Doubt is Not Humility

I don’t even remember the issue we were talking about – it had something to do with Christianity – but I do remember my friend’s response. “Gosh, I'm not really sure," he said. And I thought it a humble and gracious posture to take.

Only, its been five years now. And he's still saying, "I'm not really sure." He has landed in that place. Now I see what happened. He has chosen doubt - a posture very attractive and honored in our day.

Doubt is “in.”

Listen to how people talk (especially young adults). “I don’t really know…I’m just sort of wrestling with things right now…you know, I’m not really sure….” And if in the rare case someone actually says what they believe, they quickly add, “but that’s just the way I see it.”

As if confidence is a bad quality to have. Certainty is suspect these days.  

For one, it doesn’t seem “real,” or “authentic.” It’s human to doubt. So it seems more human to express doubt than certainty. We end up embracing doubt because it feels “true.”

But there is also guilt by association. Dogmatic people – people certain they know what’s what – have done a lot of damage. Particularly dogmatic religious people. Good people don’t want anything to do with that, and so – by a leap of logic - they don’t want to be seen as having strong convictions. Certainty is not something they want to be associated with.

I’m thinking of this quote by Alan Bloom; referring to a fundamental assumption the postmodern makes he says:

“The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.”

And so Doubt, masquerading as humility, has become a virtue. A pre-requisite for respect. People of strong conviction are suspect.

Now, I appreciate the desire for humility, and the fear of being dogmatic.

But let us remember that conviction is not the enemy. As Chesterton said, "An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth...The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."

Enter Jesus, who is always so wonderfully counter-cultural. He knows humility. But doubt (this will be a great surprise to many people) is not something Jesus holds in high esteem. “Stop doubting and believe” (John 20:27). Hmm.

I think we've stumbled onto another vital expression of not letting ourselves be corrupted by the world (James 1:27). We breathe this cultural air; we take in its assumptions. So let us remember this truth:

Doubt is not a virtue. Doubt is not humility. Doubt is doubt. Jesus understands doubt, and he wants us to get past it, not embrace it for heaven's sake.

Of Course

My son told me recently that at his Christian college a student has chosen to fly Buddhist prayer flags off the dorm balcony.

Perfect. Of course they did. It is a classic picture of the culture at this moment. A self-revealing snapshot.

Too many years ago to count, Alan Bloom came out with a celebrated (and prophetic) book called The Closing of the American Mind. In it, Bloom - a university professor - observed that the last value held by college students in this post modern world is tolerance. A value held passionately. Almost religiously.

Those college students grew up, had children of their own, and shaped the culture we have at present. We are so steeped in the tolerance=compassion=human rights=all faiths have goodness to them=the important thing is to be sincere mindset now that a Christian student flying Buddhist prayer flags is met with this sort of reaction: "It's kinda cool." "It's not big deal." "It's a symbol of tolerance." "It's a way of standing with the oppressed Tibetan people."

It is, in fact, very naive.

The flags contain prayers (mantras) and symbols to gods other than Jesus Christ. They are, in fact, an invitation for demons to come and take roost. By your permission.

But doesn't my saying so seem just a little...too obsessive? I mean, c'mon. Lighten up. As proof that we are so accustomed to the laid-back paganism of our times, notice than on the whole we are more uncomfortable with someone saying, "umm...that's demonic" than we are with a Christian student flying Buddhist prayer flags at a Christian college. 

It would be a very uncomfortable community exercise to ask, what does James 1:27 mean for this culture right now? "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (1:27). We are really, really big on the social justice part right now. That is super cool. Very "in." But we are unsure if we want to deal with the second half of the passage. That part is not so cool at the moment.

So, the prayer flags summon away.

Healing the Past

I had a remarkable and unexpected opportunity this last weekend.

I'd gone back to southern California to visit my aging parents. My dad is in a nursing home know and it was good to see him. My mom needed some help around their old house as well, and I was glad to be able to fix some things for her. But the unexpected gift came as I drove around the neighborhoods in which I grew up.

I found myself praying through my past. The loneliness of my junior high years. The rebellion of my high school days. As I drove around I would remember a person or an event, and simply invite Jesus into it. It was extraordinarily redemptive. It felt like Jesus and I were walking back through all sorts of things from the past, and as we did I could feel the emotion or the old way of looking at things, and I could invite Christ into it to make it his own.

I think God actually does this more often than we know. He'll bring up something that will trigger a memory - we might have a dream, or visit an old haunt of ours, we might see an old friend or sometimes all it takes is just a certain smell like cut grass or a donut shop and bam, we are back in some period of our life. In those moments, invite Jesus into it, into that period in your life. And linger there for a bit, allowing his Spirit to show you what to pray.

I found myself asking his forgiveness for the sins of my youth (Psalm 25:7) and the cleansing of that felt very important for my life and freedom now, in the present. (So many of these things retain a kind of hold on us, decades later.) At other moments I found myself inviting Jesus into an old relationship and what I found there was his love re-writing my past, coming into it. But most of all, I found myself expressing gratitude for how he has truly saved me. The contrast of my life from then till now was stunning to me. Change and sanctification take place so gradually that we often don't see how far we've come until we look back.

It is a powerful thing to redeem the past, bring it under the rule of Jesus and invite him to fill it. I think this is why he will bring it up in the present through some reminder of days gone by. When he does, invite Jesus into it, give it to him, let him heal or affirm or cleanse or redeem or return to you some gift of life he gave but you lost over time..