“Faith after Doubt” response/reflection — part 2

(You can read part 1 here)

As I continued through the book, I found McLaren’s beliefs about doubt helpful. He talked about doubt as a tool and a part of a spiritual journey and how that was complicated on his own journey. In one section he talks about having absolute certainty and seeing doubt as this type of enemy. Certainty is this alluring drug that draws many people in. If you have certainty, then you know and if you know, then you probably think you are in control. That’s why it’s addicting. But that’s not what faith is. When we put up a large defense of something, it’s usually because we don’t feel confident it can withstand critique and scrutiny. Yet faith is all about mystery and unanswered and unanswerable questions. It’s often all about scrutiny.

One passage in the book that I found helpful was on page 39:

“‘You have heard it said,’ Jesus said in Matthew 5:21, and then added, ‘but I say to you.’…Each time, Jesus took an ancient and generally accepted belief and dared to say but, implying that the conventional belief was only partial, or temporary, or otherwise insufficient. Each belief needed to be challenged, subverted, expanded, reinterpreted, or in some other way further developed. These conventional beliefs didn’t have the last word. They needed to be given a second though. They deserved to be doubted.”

In other words, Jesus wasn’t interested in certainty, or making sure that we got it right. Jesus was interested in moving people along a…