Questioning

By Bill Colburn


You have probably heard the expression that if something is really true it can withstand intense and repeated scrutiny. Ideally, that ought to be the watch-word of religion. Religion serves us best when it reminds us that the world we live in is not all there is. It invites us to re-imagine everything from the cosmic, eternal perspective. Christianity embraces the vision of an awesome God who ceaselessly inspires awe with joyful anticipation.

Functionally, though, religion - including, unfortunately, Christianity - often imposes itself as a fearful, protector/gate-keeper of the supposed, effectively suppressing all attempts at 'rethink'. Rather than inviting believers to question, it insists on conformity to an already believed set of notions - as if all that can be known of God is already known.

I recently reread Matthew's account (ch. 11) of John the Baptist questioning if Jesus truly was the Messiah. Hoped upon expectations didn't match up with uncomfortable reality of the man. Incredibly, John felt free to question the very integrity of Jesus as Messiah - despite his earlier convictions. Jesus didn't reject the query. In fact, he exalted John, and thus his questioning, before the crowds as one who was not weak as a reed, moved by every breath of wind. John was a great prophet, yet one who so loved God he was unafraid to ask the hard questions. His search for truth would not permit him to suppress his questions or to pretend everything was copacetic, when it wasn't. To refuse to question is to hide from truth - which would have been a denial of the Eternal One.

David Dark's newest book, The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (Zondervan, 2009), presents belief as question. Quoting C.S. Lewis, he suggests that scripture is more often than not used rather than received. When received it is an invitation to pursue the Infinite. When merely used, it becomes a buffet table from which we find support for what we already believe. Here are a couple of thought provoking statements from his book:

Only a twisted, unimaginative mind-set resists awe in favor of self-satisfied certainty.
When religion won't tolerate questions, objections, or differences of opinion and all it can do is threaten excommunication, violence, and hellfire, it has an unfortunate habit of producing some of the most hateful people ever to walk the earth.

My blog entries will attempt to follow this sacred art of questioning - not, though, with anarchical abandon, but with a deep, second naivete love for the God of all who continuously draws us deeper into himself with an everlasting love. In some respects, to quote the title of another book by Peter Rollins, I will pursue the role of the orthodox heretic - as a fully committed wonderer of God. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, in response.