Faith After Doubt

Faith After Doubt

Brian McLaren

A longer book review on the way. This book has been really important for me. It may be equally helpful for others on similar journeys.

I came to faith through the ministry of a church youth group in suburban Birmingham in the early 1970s. I didn't know anything about the range of style within the Church of England at first. Soon I understood that it was a Conservative Evangelical church.

That youth group was run by a talented and tireless curate called Don. On the 'divisive' issues of the day he was not extremely conservative. He was a huge supporter of women's ministry and ordination, and forgiving on divorce and remarriage. That said I regularly heard sermons that promoted creationism over evolution.

Fast forward a few years and I'm married, have a son and am pursuing the possibility of ordination. That journey came as a surprise to me and is another story. I headed off to St John's College in Nottingham and a degree in theology.

I wasn't a great student but I was fascinated. Getting to grips with theological reading for the first time in my life I was also angry. Why had I been a member of churches for ten years and no one had so much as hinted at this sort of thing? The very idea that the Bible contained a range of material, not all of it history, started to help me make sense of things. Others who had the same experience struggled with their faith. But a reasonable summary of my years since then has been a desire to make sure people were not as uneducated as I. But how to do that?

As McLaren himself says, '...the better the job that colleges do in actually training their student to be responsible theologians, the more out of sync those future pastors will be with churches that hire them to maintain the status quo.'

It has not been a matter of asserting things that would start a fight. It has been a matter of patiently and gently suggesting things such as:

• Genesis 1-11 is not history
• In the Gospels some words are put on Jesus' lips by the writers
• Some biblical teaching is limited by the culture of its day
• Substitutionary atonement is a model, not the model

For the last 25 years Brian McLaren has been a companion on this journey, although we have never met. His trilogy of books about the sorts of things I have listed above, and his journey in conservative churches, were helpful. (1)

Since then, along the way, he has been true to his original aim of helping us to discover how a new kind of Christian leads to a new way of being church.

Which brings us to this - Faith after Doubt. It's sub-titled 'Why your beliefs stopped working and what to do about it'.

There have been many fine attempts over the years to categorise stages of faith. Fowlers six are the best known. All seem to suggest that the arrival at sage-like dotage just before your death bed is the ideal.

Here are McLaren's stages:

1. Simplicity

Epitomised by a desire to divide the world into yes or no, good or bad, in or out. Likes to belong to a church with clear black and white rules about ethics and doctrine. All that is required of a member is unquestioning loyalty.

Me 1971-76

2. Complexity

Here the question is 'How can I be successful?' Things are no longer known and knowable but learned and doable. Moving away from authority figures as soon as you discover they have flaws. Maybe start looking for a church community more like you. Exchange the joy of being right for the joy of being effective.

Many members of the faith community never get beyond this stage.

Me 1976 - 1996

3. Perplexity

Those who do not want to settle down in stages 1 or 2 often leave. For those who don't 'Come join a community of people who don't know what they believe any more but want to talk about it' is not an easy recruit. Plus the leaders have no answers or certainties. Many ministry students experience this in their first term of theological education. And having built something wonderful as we moved from stage 1 to stage 2 we find ourselves knocking it down again. Members of this group often have humility (I don't know the answer) and courage (Let's journey into the unknown together and see where it leads). Not moral relativism but challenging incomplete morality.

I got here quickly (hold the humility) and spent 1981-96 crossing over. I since have been here for about thirty years. The reason Faith After Doubt is so good is that it encouraged me to go on with the journey

Me 1981-2023

4. Harmony

Many members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) laugh at the slowness with which western Christians get to this point. It is the stage at which one sees love as the driving force steering us through 1-3. It is the point at which we accept, rather than reject, all the disparate bits and pieces of messy life which have got us here. The new music is of appreciation, empathy and wonder. McLaren adds love. No wonder being present in stage four can feel like being lost for words, or maybe lost in wonder, love and praise as the hymn puts it.(2)

I once got in a big dispute by arguing that all change comes from dissatisfaction. I stand by that although the discussion was passionate. I don't think I can persuade you to change your mind until you are dissatisfied with the status quo. And conversely I must value the doubt I developed about my stages 1-3 faith for without the doubt I wouldn't have reached here. Reached where? Well, reached the start of the journey, a journey most people never discover and few have the privilege of joining.

Me, now.

If you're ready, read this book.

(1) A New Kind of Christian (2001)
The Story We Find Ourselves In (2003)
The Last Word and the Word After That (2005)

(2) Love Divine, All Loves Excelling