{"id":16125,"date":"2018-01-25T17:48:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T01:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=16125"},"modified":"2018-01-25T17:50:18","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T01:50:18","slug":"doubt-unleashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/doubt-unleashed\/","title":{"rendered":"Doubt unleashed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Dominic Erdozain, in his remarkable book, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx<\/em>, takes conventional wisdom and flips it on its head. While most would claim that doubt is a child of secularity, finding its source in the abandonment of faith, Erdozain demonstrates that an outcome of the Reformation is the freeing of one\u2019s conscience. The ability to doubt rather than believe, to question rather than conform, is grown in the verdant soil of religious belief as it springs up together with reason.<\/p>\n

The advent of print capitalism and Martin Luther\u2019s works being so rapidly disseminated allowed for a sustained criticism of ecclesial power. Between 1518 and 1525, Luther sold one-third of all German-language books printed.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 With the upheaval brought by the reforming movement, the Church no longer spoke with one clear voice. No longer was the Magisterium the definitive voice of catechesis.<\/p>\n

The abandonment of this authority led to fragmentation, confusion, the Peasant Wars, and violence against those who would be deemed heretical. While the external upheavals eventually ceased, the interior reasoning of the conscience was unleashed to begin a journey that continues today.\u00a0 Going forward, one didn\u2019t need to defer to the Pope; instead one\u2019s conscience became the guide.\u00a0 An obvious problem emerged as the Bible and orthodoxy were critiqued. \u201cAs Spinoza later commented, there was truth in the Dutch saying, \u2018every heretic has his text.\u2019\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

While David Bebbington calls the Victorian Age \u201cthe Evangelical Century\u201d[3]<\/a>, typified by its missionary zeal and social action, Erdozain illuminates what was going on in the mind. \u201cThe Victorian crisis of faith \u2026 was a time of painful and intense disenchantment, in which the Bible and orthodoxy came under sustained attack, but it was driven by conscience, not science.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Western civil society has been built upon the universities, hospitals, schools, social service agencies, as well as the political frameworks, rights and freedoms that have roots in Judeo-Christian values.\u00a0 The flourishing of religious faith created the conditions for these structures to thrive and benefit all citizens, whether they professed faith or not.\u00a0 Christopher Johnson from the University of Wisconsin states, \u201cEven when the doctrines and forms of that religion are rejected, the religious motivations of freedom of conscience and confessional tolerance can persist in even the most disdainful critics.\u201d[5]<\/a> Without vibrant faith, we wouldn\u2019t have the societies we have today; yet one of their key features is the ability to disagree with the founding faith.<\/p>\n

One of the headline grabbing items in Canadian news over the past few weeks is the Trudeau Government\u2019s restricting access to public funds by religiously-motivated charities. If a faith-based charity cannot in good conscience check a box on the Canada Summer Jobs application which attests that abortion services are a right, then they aren\u2019t eligible for funding.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 These small grants are awarded to charities to hire young people over their summer break and give them an opportunity to earn money while doing good for their communities.\u00a0 Yet virulent strains of political correctness have become increasingly anti-Christian and have gathered against the freedoms of speech and religion we share. \u00a0The result is that people of faith and their organizations are now frequently sidelined as a curious appendage by secular elites that disdain religion.<\/p>\n

In our culture, we are free to believe; but it seems we are now freer to doubt. This is true even more so for the young who record growth in unbelief[7]<\/a>. As one who will be creating a giving group of Millennials this year, it is important to recognize the powerful cultural influences which favour doubt over faith. How to nurture belief in those constrained by doubt is a key issue for consideration.<\/p>\n

While doubt can seem threatening and people of faith often feel attacked, I take consolation in an unusual exemplar of one who doubted. It was a shock for many to discover posthumously that St Teresa of Kolkata (formerly known as Mother Teresa) was a woman who was frequently beset with doubt. In her journal entries now transcribed in a book Come Be My Light<\/em>, she shares her often black nights of depression and sense of abandonment by God who she served through her Missionaries of Charity order.<\/p>\n

\u201cLord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love–and now become as the most hated one–the one-You have thrown away as unwanted–unloved. I call, I cling, I want\u2014and there is no One to answer-no One on Whom I can cling–no, No One. –Alone … Where is my Faith–even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness and darkness.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Surrounded by the abject poverty and cruel hopelessness of the poor in\u00a0 the slums of India, St Teresa was overwhelmed. Yet she kept waking each day and serving her constituents with a willing heart. This relentless persistence reads more to me of faith than it does of doubt, regardless of those journal entries.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s time, like Dominic Erdozain seems to suggest, to embrace doubt as the shadowy side of faith. It\u2019s not in opposition but another manifestation of belief. The fact that we are struggling in the darkness with God is evidence that faith is there. Our freedom to believe and to doubt illustrate that we are created in the image of God, and that, like Jacob, we meet God in the struggle.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/em>. (New York: Verso, 1991), 39.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Erdozain, Dominic. The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx<\/em>. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 75.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Bebbington, David W. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em>. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 149.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Erdozain, 174-175.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Johnson, Christopher D. L. \u201cThe Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx, by Dominic Erdozain,\u201d Religion<\/em> 47, no. 3 (July 3, 2017): 526\u201328. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0048721X.2016.1244635<\/a>.\u00a0 Accessed on January 25, 2018.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/summer-jobs-abortion-hajdu-analysis-wherry-1.4499907<\/a>. Accessed on January 25, 2018.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Smith, Christian, and Melina Lundquist Denton. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers<\/em>. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Markey, Eileen. “Mother Teresa’s silence.” National Catholic Reporter, September 14, 2007, 8. Academic OneFile (accessed January 25, 2018). http:\/\/link.galegroup.com.georgefox.idm.oclc.org\/apps\/doc\/A168748378\/AONE?u=newb64238&sid=AONE&xid=a9b46fc2.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Genesis 32:22-32<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dominic Erdozain, in his remarkable book, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx, takes conventional wisdom and flips it on its head. While most would claim that doubt is a child of secularity, finding its source in the abandonment of faith, Erdozain demonstrates that an outcome of the Reformation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1111,1017],"class_list":["post-16125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-erdozain","tag-lgp8","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16125"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16131,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16125\/revisions\/16131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}