Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 1-086

THE ORIGINS OF DOUBT (3)

From ‘Sunrise Sunset’ (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco), Rowland Croucher’s book of daily meditations. Feel free to use or adapt it.

It is God alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 1 Timothy 6:16.

A young man came up to the well-known American preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick, and confessed – with some distress – that he no longer believed in God. ‘So you are an atheist,’ said Fosdick. ‘Describe to me the kind of God you don’t believe in.’ The youth then outlined the childish ideas about God in whom he could no longer believe. ‘My boy,’ said Fosdick, ‘that makes two of us. I don’t believe in that God either.’

A third origin for doubt is integrity. There is more genuine faith in the person who insists on being sure, than in the one who has never really thought out their beliefs. It is not wrong, or sinful, to doubt. We mustn’t be afraid to challenge long-held beliefs. The only faith that is worthwhile is that which is not afraid to question anything. Nothing is too sacred for honest analysis. Doubt which springs from integrity is very healthy.

So help me Lord to figure out where my doubts originate, and to move in my thinking towards integrity. Thank you that for so many over the years the Christian good news has pierced their darkness and mystery with a convincing ray of light. Amen.

Shalom!

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