Confessions of a doubting Thomas

“Feed your faith, starve your doubts.” This church sign turned my thoughts to the beloved youth pastor of my teenage years. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spoke these exact words to our bulging rural youth group; I probably spoke them too.

In those years, I was what some called “on fire for the Lord.” Yes, I lived in a town where virtually everyone went to church but that didn’t matter. I knew that lukewarm Christians lurked under every bush and it was my job to warm them up.

My church was too traditional: the hymns so slow, the sermons so boring, the pews so stiff. I wanted something different, and so did my friends. Soon I was giving the sermon on youth Sunday, speaking at the occasional youth event, and, guitar in hand, teaching as many Vineyard tunes as the congregation would tolerate. I was running to win the race.

But the race rarely goes to the swift. Three years out of high school, I had little to show for it. I spent the first year in and out of the dish pit of a local restaurant, the second in a short-term mission assignment, the third carrying drywall for a lumberyard. When the youth pastor job came vacant at my church, I wondered if this was my opportunity to really make something out of my life.

Thankfully, our senior pastor at the time thought otherwise. He suggested Bible school first, ministry second.

That fall I took four short courses at Providence College, just enough to turn my black-and-white faith grey. Two courses, taught by the college’s “rogue” professor, introduced me to “the quest for the historical Jesus” and all the social, cultural, and historical barriers between me and the “real” meaning of the Scriptures.

As I sat spellbound, my world started to unravel. I had never realized how hard it is to interpret the Bible, never questioned the historicity of the resurrection, never reflected on why I believed the dogmas I’d been spoon-fed. I had starved my doubts before they were even expressed; now, they grew with a vengeance.

During the next four years, I doubted as fervently as I had once believed. I offended pastors, friends, and family, and deepened my conviction that no one in this simple-minded religion could give a reasonable account for why they believed what they believed. I was ready to quit church, to give up my faith once and for all.

Three messengers

But God was gracious to me. As I reflect on it now, I see three messengers of this grace: my wife, my current church, and my university studies.

Well before my doubts reached a climax, I was married to a sensitive, strong-minded woman. She stuck with me and, though they often scared her, listened to my questions. She insisted that I continue attending church and that I transform my doubts into a search for truth. This meant moving from southern Manitoba to pursue studies at the University of Winnipeg and Concord College.

Shortly after arriving in Winnipeg, we discovered River East MB Church. People there treated faith and doubt as complementary expressions of a longing for God and desire for truth. My questions weren’t always answered, but they were always welcomed, sometimes fed, never starved. I could be myself, and, in many ways, this kept me coming.

It was my university studies, however, that really turned the tide for me. I encountered the great thinkers of the Christian tradition: Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Kant, Tillich, Barth, Yoder – and the list goes on.

My questions were not new; minds far more capable than my own had wrestled with them and still found substance in Christianity. Far from plunging me further into doubt, my philosophy classes challenged the rampant skepticism of our age, a skepticism I had largely accepted.

Surprisingly, even my “secular” professors took Christianity seriously. They convinced me that I shouldn’t give up my religious pursuits just because truth is hard to find. In the spirit of one of my dearest professors, “though we see through a glass dimly, we still see.”

Studying the history of thought, I found myself surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. They have not answered all my questions – I still sympathize with doubting Thomas – but I have found a new hope, a deeper commitment, and a new understanding of faith. It involves trusting and engaging the teachings of those who have gone before us. It recognizes that both faith and doubt can be true expressions of one’s ultimate concern for God.

My doubts are part of who I am. If the God of all wisdom knows the real me, he knows my questions too.

Donovan Giesbrecht is taking an education degree at the University of Winnipeg and attends River East MB Church, Winnipeg.