{"id":1310,"date":"2013-07-24T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T12:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/in-defense-of-doubt.html"},"modified":"2013-07-24T12:23:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T12:23:00","slug":"in-defense-of-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/in-defense-of-doubt.html","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>What better way to start than with Woody Allen?\u00a0 \u201cI am plagued by doubts,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?\u00a0 In that case, I definitely overpaid for the carpet.\u00a0 If only God would give me some clear sign; like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Since you\u2019ve been sitting in this audience, you have, no doubt, had a string of doubts \u2013 did I make the right choice giving up an evening for\u00a0this<\/em>; I\u2019m not sure I turned off the oven; why does that woman think that shirt looks attractive on her?\u00a0 Doubt is an integral part of who we are, yet the Christian tradition has, for centuries, treated doubt as the enemy.\u00a0 In many places right now across the planet, people will be listening to Christian doctrines expounded and be secretly wondering how on earth they can make themselves believe them. I sayChristian<\/em>\u00a0because recently I stumbled on these words of an Eighteenth century Zen master that I wish I had encountered in my teenage years.\u00a0 He said \u201cAt the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening.\u00a0 Small doubt: small awakening. No doubt: no awakening.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Seventeen years ago, I wrote a book called\u00a0In Defence of Doubt: an Invitation to Adventure<\/em>.\u00a0 This book was written in \u201dwhite heat\u201d the summer our family moved for a second time to the United States from Australia.\u00a0 Such moves are dislocating because you leave behind old friends and familiar rituals, but they are also \u201d first day of the rest of your life\u201d moments where you have a chance to examine your life and priorities before getting engrossed in a new routine.\u00a0 Since I am new to most of you in this country, it might help to give a bit more of my background.\u00a0 I grew up a God-intoxicated, evangelical Christian.\u00a0 I could not sit beside someone in a bus without feeling I had to witness to them before they got off at their stop.\u00a0 Yet all the while I doubted many of the Christian \u201dtruths\u201d from an infallible bible that simply had to be believed.\u00a0 I blamed\u00a0myself<\/em>\u00a0for both my weakness and also my arrogance in thinking I could question issues of such magnitude that had been discussed by so many wise theologians.\u00a0 In\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0childhood tradition, doubt was frowned upon \u2014 the more you believed without question, the better a Christian you were.\u00a0 Although the disciple Thomas asked a very sensible question about seeing evidence before he believed, he was demonized as \u201ddoubting Thomas\u201d because of the verse that followed \u2014 \u201dBlessed are those who believe\u00a0without<\/em>\u00a0seeing the evidence\u201d.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will be using the term GOD as a three letter symbol for that which describes peoples\u2019 understanding of the sacred, but with no specific theological shape assumed.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After degrees and careers in both science and the arts, I went back to university in mid-life to do religious studies, in order to find some answers to my doubts.\u00a0 I had decided I could no longer live with the emotional torture they created and I was prepared to walk away from God and the church should this prove necessary.\u00a0 \u2018Why we\u2019re we told?\u2019 became my question the moment I entered my first course of New Testament studies, when I discovered that the doubts I was not allowed to express from the pew had been discussed by long lines of theologians before me.\u00a0 Some of my classmates were ordinands training for ministry within my denomination and responsible for telling what they had learned once they graduated but, like many before them, they would not.\u00a0 I was incensed that faithful lay people in the pews were giving sacrificially so that these students could have free theological education, yet the same laity were being kept in ignorance by these same people with respect to their doubts. \u00a0Once I finished my Ph.D. in theology, my mission was set \u2013 to ensure others do not go through the traumas over doubt that I did.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 What better way to start than with Woody Allen?\u00a0 \u201cI am plagued by doubts,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?\u00a0 In that case, I definitely overpaid for the carpet.\u00a0 If only God would give me some clear sign; like making a large deposit in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIn Defense of Doubt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"            What better way to start than with Woody Allen?  \u201cI am plagued by doubts,\u201d he said.  \u201cWhat if\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/in-defense-of-doubt.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Defense of Doubt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"            What better way to start than with Woody Allen?  \u201cI am plagued by doubts,\u201d he said.  \u201cWhat if\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/in-defense-of-doubt.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-24T12:23:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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