The value of disbelief

Questions. Doubts. We were taught they were bad. Thomas doubted. Doubt is the opposite of faith. It’s unbelief. We must have faith. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Questions were feared. Push them down. Silence them. Drown them out. They’re just the devil. 

In reality, those questions were what saved me. My doubts, my questions, my disbelief were the things that brought me to a point of walking out, finally, from an unhealthy situation. I was taught doubt was bad. I doubted. I doubted the pastor who called himself the Man of God but who flew into rages and rants from the pulpit against women, teens, visitors, members, parents, the elderly…  I doubted the church that would believe liars and slanderers, saying “well, they have the Holy Ghost,” when anyone provided facts that should have obliterated the lies, should have revealed the slanderers and gossips for what they were. And in the end, I doubted the god they preached, a  god who allowed hatred and pride but condemned skirts with slits and gold colored glasses, who would laugh as he sent people to hell.  I doubted, and I’m glad I did. 

There is value in disbelief. There is value in doubt. Not all doubt or unbelief is bad. Not all is wrong. There are things that should be doubted. And there are many things that should be questioned. Even things that others tell us we should have faith in. Even God things. 

When I left the church, I was scared of questions. I’d stood in church listening to the pastor yell “this time tomorrow!” and talking about how the person who ran the aisles first or shouted the most or believed the hardest would get “their miracle,” and I thought, “yeah, right.” I’d doubted the church that could believe slander, lies, and gossip, while condemning sleeves that slipped above the elbows or a slip that barely showed under a calf length hem. And in the end, I doubted the god that was preached – a god who was angry, who was quick to condemn but slow to save. I doubted the purpose of and supposed answers to hours of prayer and fasting that were required, and I doubted my intentions in praying as I was. 

Since leaving, I’ve feared the questions. Am I backslid? I’d never have thought this ten years ago! If I’d known what I’d be thinking now, I wouldn’t have left. I was taught that I should believe without questioning. I shouldn’t need to see reasons or proof for what I was told. And yet… God never told us not to question. Doubt is never listed as a sin. Doubt is not the same as unbelief, but there are even things that we should disbelieve, because some of the things we were told we needed to believe in faith were absolute lies. It doesn’t take faith to believe those things, it takes gullibility. Faith, real faith, doesn’t ignore questions, it responds to them — and it does so not by having pat answers, but by receiving and considering them fully. That is faith. 

Real faith doesn’t reject doubt, it accepts it. Faith isn’t afraid to consider alternate views, because real faith, biblical faith, isn’t IN a perspective or opinion. Instead, it rests in an omnipresent, multi-faceted, all knowing yet incomprehensible God. Not one who will give us all the answers or silence our questions, but will encourage them. It’s when we have questions and doubts that we seek answers, that we grow, that we might become willing to step into the unknown. And THAT is faith.

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