What If I Find Myself Doubting That Christianity is True?

Have you ever found yourself doubting that Christianity is true?

I have.

After an event like an earthquake killing over 41,000 people made in God’s image happens, I tend to get rattled. My wife and I were talking on Monday, and she said something that has stuck with me all week. Putting this in my own words because she said it differently but the thought resonates still. When a tragedy happens, normally these things are caused by people so it’s easy to let God off the hook. A mass shooting stems from a person doing the shooting. But when it’s an earthquake, or a fire, or a tsunami, or hurricane, no person can cause that. That’s something beyond our power or control. These things happen because of a higher or greater power.

So cue in the doubt. If God is in charge of everything, that includes these natural disasters. Why is God, who is supposed to be good and loving, letting people die like this? It’s easy to have doubts if you have a brain.

I don’t have a quick answer to this. If I did I’m not convinced an easy answer is a satisfying answer to this sort of question. So if you’re interested in reading on to learn and think with me and have our brains hurt a bit, let’s go.

Some Thoughts On Doubt

Sometimes I think doubt is something created by our own constructs. We tend to think of doubt as the opposite of faith. And because it’s faith’s opposite, it is opposed to faith or against faith.

So we’ll put them in these matter-of-fact categories: faith is this, and doubt is not this.

So either you believe wholeheartedly or you are an unbeliever. This thinking is very problematic, to say the least.

But the Greek word for faith has to do with trustworthiness. For example, if someone in Roman and Greek culture had faith, or embodied faith, they would be someone who was a reliable person. They were honest, they did not lack integrity, and they were true to who they were.

A postmodern equivalent of this would be how we often use the word authentic. Millennials and Gen Z can smell bull. We can tell if something isn’t real or authentic because we’ve been let down so many times by older institutions and older people.

Maybe the Christmas movie Elf is a deliberate social commentary on this. When Will Ferrel’s character Elf walks into the diner and says, “Congratulations! You did it! World’s BEST coffee” all because he read an advertisement on the side of the building that said “World’s Best Coffee.”

Later on that famous date with Zoey Deschanel’s character, Jovie, she replies “It tastes like a crappy cup of coffee…[eyes open to behold a diner quality cup of Joe]…It is a crappy cup of coffee.”

Millennials and Gen Z know that you can’t slap “World’s Best Pizza” on the front door of a lousy pizza shop to get us in the door. It doesn’t work. We can tell if you’re sitting on a throne of lies.

How do we know if a pizza place is good, and is operating in good faith? How is it trustworthy? Well, they make good pies with real ingredients, and by word of mouth that news travels far and wide and when you get there you just know it’s going to be good. The smell is there, the taste is on point. Maybe they have an original brick oven that’s been around since the 1920s. Like Pepe’s Pizza in Connecticut. Everybody on the East Coast knows it’s worth visiting. Heck, everyone in the world knows. When I went last year I met people from England trying it out for the first time.

I apologize for my tangent here but I love pizza. In my darkest of times, of questioning the existence of God I think it’s possibly an apologetic for the existence of God. If God doesn’t exist, then how come there is pizza!? As Ben Franklin once put it, “Beer is proof that God exists and wants us to be happy.” My creed is “Pizza is proof that God exists and wants us to be satisfied.”

Back to faith and doubt as constructs, I don’t view doubt as fundamentally opposed to faith.

Faith is composed of three things: knowledge, assent, and trust. There is a cognitive element to faith, but it’s not just that because even the demons believe that God exists and yet they don’t possess true faith. True faith has knowledge, agrees with that knowledge, and actually places personal trust in the object of that faith (in the Christian faith, that is in the person and work of Jesus).

So if we say that faith is more complex than merely believing, I think doubt can also have complexity to it.

Making Room for Doubt

In Matthew 28:17, we have this picture of people bowing down to worship the resurrected Jesus. And then we see, “but some doubted.” Even in the face of just straight facts, people still doubted. They did not personally trust that Jesus was really who he said he was and is.

Now to bring this into everyday conversations that people have in the church or about the church. We might hear people saying silly stuff like:

-You need to pray more, that’s why you doubt.

-You need to read the Bible more, that’s why you’re doubting.

-Is the Bible not good enough for you?

-Is there some unconfessed sin in your life that you’re not fessing up to? That’s why you’re doubting God. Repent!

And with these statements, people are pouring more and more blame on a person who is struggling and feels overwhelmed with doubt.

Ramming Bible verses down people’s throats will not fix a person wrestling with doubt. Saying, “You’re like that person being tossed to and fro that James speaks of, ye of little faith” “You just need to have more faith!” None of these weird responses or reactions have ever helped real people.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at something that’s hard to accept.

It appears that one of the greatest reasons for doubt in and outside of the church isn’t because people are actively trying to find reasons to doubt Christianity. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is trying to become an atheist (Only 7% of the world’s population identifies as being positively atheist/agnostic). Often it’s because people have been driven away from trusting the church because of harm that’s been caused to them by people in the church.

We have the Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandals that everyone knows about—so much so that Hollywood made a movie to Spotlight it. We also have all of the sexual abuse scandals in Protestant circles, like when the Houston Chronicle reported over 700 cases of sexual abuse and assault within the SBC. Or the statistic that 86% of those who identify as LGBTQIA+ were formerly part of a faith community and 54% have subsequently left.

It’s this sort of data that has me thinking we have done a very poor job handling people who have expressed doubts.

How have we handled people who are wrestling with questions? Do we allow for any breathing room here? Do we make room for doubt?

Thinking back on James's comment and how it can be misused to compare a doubting person to be like a wave tossing that person into the sea…

Sorry, but we just can’t do that. The text won’t allow us to.

In his letter, James is actually picking up on a story that you find in the Gospels. It’s that story of the disciples who are in a boat, and there's this big storm that comes and Jesus is sleeping. And they rush to wake Jesus up in the middle of the night, and they're freaking out that the boat’s gonna sink or whatever, and Jesus just tells them, you know, basically, keep calm and carry on.

He says, “Take heart” or “Don’t be afraid. And I think what's interesting about this is people always focus on the “Oh, ye of little faith. Why did you doubt?” part when Jesus is using that older sense of the word doubt in this passage. Meaning he’s not speaking about them having a lack of conviction or lacking trust, necessarily, but of being full of fear.

So to sum that up, Jesus is not attacking the kind of doubt someone might have when we are just wrestling with serious questions or having questions about faith. I don't think the Bible is excluding people who are wrestling with things at all.

I think that instead what we find is an invitation. Much like with the story of doubting Thomas.

This is someone whose first name is now literally replaced with doubt. First Name: Doubting. Last Name: Thomas.

I mean, he's known for the rest of all time as being the doubter. But Jesus doesn't condemn him for doubting. Instead he has great empathy for this struggling man. I mean, sure Jesus says it's better if you believe rather than having to look at this, but he still invites Thomas to look at his his scars, at his hands, and at his feet. Very clearly he’s giving Thomas space to check these things out. That's an invitation.

And a final comment on this comes from a letter in the New Testament that probably nobody ever preaches on, and nobody really ever reads except maybe a single verse. But in Jude, verse 22 says, “and have mercy on those who doubt.”

There is a specific call for us to show mercy toward those who find themselves a Doubting Thomas in this world.

Jude says, “save others by snatching them out of the fire” and “have mercy on those who doubt…waiting for the mercy of Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”

I mean, goodness gracious, show mercy to those who are wrestling.

Could it possibly be any clearer for us to be patient with people who have questions?

The Most Overlooked Reason Why Millennials (& Gen Z) Have Left the Church

We were talking with a friend last night after dinner, and it struck me like a brick hitting Marv in the head in Home Alone 2.

Millennials and Gen Z never left the church.

Millennials and Gen Z were never part of the church in the first place.

This is the most overlooked reason in all of our talk of why millennials have left church and how is it that we can get Gen Z to go to church.

We have to dig into this reason if we’re ever going to uncover real reasons in reaching unreached people, and if we’re ever going to undo the damage that has been done.

So let’s do that.

Defining Terms

When I say Millennial, per Pew Research I’m referring to anyone born between 1981 and 1996. Yes, a lot of these people have children now and are not teenagers. No, these are not the youth of the nation anymore. Yes, we are America's workforce now and are in effect today’s boomers of yesterday.

When I say Gen Z, I’m referring to anyone born after 1997. These are 15-27 year olds now. I can’t even believe that Gen Z has grown up. My nieces are in this generation and it’s crazy to me. A baby I once held as a college student is now #adulting. Unreal.

Diving into the Reason

I’m a Millennial. And I grew up in church. So you might be wondering, how is it that I can be saying that Millennials were never part of the church. Isn’t that a contradiction?

No it’s not and here’s why.

When I was brought to church by my parents or with my parents, or whenever I was dropped off at some youth gathering, I was never part of the church.

In last night’s discussion as we were reminiscing on our pasts, our friend reminded me of something I had long forgotten. As kids we would refer to church as “Big Church.”

Ice cream socials, pizza parties, and sleepovers at the church happened. Trips to theme parks may have happened. Lots of activities happened. And while Big Church was going on, we were sequestered in our own youth rooms of small, medium, and gigantic sizes hearing different messages (often about not having sex, or the end times/rapture, or watching funny videos, or something).

As I thought about it last night, and into this morning I realized that an entire generation of kids that grew up going to church were never included into the family of God throughout their church attendance. After Youth Group ended, we all grew up. Many of my peers who grew up with parents who attended church did not continue to go to church. A small few may have found something like Cru or Intervarsity in college, or maybe a college ministry to attend. But the many never returned.

What I’ve said so far is anecdotal. This is my experience, and it’s personal and it doesn’t speak for everyone by any means. But it is a trend, or a pattern that I have encountered often when speaking with Millennials who have deconstructed their faith and no longer attend church.

And this general trend has caught my attention to see something larger at play.

The Big Picture About Big Church

According to a survey conducted in 2021, with each successive generation we’ve had declining church attendance.

What this graph doesn’t highlight very well is that with each of these generations, it isn’t the kids who choose to go to church less frequently. It’s the parents of each generation who are choosing to do other things besides attend church. And with each passing generation, the next generation of parents goes to church just a little bit less.

What I’m trying to point out here is that the fault and the blame isn’t on the Millennials and Gen Z for not going to church anymore. Typically this is how the news articles and the blogs and such paint it. Something like:

Bad Millennials. Bad Gen Z. You are destroying Christianity! Bunch of snowflakes and pansies. God help us all!

And the fear builds, and the freaking out and yada yada.

But the real blame is on our approach to doing church generally. The blame is on each generation of parents in our parenting.

What happens when we train up an entire generation separate from Big Church? What happens when our children never experience what it’s like to belong to the family?

Well, they do exactly what they were trained to do: they don’t go to church because they’ve never been to church.

Before we act surprised at the recent data, we have to take responsibility for our actions. If we don’t view an entire generation as part of our church family in the first place, then we can’t act surprised when they don’t want to be in the family.

It’s our fault.

This is on churches.

This is on parents.

But if you’re Gen Z or a Millennial like me, we can’t just put the blame on our parents and act like it’s all good. If we do that, then we will continue the downward trend for our own children, and our children’s children. We can’t do this because now it’s on us.

We are occupying the leadership positions now. We are parents now. It’s the Millennials and the Gen Z’s who are taking up leadership roles in churches and who are having and who are raising children who need to begin including children in gathered worship spaces and who will need to send a clear message that includes our children in the family of God.

This is the way if we’re ever going to change the trajectory and alter the course of history.

Now do you see what I mean when I say Millennials and Gen Z never left the church because they were never part of the church?

Separating children for decades from the word and sacraments will ultimately create apostates and agnostics of us all. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me” and in general we’ve taken the position of keeping them at arms length away from Jesus and his words of life. And when we exclude an entire generation from our gathered church family, we exclude them from the table. So we can’t act surprised when they don’t show up to dinner once they’re older. It makes sense.

So there it is. That’s the most overlooked reason why Millennials and Gen Z have left the church.

---

If there’s enough interest on this topic I’ll write a follow up post to this one outlining some practical ways churches and parents can begin to include children and send a clear message that the next generation is our church family.

Why Should We Go to Church?

The church our family has been attending just finished a sermon series called, First Things First, named after that famous quote by the renowned author C.S. Lewis.

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication. It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman — glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens? Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made.

Apparently the world is made that way… You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.

—C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” God in the Dock

One of the main applications from this short, month long series has been to remind those gathered and those visiting that God calls his people to come to church for his glory and our good. This is an important truth, but it’s also important to understand the why behind this truth.

Have you ever wondered why it is that Christians feel the need to wake up early most Sunday mornings to go to church? Or maybe they don’t need to wake up super early because there is a later service to go to, but they still carve out an hour or two weekly to go to church.

Why do Christians do that?

Why make this sacrifice, giving up time and attention to meet with some invisible diety?

People like to say, “The church is a people, not a place.” But it’s more biblical to say, “The church is a people who gather together in a place.” That place could be in a building, but it could also be in a home or down by the river. Christians throughout history have gathered in all sorts of places—from synagogues to strip malls—but the key thing here is that the church gathers.

Defining The Church

The translation for church used in the Bible is “assembly.” Christians assemble together, or gather together regularly and when they do they are a church. Now, this is where the popular phrase, “The church is a people, not a place,” sounds like it’s right at first because when church is over and people leave the church still exists, it’s not like it appears and then disappears until the next Sunday. So assuming this, someone might say I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian any more than going to Taco Bell makes me a taco (I think it was Justin Bieber who said that once).

To that I would say the church doesn’t stop being a church any more than the Avengers stopped being the Avengers after they fought and defeated Loki in the battle of New York. The Avengers assembled, and they were forever known as the Avengers who protect and save the world. When fat Thor sat on the couch eating chicken wings and drinking beer, he was still an Avenger. Once he gathered together again with the others, he proved he was an Avenger.

Christians go to church regularly because that’s what Christians are called by Jesus to do (Mt 18:20; Acts 2:42-47, 20:7; 1 Cor 14:26; Col 3:16; Heb 10:25). When we gather together, we grow together and we encourage one another.

But church is more than just being with other Christians. It’s encouraging to be around others who can pray for you and who are interested in coming alongside you to help you, but that’s not enough to get me out of bed in the morning on a Sunday.

The Best Part About Going to Church

When Jesus founded his church, he made it all about gathering together in his name to hear from him, pray to him, sing to him, eat a meal together remembering him, and yes, love one another too.

Going to church regularly matters because the church is the only place on this earth where we receive something that we don’t get anywhere else. I go to a coffee shop to get energized, I workout at CrossFit for health reasons, I see my psychiatrist to get prescription medication, I go to the gas station to fill up my empty tank (ouch, that hurts these days), and I go to the movies or stream Netflix to be entertained. All of these places are good for general health, wellness, and they meet different needs and wants that I have, but the only place I can go to hear that my sins have been forgiven by Christ’s life and death for me is by going to church. The church shares a message that is unique and different from everything else.

The world expects me to perform. My parents certainly did growing up. Teachers had expectations too. Fraternity life was also by merit—if you do the work and serve the time you get in. Then you grow up and you’re expected to get a job and work hard. What you put in is what you get out. And then I go to church and I hear a message from the Bible that tells me Jesus performed for me so I don’t have to perform anymore. God accepts me and loves me because Jesus was perfect for me.

I hear this news, and for the first time and second time and thousandth time I’m reminded of grace.

Grace is what makes going to church different from going to Taco Bell, or whatever else. Yeah sure, food is great but you generally have to always pay for it. You don’t pay for grace. Grace is given, it’s not earned.

A Glimpse of Going to Church

When you go to church, the church is God’s embassy of grace. It’s the place where we hear the King address his people offering faith, hope, and love. He clothes us with his good works and he feeds us with his banquet meal (delicious bread and fine wine). It’s a place where people embrace one another as equals, as sinners in need of the same Savior who offers forgiveness in his name. It’s a place where children, women, and men are valued and appreciated for who God has created them to be. As we gather in his presence, we are changed from the inside out.

Now, no church on this earth is perfect. Sometimes we go to church and we hear an insensitive comment. Sometimes we go to church and someone ends up backstabbing us and that really hurts and sucks. We get sinned against, and we sin against others even though we are Christians in this embassy of grace. But this gathering, this assembly, the church is a signpost of the future kingdom that is coming. There are moments when the church is pretty glorious and most of all, when other Christians or when the pastor points us to Jesus—the One who gave up everything for us—church is pretty awesome. Jesus always treats us with respect, love, and he never lets us down.

5 Stupid Things Christians Need to Stop Saying

Some of my greatest pet peeves of all time come from hanging around the proverbial Christian bubble. I broke the bubble a long time ago and don't hang around Christians exclusively, so thankfully I don’t hear this stuff very often. But when I do, man it irks my nerves and then some. Here are five stupid things Christians need to stop saying, like right now. Or yesterday. That works too…

1. “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.”

Cue the video with a millennial talking, standing outside with a historic church building in the background. This one drives me crazy. It’s not me, it’s you (meaning, this statement). This one has to go. Christianity is not a private faith, it’s a public faith. When Jesus died on the cross, was he crucified in solitary confinement? No. He died in a public space, where people on a public road passed by to witness his death. This makes being a Christian not only a personal act or decision but a very public one. (Remember when Jesus said something along the lines of, “If anyone denies me in front of others I’ll deny him before the Father?”)

If it’s public, then it’s a public religion that you are either part of or you’re not. If you’re in a relationship with Jesus, then you also belong to his church (the body of Christ, to which Jesus is the head). Entering into a relationship with Jesus begins with baptism, which is a religious thing to do. It’s a religious rite, called a “sacrament” that ushers us into the family of God—marking us out from the world and saying before the world, “This one belongs to the Triune God.” You can’t get more religious than that.

When we say “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship,” it's misleading and makes it sound like it's just me and Jesus inside of my wee little heart. But that's not the Christian faith. Sure, each Christian has a relationship with God in Christ—I get that, but Christianity is still a religion and carries with it doctrines (teachings) that we must believe if we are following Jesus. God is triune, Jesus was truly God and man, etc.

2. “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

It’s time to let this one go. Evangelical Christians can probably recite this one with more certainty than John 3:16, but it’s a phrase found nowhere in the Holy Bible. It never made it in David’s Psalms. It didn’t make the 10 commandment list. And it was never penned by Saint Paul.

So where then does it come from? Some people cite Saint Augustine of Hippo (circa 424 AD) for this saying, but in his 211 Letter he actually just said, “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.” (Not really translating to this popular phrase, at all.)

It was hundreds of years later in 1929 when Mohandas Gandhi said it in his autobiography. “Hate the sin and not the sinner.” It sounds like a nice proverb, but it isn’t Christian. So let’s stop saying it. Because when we say it and try to implement it, our hatred of the sin always gets in the way of coming close to loving the sinner.

As we “hate the sin,” we just stiff-arm the person we claim to love. Now when we see that person, all we look at and tend to focus on is the sin that it is we see them committing that makes them less obedient to God than us. (Another problem with this right off the bat, is that Jesus warned us about pulling the plank out of our own eye first before judging the spec in our brother’s eye…oh well. That’s biblical.)

It’s as if we are saying with our actions, “I love you, but only to a point. I love you as long as there is nothing that I don't like about you. But if I find something, well, then my love for you stops.” The problem with this is, aside from failing to view each person as being made in the image of God, we also fail to seek to love them as God has loved us. And it makes us crusty and bitter and judgy. Who wants to be around that?

It’s better for Christians to lead with the gospel and with the image of God than with ethics. Ethics come, but they come as we grow up into the perfect icon of God (Colossians 1), Jesus Christ himself. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins, and it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance (not his stiff upper lip). So let’s stop saying this one, yeah?

3. “When God closes the door, he opens a window!”

This one is pure optimism. That is all.

But what happens when God closes the door and boards up the windows too in someone’s life? Then what? This is a dumb statement.

It’s dumb because we don’t know what’s next. We can hope that when a person faces job loss, or sudden unexpected death of a loved one, or an unwanted diagnosis, that there will be better days this side of heaven. But we don’t know that for sure. Brighter days may only come in glory. We might be suffering for a long time before that though. That's what happened to various Christians throughout church history, why couldn’t it also be our destiny? Jesus suffered a buttload, why do we think somehow we are going to escape it?

Sometimes the door is shut, the windows are boarded up, and the house even burns down. That’s okay, because no matter what happens, “I am not my own, but belong in body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 1).

Like most of these pithy statements, they are last-gasp attempts to comfort someone when we don’t know what else to say. So why not say nothing? Just food for thought…

4. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it!”

The problem with this saying is that there are a lot of things that God has said in the Bible, and that means a lot of things inside of the Bible can be used and twisted to suit unintended purposes and have harmful consequences. For example, in the Garden of Eden, the wicked serpent used God's own words and twisted them to convince Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3). “Did God actually say ‘you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” when God actually said, “You may eat of any tree in the garden, except for that one over there.”

People use and abuse Scripture to suit their own ends all the time. But there are steps to understanding what the Bible says and does not say. The words in the Bible must be interpreted through prayerful rigorous study that uses literary context, semantics and syntax, and historical understanding, all weighed against the history of interpretation in order to arrive at a trustworthy understanding of what is being said. This process goes well beyond just reading a verse, closing the good book, and saying “Ah ha! Got you!” to our “enemies.” That's just dumb.

Additionally, appealing to the Bible on its own in an age of skepticism doesn’t do anything to help a conversation move forward. Ultimately, yes, a Christian believes the Bible because God authored and authorized it and we trust him, but that doesn’t mean we believe the Bible is authoritative without reason. There are credible, reliable reasons to believe that the Bible is the Word of God and carries with it an authority we shouldn't try to overrule with our subjective opinions. But when we say stuff like, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it!” well, this just shuts any and all conversation down. It’s arrogant and boastful (which are two things that God has said in the Bible shouldn’t mark his followers—oh well.)

5. “God won’t ever give you more than you can handle.”

Um, actually he will and he often does. He gave Jesus and the apostles so much for them to handle that most of them died. One of them (John) was sentenced to exile.

I’m pretty sure God can and does give us way more than we can handle.

But that doesn’t mean that well-meaning Christians won’t say this one during a moment of deep pain or crisis. It’s like saying “Everything happens for a reason,” when you don’t know what to say to someone. Well, how about we just don’t say anything at all? Or how about we use our brains a little and say real words of comfort to someone who is utterly broken and cast down in spirit due to bad circumstances?

As an alternative, maybe say, “Wow, you're going through so much right now. I can’t imagine what it’s like, but I’m here with you in your pain. Can I pray with you?”