Review: Faith After Doubt

 

            Let’s consider Christianity specifically:  have you ever had doubts about the authority of the Bible, the truth of the history or doctrinal claims of the Bible? Have you ever not been able to reconcile what you believe in your heart is just and living with what the Bible seems to say?

            A friend generously gave me a copy of Brian McLaren’s book, Faith After Doubt:  Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It.

            McLaren begins his book with all-too-familiar anecdotes:  people who question how God could allow evil and command genocide, how God could be against LBGTQ+ relationships, how could God send all people of all faiths to Hell who don’t believe what the Church teaches to be true, and how can we believe the origin story of the Bible when science shows something utterly different?  These and other issues that may arise doubt and confusion about what to truly believe are common.  I was shaken when I began seminary and was told that the history of the Old Testament was largely myth.

            McLaren rightly says it is good and right to admit when we don’t know an answer or how to get out of a textual and/or textual-scientific problem (75). Being glib or trying to force an answer only makes the problem worse.

            McClaren explains that there are four stages of belief (87ff, 163ff):

            The first, which he calls simplicity, accepts the correctness of the dualistic theology that is handed down from the teachers of the religion. That is, there is truth and there is untruth and nothing else – there are not shades of grey. There is good and there is evil. Period.

            Second, complexity, in which one comes to focus on the effectiveness of living out the teachings of the Church, rather that slavishly believing them. Here, one begins to acknowledge that all religions have truth in them, so one begins to use the tools one has to bring about world connection and universal love.

            Third, perplexity, in which one honestly and critically considers the beliefs one has been taught and looks at them with suspicion and doubt. This critique and challenge even reflects back on oneself.

            Finally, harmony, in which one denies dualistic theology, rather, one zooms out one’s perspective to see all peoples and idea in the context of faith expressing love.

            This progression is not a once only event. As one continues to grow and mature in faith expressing love, one will go through the stages again.

            The expressing of faith, then, moves from belief to activity to doubt and, finally, to love (167). This pattern of growth through doubt ends up helping human nature and society move towards non-violence and love (180).

            McLaren explains that once one is in stage three, one understands that religion cannot be divorced from social justice (183) and believing in absolutes and not doubting leads to deterioration of the self (191).

            By stage four, one understands that everyone has the Holy Spirit within them and the presence of grace (201).

            This, McLaren has found in his own spiritual journey that whether or not the stories of the Bible are historical is not what matters most. Rather, what matters most is understanding the meaning of the stories and putting that meaning into action (207).

            There are six appendices to the book: 1. A chart of the four stages, 2. What the move out of infancy looks like, 3. Various authors’ namings of the four stages, 4. Resources, 5. Three points of prayer for each of the four stages, and 6. Group guidelines.

            I appreciate that McLaren does not dismiss the struggles many people have in understand what the Bible says and how to understand it in the light of feelings and the sciences. I also appreciate his emphasis that we don’t know or understand everything, and we ought to be willing and able to admit when we don’t know, or to ask for time to think things through. No one has all the answers, and no one perfectly understands everything in the Bible. He is also right to emphasize that belief cannot be stagnant/inactive. Belief must lead to action. Orthodoxy leads (necessarily) to orthopraxy. If you say you do believe and don’t live it out, you are lying or self-deceived (see the book of James, for example).

            However, McLaren’s book suffers fatally from an overarching false dichotomy – that being that one either believes blindly and does not act on one’s beliefs, or one doubts one’s beliefs/considers them equal in truth to all other’s beliefs and does act in faith expressing love. That is simply not true.

            Even as he quotes from James, we read, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:22-25, ESV).

            McLaren does not allow for the person who sincerely believes what the Church teaches (even if that person struggles to understand portions of the Bible – or even never understands portions of the Bible), but also follows the teachings of the Church and the Bible (when the teachings of the Church are those of the Bible), and acts on those beliefs with purposeful and merciful action towards all people (even while believing that a just and loving God cannot allow sin to go unpunished).

            McLaren also disagrees with Paul when McLaren says that the historicity of the Bible is not what matters most. Paul says that this is the Gospel:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (I Corinthians 15:3-8, ESV).

Paul says historicity is of paramount importance.

I appreciate McLaren’s desire to help those who doubt/struggle with understanding the Bible and living it out, but he has written in his own first stage – and either/or that does not leave room for other understandings with action.

            (Also, the partisan political bashing is not helpful to getting his views across.)

            [This review appears on my blog, Amazon.com, and Goodreads.com].