More Jesus, Less Religion by Stephen Arterburn

Author:Stephen Arterburn [Arterburn, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-45939-8
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

HEALTHY FAITH IS NONDEFENSIVE

Healthy faith takes a nondefensive position toward those who challenge its beliefs and exercise. In fact, healthy faith welcomes critical evaluation and tough questions as opportunities to learn and relate. Those with healthy faith refrain from constantly “defining” the truth for others and welcome the chance to share what they have tasted and experienced of the truth in their own lives. Those who question their faith are not automatically labeled and rejected as troublemakers. Instead, they are encouraged by those with a healthy faith to explore their doubts.

On the other hand, those in a toxic, unhealthy faith system are afraid of every perceived threat to that system. They feel personally threatened because much of their faith is dictated by their rules rather than by the Word of God. When God is in charge, there is no reason to feel threatened. He is in control, and he will champion the faith. He can handle any challenge!

When I was growing up, almost everyone I knew was a Christian (or at least tried to act like one). Disbelievers and doubters were unwelcome. And that went double for agnostics—that confused, accursed breed, full of doubt and disbelief.

So imagine my surprise when one day a friend of mine, a non-Christian, informed me that I was an agnostic! “You go to a Christian school,” he told me, “but you’re kind of an agnostic, aren’t you?”

I was horrified. “What do you mean?” I stammered. “Why did you say that?”

“I just look at what you do,” he replied. “You don’t seem to spend time doing the things other Christians do, and you sure do a lot of things they would never do, so I just assumed that you were not too sure what you believed. That means you’re an agnostic.”

Now this was an incredibly observant person, so I couldn’t write off his comments. Sure, I went to church, prayed, and read the Bible some, but I did not live out my faith. I would never have called myself an agnostic, but that’s what I was.

If I had told anyone that I was an agnostic, they would have distanced themselves from me in a heartbeat. And here an unbeliever was confronting me with proof of my own unbelief! It was not easy to accept his conclusions, but God used them to help bring me back to him.

I wonder how much sooner I might have returned had I been allowed to admit what I was going through. I was a broken man, angry at God for not protecting me from my own bad decisions. I questioned whether he or his Word should mean anything to me. If I could have been open about my struggles, maybe I would not have wasted so much time. But because I had seen how doubters were treated in my church, I kept my faithlessness under wraps.

Years later I witnessed a completely different approach to agnosticism. I heard a minister actually congratulate the agnostics in his audience. “Are any of you here agnostics?” he asked.

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