A local church's "wayside pulpit" notice board has the following message:
"What if... you doubt God exists? Don't let doubt lose your place in heaven"
As a Christian I find this message profoundly offensive on several levels. First, it is a message of fear. To me it is the ultimate backfiring of Protestant religion. One aspect of the Protestant Reformation was that it sought to remove a climate of fear based on having to behave in a certain way. By recognizing that we are sinners, asking God's forgiveness in the sincere belief that Christ died to take the punishment upon himself, we can be redeemed. In shorthand, "all you have to do is believe, and everything will follow from that". There is no condemnation for those who believe. And perhaps part of the Protestant appeal to reason is that if belief gets you to heaven, then lack of it will lose you your place in heaven. But as a message to passers by? Surely "doubt and you'll go to hell" is no more enlightened than "sin and you'll go to hell".
The second thing wrong with the message is that confusion about what doubt is. It is being taken as the opposite of belief. But doubt is a necessary part of belief! Without doubt, you would have certainty, which is not the same as belief. Certainty seems to me to be a tremendously damaging force in religion. Suicide bombers are driven by certainty about their place in heaven. But the rest of us, however faithful we may be, do not know. Even this church's own website says "The truthful answer is that we cannot know for certain [that there is a God]"
The third problem for me is the level of certainty that this poster has not only in the existence of God but also in the existence of heaven, with "places" that could be denied to us like seats in a concert hall (would my place be given to someone else, I wonder?) We really don't know what heaven is. My understanding comes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, where he gives several pictures of the kingdom of heaven, and to me those pictures are so earth-based that there is no need for pie in the sky. So ironically I end up having nothing to fear from the fearsome message of this church banner. But I still find it offensive. I say "keep those doubts flowing".
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Interesting Article, I know of a very similar if not the same poster as the one you have written on here.
ReplyDeletePersonally I don't hold any founded belief in God (although not entirely closed off to the idea of religion as a whole, its not just a belief system but a moral guide as well which I respect).
However I still question this poster from a religious point of view, mainly its approach to the idea that if 'you doubt God exists' you're wrong. As you have talked about, it implies that if you believe you do not have any doubt and that to doubt is wrong, regardless if you believe in God or not. This for me this is wrong on a Protestant doctrinal level, in which during the reformation it clearly explains the understanding that to be good is to have faith in God (unlike the Roman Catholic Church in which you must act according to their rules of being morally good).
Secondly God gave us freewill so we could freely choose to be like him (imago dei) and therefore be good but this also allows us to choose for ourselves whether we have any doubts. Although it could be seen that in having doubts, yes we're not holding 'faith' in God, which is what the protestant doctrine informs we must do to be accepted, which could be seen to support the poster. However in having this freewill does it not show that God in fact loves and trusts humans enough that he is confident we will make the right choices to resolve our doubts and strive to be like him, this could be seen that having doubts is not wrong but just part of the journey of life in religion.
I just feel that the poster is taking the approach of coherence theory to the understanding of the rightness and wrongness of having doubts. It believes that having doubts is wrong, end of, no question... yet the majority of people do (well obviously me as someone who doesn't believe in God does). It just seems to me that there standing in their own way when it comes to the journey of faith in the sense they are right, we a wrong but we can fix that for you.
Would lover to hear back from you and going to continue to read your articles.
Regards,
N