I was recently pointed to an article in which Hillsong Worship music writer Marty Sampson declared:
Time for some real talk. I’m genuinely losing my faith, … This is a soapbox moment so here I go … How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all ‘coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it.
That someone loses their faith – understandable. That this may be because of the evil that many Christians, including Christian leaders, do – also understandable. But that a Christian, especially a Christian leader, says that “no one talks” about this stuff – that’s unforgivable [well – everything is forgivable; but, you know what I mean!]
There is not a day that goes by when I don’t have something like this sort of conversation with someone, or with some group. I’m struggling to figure out what sort of rock one can live under where no one talks about the failure of Christian leaders, the Problem of Evil (if God is all good, and God is all powerful – why do bad things happen?), the obvious contradictions in the Bible, or what happens when they die to those who have no faith through no fault of their own…
If you are losing your faith, it’s time to check out James Fowler’s stages of faith. You may simply be finding that actually, if you hang on in there on this journey, that your faith is changing and growing. Old containers of faith may shatter and be discarded along the way.
I love the response to “I’ve lost my faith” – “that’s fine; we’ve still got ours”. Faith is not an individual thing – it’s a shared thing. We can carry each other through the dark times.
Living in a construction zone sucks, but you do it because you think the new house will be better. Don’t be surprised if you thought you were just moving a towel rack and end up knocking out the whole wall. #TwoSentences #SorryNotSorry
— Naomi Walters (@NaomiRWalters) August 26, 2019
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