Church Issues

Doubt: The New Faith?

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There’s a new phenomenon sweeping the Church in America, the Gospel of Doubt. Questioning the veracity of the Bible, questioning whether doctrine has any worth today, and questioning the need to live out the traditional bedrock assumptions of the Faith have all become standard fare for today’s Christians.

In what has become almost a fad among the spiritually trendy, Doubt has become the new Faith. The heroes of the faith today are not those who stand firm in the midst of trials, but those who quiver with doubt that anything good can come out of tough times. Job’s cry of faith, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” has been replaced with “There is a chance my Redeemer may actually not live.”

We are watching a revisioning of what is worthy of admiration occur in just a decade. Those who routinely express their doubts are now considered the most spiritually mature, the most worthy of imitation. This trend is so new that the language of doubt is still wet on the page, but look for more nominally Christian books discussing it to show up on the shelves of your local bookstores soon.

Postmodernism is partly to blame for this trend. The rejection of assurance in a relativistic age makes heroes of self-proclaimed seekers and villains of those who advocate any kind of certainty. But did our Lord hold up doubt as something to admire? His words say otherwise:

Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
—John 20:27 NIV

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
—Matthew 14:30-31 NIV

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
—Matthew 21:21-22 NIV

The New Testament has other admonitions:

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
—Romans 1:17 NIV

Without weakening in his faith, [Abraham] faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
—Romans 4:19-21 NIV

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.
—Hebrews 10:39 NIV

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord…
—James 1:5-7 NIV

Clearly, we do understand that people who are unquestionably Christians do doubt from time to time. But we should never make an altar to doubt. Doubt is the shadow of faith and is, therefore, a pale reflection of the truth. We need to resist it, not make it a virtue lest we find ourselves to be a powerless Church. We must remember that it was in Jesus’ own hometown that we see the fruition of doubt:

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith.
—Mark 6:5-6 NIV

We should not be surprised, though, at this elevation of doubt over faith. It is the sign of the times and will persist till He comes again, for the Lord Himself warns:

However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
—Luke 18:8b NIV

If we Christians make doubt the new faith, the answer to Jesus’ question is sadly obvious.

Whatever Happened to Sin?

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Long time ago, the Garden: the universe was corrupted by two humans who chose sin over the Almighty. God immediately cursed those two, then gave a promise that sin would be dealt with by a perfect sacrifice.

In short, it used to be about sin.

Christians throughout history understood how pervasive sin was. Knew that it was a ball and chain that kept them in bondage. The whole Reformation started because Luther was overcome by his own sinfulness and was begging for release. Sin killed, then killed some more.

It used to be about sin. The freedom we are to proclaim to the captives is freedom from sin. The ancients understood the ugly stain they could not wash out. Seekers wrestled with sin and fell upon God seeking forgiveness from it. The grace that promises to lead us home was offered freely to us when Christ paid our penalty, the penalty of sin. It used to be about sin. Preachers railed against sin. They understood that conversion came only after people understood the depths of their own depravity. Those preachers brought people to the cross, the place where sins were laid down and forgiven. Those converts knew they were saved because that crushing load of sin was removed. They wept over the release from that oppressive taskmaster.

But in churches today, the message has been changed. It is no longer about sin; it is about what we can get from God. Christianity has become the religion of meeting felt needs. Need your car fixed? We Christians can help with that! No one to pal around with? Hey, let’s get a pickup game of basketball going! Can’t walk the walk? No sense feeling guilty about it!

Many seekers, especially in America, don’t want to hear about sin, so our preachers oblige them by not talking about it. “Too scary, too off-putting to people.” “That message doesn’t work anymore.” “You can’t catch flies with vinegar.” So in the place of the message about the depths of sinfulness we all possess, many churches have adopted a message that says, “You are entitled to special treatment, and God is right there to give you anything you think you need.”

Last year, I heard a presentation advertising small groups within a church. This was a multimedia extravaganza that featured numerous real-life stories of people currently attending the church’s small groups. The clip ran almost five minutes, but when it was all said and done, the name of Jesus had never been mentioned. People talked glowingly about what they got from their small groups, but nothing was ever said about triumphing over sin, getting closer to Christ, understanding the Bible, or any of the traditional Christian issues. Instead, we all heard about going to baseball games with others in the group, having someone bring groceries over in a tough time, and the like.

It’s now all about what we can get. Because of this, few people ever talk about sin anymore. I wonder if seekers ever wrestle with their sinfulness. Considering the dearth of time we all claim today, perhaps others simply cannot devote much mental energy to thinking about their own sin since so much time is commanded in getting felt needs met.

The “new” churches that adhere to this self-centered paradigm wrap their evangelistic efforts around conducting felt need analyses or interpreting neighborhood demographic studies rather than working to show people the depths of their depravity and the person who can release that burden, Jesus. We are on the verge of losing the entire sin perspective as we abandon the very core of why Christ came in favor of making everyone happy, lest they find another, more accommodating church to attend.

Jesus said that if He be lifted up, He would draw all men to Him. Are we lifting Him up and showing Him as the Redeemer and the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? Or have we reduced the Savior to little more than being a sanctified version of Santa, doling out whatever we ask for in the absent shadow of a missing cross?

Joy unspeakable comes from knowing that we will not have to pay the price for sin because Christ already has. In the midst of our endless desire to have our felt needs met, do we still remember this?

Whatever happened to sin?

Like Unto Him

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Lately I have been struck by all the division I see within the Church, especially in America. Many people are abandoning their churches and either moving to another one or starting their own. I’m not sure we Christians are growing in numbers across the country, but we sure seem to be hopping churches like mad.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that all we are doing is dividing ourselves into ever smaller—and potentially less effective—particles of Christianity. I can’t believe this is what Christ had in mind for His bride.

And this takes me back to the crux of the problem: What does Jesus have in mind for the Church?

God’s thoughts are far beyond any mere man’s, but the promise of the Bible is that as we mature, we become more like Jesus – and that means we think more like Him. Given that His thoughts are not a jumble of divergent theologies, I’ve got to believe that as true Christians grow in Christ we begin to take on Christ’s mind, therefore beginning to not only look and think more like Him, but also more like each other. For if each person who claims Christ’s name is growing in Him, we should all begin to think along the same lines as our Master. The natural recourse of this is that divisions should be decreasing, not increasing, as we take on the mind of Christ.

It’s a simple transitive math theory: If A=Jesus and B=Jesus, then A=B.

Extrapolate that out for all the variables that bear the mark of Jesus and you have one inescapable conclusion. The more each Christian looks like Jesus, the more he/she looks like the rest of those in the Body of Christ.

Now this does not eliminate our gifting differences, our talents, our personalities, or even the fact that we tend to emphasize different portions of the walk of Faith differently from one to another, but it does mean that we all come to a single Truth.

Church, are we in line with a single Truth? Do you believe a single Truth exists that governs the life of the believer and makes us of one mind?