’s how people will know you are my true followers.”

Does being seen as a genuine follower of Christ prove that Christ really saves us?  No, the concept here is not proof, but credibility (the human face of plausibility!)  Christ’s claims are truly incredible, but they are made more credible by His life, for Jesus of Nazareth is arguably history’s most towering moral, loving and sacrificial figure.  He stood before Pilate, the Roman governor, and declared, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth.”  The notion of testifying, or bearing witness, belongs in the context of sincere investigation.  Its assumption is that people are evaluating, still open to being persuaded when they sense the truth.  This is the very same context for our new commandment to love.  People are asking questions about whether we are truly changed by Him.  We say we follow Jesus, but is our testimony credible?  Do our character and actions bear any resemblance to His?  Does His life powerfully affect ours, or is that just an empty claim?  Is “Christ-follower” a phantom concept, or a legitimate truth?

One of the chief accusations leveled against Christians is hypocrisy.  We claim to follow Christ, but we don’t often demonstrate a selfless love for each other, as we have been commanded.  What would it look like if we did obey His command?

It would look like the ideal church community.  Scripture teaches that to be a true disciple of Christ is to be forgiven and renewed from within.  That reconciliation with God provides a new capacity for forgivness and love that in turn reconciles us with each other, overcoming human barriers of race, class, status, age, gender, and so on.  The “vertical” dimension has an experiential “horizontal” application.  We also see these two relations in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who’ve sinned against us” and in the Lord’s summary of the old testament laws: loving God and neighbour.

God is interested in human community because He invented it.  Authentic Christian community is also a social phenomenon, intended to be a credible witness to the truth.  Again, this doesn’t prove the gospel with certainty, but it lends it some support.  If this social demonstration is lacking, it can do damage by undermining the credibility of the truth it purports to represent.

We have made our way back to the notion of the modern church letting you down.  I do not know the specific ways in which this might have happened in your particular case.  There is a whole sub-genre of Christian literature discussing critical concerns for today’s churches.  Here I will only suggest two that are related to our discussion so far, which are widespread and may have affected you.

Firstly, take the idea from church growth studies known as the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP).  What this basically means, is that we human beings tend to socialise better with people who are more like ourselves, whether it be based on age, social background, gender, interests, and so on.  We are just naturally more at ease with people similar to us.  Many churches, especially larger ones, have used this principle to develop different kinds of ministries and events to cater for each interest group, such as a men’s ministry that enjoys things like fishing, a separate church service primarily appealing to youth, and so on.

Some of these things are not wrong in themselves, however too much application of this principle will produce a fragmented community.  It is an approach that reinforces differences, and that’s a problem, because the beauty of Christian community is that it overcomes differences.  Galatians 3:28 tells us that “in Christ” all human barriers are overcome.  Sin throws a spanner in the works of human diversity, creating envy, contention and strife.  Repentance restores us not only to God by the forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ, but to each other, since it obliges us to forgive also.

True peace and unity may be known on earth in authentic Christian community.  It is supposed to be visible, and put into practice.  A gathering of Christians is intended to function, with different parts of the same body (”Body of Christ”) working together as a unified whole.  This body, writes Paul to the Colossians, is nourished by Christ as its Head, knit together in love (as He commanded us), growing towards assurance and becoming resilient to outside “plausible arguments” that could lead us astray (Colossians 2:2-4,19).

The true expression of Christian fellowship (koinonia), leads to an assured faith.  We are encouraged by seeing it, strengthened by experiencing it.  Jesus said it will help.  Has it helped you?  Have you experienced the fact that there is something truly different about Christians, and Christian community?  Have you been privy to the wonder of strong relationships in the church between types of people that normally wouldn’t relate?  What about truly selfless acts of charity, forgiveness, giving, grace?  Perhaps you have.  But if you are not immersed in these things, the implication is that you will become discouraged, and fail to find assurance.  You will find Christianity less plausible, just as the claims of outsiders begin to seem more so.  I think it is noteworthy that the Bible seems to portray things in a way that matches the modern sociological insight of plausibility structures.

Secondly, many churches have come to resemble the culture around them.  This may seem harmless enough, but the values and interests of a world rejecting Christ are going to be quite distinct from the things Christians should wish to fill our mind and senses with!  In the New Testament’s original greek language we are the “called-out ones,” called to be distinct from the world.  Romans 12:2 says quite plainly, “Do not be conformed to the world.”

As we have been exploring, the distinction matters at the experiential level too, as a window into whether we have the authentic truth.  Pure, extended entertainment, for example, does not reflect the real interests of a life devoted to eternal matters.  Excessive marketing and persuasion through flashiness, slickness, impulsive imagery and similar superficial things are also not fitting.  Sermons that are so “relevant” to a secular and pop culture mindset that they are irrelevant to Christ.  Worship song lyrics that are devoid of any real substance.

These are some of our many problems.  Nothing is really neutral.  Everything we do in church gatherings either testifies to the truth, or undermines it by implication.  Sadly, years of attending churches that conform to the world’s standards and interests can have a negative psychological impact, and in turn, lead to a crisis of faith.

Beloved, please do doubt an ingenuine faith.

To be continued...