Chapter Four: Doubts Increase
Abandoning the idea of hell gave me peace, but it was bad for my conscience. I was doing exactly what I had criticised liberal theologians of doing. This new ‘easy going’ attitude, began to creep into other areas. I wasn’t enjoying home group (where a small group of us would meet in someone’s home) much any more. We had times of worship which annoyed me because I sometimes didnt want to participate, but what I saw as a condescending leaders/followers structure meant that you couldn’t really abstain. I found that I wasn’t able to commit myself emotionally to some of the things preached, and this was awkward. I stopped going.
Around this time a key event happened. Creationism had become fundamental to my faith. I was well aware that there were other religions out there and that from an atheists perspective, my religion was simply one of many. What I believed separated my God from the other ‘fakes’ (John 17:3) was that my God was the creator (Gen 1, Mat 1:1-17, Acts 17:22-30, etc). I joined a particular debate in my city’s secular newspaper about evolution. But
it seemed the creationists were proved wrong on a crucial issue. Although I wasn’t certain that we were proven wrong (what if the other side was lying?), it was disconcerting enough to make me basically give up on writing letters to the editor. Both the key activity and the foundation of my faith were now in doubt. [more] I was at a turning point.I thought that a change in style of Christianity might help, either by adjusting my doctrines, or by changing denominations. I decided that the style of my church didnt reflect my style of Christianity. I didnt get into the emphasis on revival, God's guidance , the Spirit, and correspondence with a non-charismatic had led to me conclude that the false prophesies that went on were condemned in the Bible (Duet 18, Mat 7:15-23). Anyway, many at my church seemed distant, so when my close friends weren’t there, sometimes I lacked of a sense of being at home with "Christian family". I still believed that there were some good aspects and people at my church, but I thought it might be a good idea for me to move on.
I explored other churches more, and eventually stopped going to my regular church. But with the change, my questioning and doubts increased.
I saw weaknesses in various Scriptures. For example "I have come so that you may have life, life in full abundance" John 10:10. I began to question whether my life, or the life of your average Christian, was any more abundant than your average non-christian’s. It seemed that perhaps there were a number of difficult to test, and possibly empty promises in the Bible.After you have been a Christian for a while, you can find that all your friends are Christians. You may have your car radio tuned to a Christian station and your reading may largely consist of Christian books, newspapers and magazines. Like me and many pastors, you may even find that the people you work with are mainly Christians. You can become insulated and loose a balanced perspective of the differences between Christians and non-christians. This is noticeable when preachers talk (as I have heard them) of non-christians as being full of emotional needs, and of Christians having no unmet emotional needs. You can start to think that God is looking after you more than he is looking after non-christians and that your life is going to go a lot better than theirs. After a while I began to see holes in this thinking. I found from my own experience, and from talking to other Christians that this isnt a true picture. There are many Christians with a lot of unmet emotional needs. There are Christians who are sincere in their faith and its application, and yet they still experience depression (scroll down), and probably just as many problems in life as an average non-christian. This reality doesnt seem to be denied in the Bible, although there are scriptures that promise God will look after you.
My researching of conspiracy theories, minority opinions, and minority Christian religions etc had led me to see that
many people have got themselves into a mess by placing a disproportionately large weight on skimpy or merely anecdotal evidence [examples]. I decided that I needed to place less trust in feelings, hearsay, suspicions, pet theories or prevailing doctrinal or subcultural attitudes. I concluded that it is important to thoroughly critically analyse things and to base my understanding of reality on strong well-reasoned and well-tested argument. This principle sometimes conflicts with the Bible, which teaches to “trust God completely and lean not on your own understanding” (Pr 3:5).I now wanted strong evidence before I believed things. Going to heaven, was the goal of my Christian walk (Phil 3:14 etc), yet it now troubled me that I was without any real proof that it existed. Sure there are people who claim to have had “Near Death Experiences” where they went to heaven, but those stories could be imagination-based. For a start, according to the Bible, most of those people should never have made it to heaven.
I also reflected on the lack of consensus within Christendom on so many issues. How is it that some church-groups believe so passionately in things that other church-groups believe the exact oposite of? If the doctrines I believed in were true, why didnt all churches agree with them? Why didnt God open all our eyes? The idea of Christian truth seemed weaker in the face of this fact.
In the past I had at times avoided challenges to my faith because of horrible unsettled feelings that sometimes resulted. But now I questioned all the more. How could I be sure that the Bible was ultimately true? There was the supernatural element, but that only indicated God existed, not that he was the real One. I reconsidered how much Christianity required of me, and how strong the reasons for following it were. I no longer liked the ratio. Christianity required everything! The Bible teaches that you have to aim to be perfect (Matthew 5:48), that a Christian ought to follow with all their 'heart, mind, soul and strength' (Mark 12:30, Luke 9:62), live for God rather than themselves (2 Cor 5:15, Mat 10:39), and that disbelief in God is fundamentally wrong (Mat 18:3, Mk 11:22, Heb 3:12, Eph 2:8 etc). I dont believe that salvation is gained purely by faith (James 2:14-17), and I have doubts about whether the average Christian is really trying hard enough - not just in church-going, but in evangelism, staying pure etc - to meet the requirements to be saved (Mat 25:41-46, Mark 10:24, Eph 5:1-5, James 1:22-27, Rev 3:16, Rev 21:8 etc). Being a real Christian no longer seemed worth it.