Doubt

Pick-Up Theology

~ philipamerson

Pick-up Theology

It happened again, recently.  A public gathering, I prayed or presided in some fashion.  A reception follows. All seems “normal” until one of the folks nearby starts to share a story and stops, “Woops, I forget, a preacher is here.” Often, I could anticipate what was going to be said. I have heard the story or off-color joke previously… I do not have “virgin ears”… but, somehow, I represent a purity zone. Clergy are thought to reside in the “Area 51” of polite conversation.

At times it is even worse. I am cornered as “an expert?” Some long-stored-up theological questions are brought forward. Many are just silly.  Some would require a semester course in seminary, or perhaps the completion of a dissertation. Many are qustions that require attention throughout a lifetime. Some questions are asked as a “gotcha.” They are meant to make the preacher squirm.

Often, it begins with the words, “Pastor, I am not very religious, but I am spiritual and am troubled by some things; can you help me understand?”  Here are a few I have encountered:

  • “What kind of fish swallowed Jonah?”
  • “Did Jesus really walk on water, or did he know where the rocks were?”
  • “If Jesus was alone when tempted in the desert, who knew to write about it?”
  • “Do you believe in Hell?”
  • “Do dogs go to heaven?”
  • “Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?”
  • “In the Prodigal Son story, doesn’t the older brother get a bad rap? What did he do wrong?”
  • “Is everyone forgiven no matter what they do?
  • “Where did Cain find a wife? Isn’t marrying a sister incest?”
  • “Wasn’t Catholicism invented in 1054 so political leaders could break with the Eastern Church?”
  • “Does U.S. House of Representatives Speaker, Mike Johnson, have a Biblical Worldview?”
  • “Don’t you think Pope Francis is a Socialist?

Only a sample of the queries are here, some serious and knowledgeable, others an effort to be cute, too many with monistic (either/or) assumptions that miss the discovery and value of paradoxes within the theological task. (e.g., “If one would be master he/she must first be servant.”) I have learned the value of the rabbinic method of answering a question with a question.  This is not the time for an overview of differing Biblical texts and literary scriptural devices. Much as I would like, there is little time to teach about the call to live in terms of the realm of God. (And there is certainly not time to speak of my preference for Kindom of God rather than Kingdom.) Often personal faith-journeys, current events or some family disputes are at the core of the seriously asked questions. 

I find it a little like the “pick-up” basketball games played while growing up in Indiana. You call your own fouls and get to choose your team mates. The game unfolds “on the spot” but there are certain moves and shots that need to be tested against the other players. Could I make that hook shot now? Could I guard that more experienced player this time?

If possible, when these “questions for the pastor” spontaneous moments come my way, I invite folks to do their own study, later, and suggest a book or two to read. Then, I look for JOY. Is there a way to find in this moment the wide and wonder-filled sense of holiness carried within a smile or even a light chuckle?  Perhaps thereby, faith is made more durable, understood with a richer complexity, and invitationally rather than a collecting up the right set of answers.  So, when recently asked “Did Adam and Eve have a belly button?” I paused for a moment and said, “O yes, I think so, and I am certain God continues to have stretch marks from such births.” I was rewarded with a smile.

I am told that Thomas Langford, the former Duke Divinity School Dean, enjoyed driving a red pick-up truck around Durham and especially on the university campus.  The license plate on the truck read “JOY N IT.”  Folks who didn’t know Tom, might have mistakenly thought he was expressing his joy in driving that pickup.  Others knew better.  He was perhaps speaking of the joy of the truck, but I suspect he was also talking about the joy of a life of faith, of living and leaning forward into the questions, of imagining the joy of a life of gospel relevance… filled with gratitude and delight.

The poet John Keats wrote “Call the world, if you please, the Vale of Soul-making.”  This task of “Soul-making” involves asking good questions and establishing habits of the heart. Habits of study, meditation, observation and being open to new imaginative insights, and yes, humor.  It is the keeping of these patterns, until these patterns keep us. 

So, I look forward to the next set of “questions for the pastor.”  Maybe I can do better next time.  Until then, I will remember the words from correspondence that is included in the Bible, James 1:2-5: My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. (NRSV).

Fortnight – Day11: Doubt and Hope

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Fortnight – Day11: Doubt and Hope

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. This well known aphorism from Frederick Buechner comes to mind as the presidential election approaches. Four days now, four days until the presidential election. Few things puzzle me more than the rigid certitude I hear from so many voters. They trust their candidate, without doubts, even when there is evidence to the contrary. Many seem to live in a world “beyond the shadow of doubt.” Has grievance erased the ability to doubt?

A fuller quote from Buechner’s volume Wishful Thinking reads: “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep.  Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith.  They keep it awake and moving.”  (Wishful Thinking, p. 20). So, today I pray for an awakening in our body politic. No matter who is elected (and it is clear I have my preference) we need a good dose of skepticism at play in the future of our democracy. We have gone for too many years with a president who asks, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?”

Doubt is a gift when paired with hope — for religious faith and for a vibrant democracy. The opposite of faith is not certainty. Rather it is lively and discernment that rests in hope. I would argue a healthy democracy isn’t secured by uncritical allegiance to one leader or one ideology, rather healthy democracy requires healthy doubt. Such doubt rests in hope. Doubting is a gift that other institutions (the press, the faith community, the educational, judicial and the heath care institutions, the corporate and research worlds) must also provide. Doubt builds heft into democratic behaviors… especially if it can move us to be more trusting. Hope and doubt are the oppositional muscles needed for a healthy democracy.

Perhaps the apparent reduction in “doubters” is a sign of confirmation bias. Receiving information (news, sermons, radio talk shows, social media, etc.) from sources that almost exclusively support a person’s preconceived beliefs. It is astonishing that as the band-width of information available has dramatically increased in our digital worlds, our circles of received information tend to become more and more narrow. Much of this is due to the algorithm that pres-sorts what shows up on our screens. As Google has learned, why expand the options for a person when you can own their choices through their data?

It is reported that Albert Einstein regarded scientists who were unimaginative as “stamp collectors” of science. He then quickly apologized to stamp collectors.  Einstein regarded science as brittle and dreary without doubts, imagination, vision and creativity.

Vance Morgan writes of Confronting the Sin of Certainty, Patheos, June 16, 2020: “Certainty without doubt has been the argumentative gold standard for centuries in logical arguments, and such arguments have their place—but not in the life of faith. A lived example is far more convincing.”

J Ruth Gendler, in The Book of Qualities, “Doubt camped out in the living room last week. I told him that we had too many house guests. Doubt doesn’t listen. He keeps saying the same thing again and again and again until I completely forget what I am trying to tell him. Doubt is demanding and not very generous, but I appreciate his honesty.” (p21)

Tennyson wrote “There lives more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds put together.”

Whatever ever happens in the coming election, I will look for a doubting that rests in hope as an indicator of vitality. We need more doubters, more agnostics.  Along with hope, we will need people who will suspend judgment and then see the signs more clearly.

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Natalie Sleeth offered language for people of faith in Hymn of Promise (#707 in the United Methodist Hymnal):

In the end is our beginning; 
in our time, infinity; 
in our doubt there is believing; 
in our life, eternity. 
In our death, a resurrection; 
at the last, a victory, 
unrevealed until its season, 
something God alone can see.

  (From Hymn of Promise, Natalie Sleeth, #707 in U.M. Hymnal)

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My God my bright abyss
Into which all my longing will not go
Once more I come to the edge of all I know
And believing nothing believe in this.
                               -- Christian Wiman