Helping Christians to Learn How to Doubt Well | Alisa Childers

Room For Nuance

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You have a section in the book where you talk about helping Christians to learn how to doubt well.

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I'm sure that that idea is scary for some people, especially if they were brought up in certain church and faith environments.

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Nobody should ever go when a Christian says, Hey, I'm wrestling with this. I mean, I'm a pastor and I think in one of our executive sessions, which is where once the elders meeting is basically done with, we just kind of have our accountability stuff.

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I told the guys, I think I'm struggling with some doubt about something, you know, and nobody should be aghast at that.

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Yeah. I think doubting well involves keeping God involved in prayer all the time.

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I remember meeting with a woman who was in deconstruction and she wanted to meet with me, which kind of surprised me because usually

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I'm kind of anathema in that world. But, but she was going through all of all of the things she was doubting.

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She had this list and God behaved this way or that way in scripture. And I said, well, tell me about your

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Bible reading. She goes, Oh, I don't read the Bible. And I pointed out to her. I said, I don't think your doubt is intellectual.

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It's emotional. And she blew her mind because she thought that her doubt was just intellectual. And I said, how can you be doubting something?

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You're not even engaging. And it was an emotional block that she had. So I think doubting well is important.

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Um, and it's important to realize that doubt and faith are not opposites. They're not contradictory to one another.

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You only doubt something you believe it kind of bubbles up in the context and it's, and it's not wrong to say,

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Ooh, I don't know. What do I think I need to know, but always be involving the Lord in the process, stay in the word and wrestle it out.

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The opposite of faith is unbelief. And we, we learned that from Romans one, when, when Paul lays it out and he says, you know, unbelief is the sin basically, because all are without excuse.

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We have access to information about God, just from his, the heavens declare all that. And so we are without excuse.

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So it's unbelief. That's the sin it's knowingly rejecting what you do already know. And so that's the sin, not necessarily doubt as we're talking about it in this context where you're questioning and wanting to know, make sure that what you believe is true.

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Doubt is not good, right? You want to resolve your doubt. You don't want to elevate doubt as this.

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And that's what happens too in the Deacon's trial and progressive Christianity is doubt becomes this ideal. No, you want to try to resolve your doubt.