Burning My Faith to the Ground

Faith needs to be challenged to survive

Like the nostalgia we have for the old black and white sitcoms, life seemed simpler and more wholesome when I had all the answers. God was a bit like the genie in the bottle, granting me wishes. All I needed to do was pray, read the Bible and quote a verse or two to get me through a rough patch.

But it had an ugly underbelly that was destructive.

The shit hit the fan when my three-month-old granddaughter was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and nothing seemed certain anymore because God seemed cruel, distant, and capricious. Prayer and Bible reading seemed trite and meaningless, statements from well-meaning Christians of “ God is going to heal her, I know it!” Was sand in my weeping eyes, gnats in my ears, and vinegar in my mouth.

Cracks had already been forming in the foundations of my faith prior to that experience, but it could not bear the weight of watching an infant suffering for no apparent reason. There is no theology of suffering that is meaningful. Christianity offered no spaces to mourn and rage against the meaninglessness that life can bring.

In the circles I was in, only blind Polyanna hope was allowed, and my faith broke. All the beliefs I held as Gospel truth began to crumble as the rock of certainty turned to dust.

Here are a few articles I wrote as I wrestled with God and my faith.

I was certain faith had all the answers

When I didn’t get answers to suffering and seeming random acts of God, and when God seemed distant and unknowable, I turned to science and wrote about that here:

I was certain about heaven and hell

I was taught heaven was a beautiful, peaceful place where those who believed in Jesus went to live in eternal bliss of love, meaning, and significance. I looked forward to being reunited with the loved ones who had died. There would be no more tears, heartache, or pain.

But then I began hearing stories of near-death experiences, and nothing seemed clear anymore. Faith or lack thereof didn’t seem to change their experience in the afterlife. Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, Catholic, young or old, male or female, spanning generations — all reported a similar experience.

It seems we all need to learn lessons in the afterlife, but we will eventually be enveloped in the great mystery of the beyond. All who came back from that experience had deeper compassion and love while also shedding any allegiance to a specific religion. I wrote about that here:

I was certain being gay was a sin

A series of events happened that changed my mind, beginning with a close friend leaving her husband and coming out as gay. It challenged my belief and set me on a quest for answers. I ran across Steve Chalke’s book The Lost Message of Paul, where he dives into the meaning of the Bible passages that seem to hammer on gay sin — and helped me see differently. I wrote about that here:

I was certain God hated abortion

Until Roe v. Wade was threatened and women’s ability to choose was being slowly and methodically stripped from them, I lived in a bubble where that decision rarely hit my consciousness. But as I began to examine my belief, it took on some nuance, and I shed the black and white belief I had on that issue. I wrote about that here:

I was certain of Jesus’s imminent return

I grew up in the heyday of books and movies peddling fear of the end times, all pointing to the certainty of Christ’s return at any moment. We were commanded to preach the Gospel to a lost world before it was all too late. It all turned into nonsense for me when year after year passed, and all the prophecies never came true, and I began to question most of the end-times prophecies. I wrote about that here:

I was certain God was male

I thought a belief in a male God would never ever change. Scripture seemed clear on that issue — until it wasn’t anymore. As a woman, I reflected on my life-long discomfort with a God who only identified himself as a male and began to question that premise. I learned that there were many references to God being other than just male and that as a female, I also bore the image of God. I wrote about that here:

I was certain a woman should submit to her husband

This teaching was hammered into me from pastors and teachers, books, sermons, and real-life examples. It seemed an inescapable fact and God-ordained. To go against it was a sure way to bring on all kinds of punishment from God. But then it became untenable for me, my mental health, and my faith, and I risked God’s displeasure by throwing it all out the window. I wrote about that experience here:

I was certain a woman could not preach or teach

This seemed to be a theology that was eternal and never changing. God had made this very clear in the Bible, and I didn’t have any examples that challenged that view. I could not imagine it ever changing, and in fact, I felt a certain existential despair when my longing to preach was thwarted by a Bible verse or two. In the end, I threw that out as well and wrote about that experience here:

Losing all that certainty has been hard, and I kinda wish I hadn’t. It’s hard work to figure out new paths of meaning and significance. On the other hand, I discovered I am not alone — many are on the same path as I am — and many from ages past have also questioned their faith. It is a part of authentic living, and I look forward to a new year of learning.

For more articles on faith, religion, and spirituality, sign up for my newsletter.

New to Medium? Click here to become a Medium member and get access to all my articles and thousands of others.