Faith and doubt: The journey of a struggling Christian

I grew up in a clichéd Texan fashion. I was raised Southern Baptist, with church every Sunday from an early age, along with youth group meetings all through middle school and high school. My faith was the center of my life.

I kept it up when I went to college. In fact, I became more active, eventually becoming a youth leader for all grade levels at both my home church and the church near my school.

So I guess I’m stuck in this in-between: a struggling Christian who knows better but cannot seem to find his way to acceptance or forgiveness, despite the example of many people with worse circumstances who have done just that.

That changed after graduation, when a succession of events led me into a crisis of sorts. I found myself betrayed and isolated by both of the churches I called home. My wife and I lost our first child, who was stillborn. Reeling with anger, frustration, and hurt, I stepped away from the faith.

I thought that I just needed time, but now it’s been five years since I’ve even been inside a church building, let alone picked up a Bible (which is sad, because throughout the years, I’ve amassed quite a collection). My "prayers," if you can call them that, consist mainly of sarcastic complaints and accusations.

How did this happen? How did I go from an active church member and evangelical, pursuing the great commission and devoting most of my time to teaching the lessons of Jesus Christ, to a bitter, churchless man who shivers at the idea of going back to early Sunday mornings and late Wednesday nights?

That’s what I set out to find. But my quest so far has left me with more confusion and isolation than anything.

I began talking to the people in my life who were still active in the church and still strong in their faith. The problem with this was quickly apparent: Whatever they had to say, I'd heard it all before. Even the pastors I spoke to, despite their eloquence and erudition, had nothing to tell me that I hadn’t already learned in my years of ministry.

Worse, I realized I was now on the receiving end of the exact same advice I'd given countless students throughout my years as a small group leader. It had been easy enough to tell people, “Trust in God. His ways are always the right ways. He knows better than us. Go to Him, and He will comfort you. Lean on God, and He will give you the answers you seek.” Putting these words into practice in my own life was much more difficult.

I may know it’s the right path to follow, but my stubbornness and pain often block the way. What if my trust that these tragedies have a larger purpose is misplaced? What if, five years down the road, I still don’t see the bigger picture? These are questions I don't know how to find peace with. I'm afraid I never will.

I seem to have two options. The first is simply to accept that I’ll never be the Christian I once was, something I find painful to contemplate. The second is to give up looking for an "answer" to what I've been through, stop throwing a hissy fit, and go back to the faith. That also seems like an impossible task.

I know there are those who have dealt with more tragedy than I who remain strong in their faith, but I don’t know how they do it. Part of me questions whether it’s all an act, an act I was also pretty good at when I was a regular church attender, an act that will eventually collapse for them as it did for me. Or perhaps I just can't admit that I'm failing where they remain steadfast.

But what did I want the Christians I spoke with to say? What was I expecting from them? I’m reminded of a line from Tenth Avenue North's song "Someone to Talk To": "But when I tell them where I’m at, they tell me where I ain’t.”

I'm also reminded of the song's chorus: “Can I say that I’m lonely? Say that I’m scared? If I tell you what I’m feeling, will I still get to stay here? I’ve got broken hallelujahs and lies along with truth. Can you handle my confusion? I need someone to talk to.”

I understand why the Christians I spoke to all said the same things, and again, they aren’t wrong. But it’s not what I needed to hear. Maybe there was no right thing for them to say.

After I failed to find reassurance within the church, I began to look outside it. I heard about a loose group of Christians engaged in “spiritual deconstruction.” Like me, they had grown up with a traditional faith that they now found lacking. In response, they began to pick apart the assumptions behind their worldview to find what went wrong. This sounded perfect!

I soon realized there were two major problems with this movement. First, this so-called "deconstruction" seemed to be no more than a cover for atheism, or — at best — agnosticism. Not only did these people reject the notion that God was good or that Jesus Christ was their Savior, they rejected the very existence of God in the first place.

This seems to have led not to liberation but to bitterness — a bitterness deeper than my own. They don’t just not believe; the disdain they have for the faith is loud and toxic. The arrogance they have that they are correct, that everything they used to believe is a lie, was enough to turn me away completely.

I can't imagine myself ever getting to point where I denounce God’s existence. If you asked me right now: “Do you believe in God?” my answer would be yes. If you asked me right now: “Did Jesus Christ die for your sins?” my answer, again, would be yes. This is precisely why I feel so betrayed. God exists, and He is good; why, then, did he allow me to suffer like this?

But this intense confusion over what seems like God's broken promises is preferable to the idea that there is no God and there are no promises. That my experiences are purely random, just a case of bad luck. That’s not a life I want to live either. If anything, that’s more terrifying.

The second problem with the deconstructionists is that they were almost entirely left-leaning politically. In fact it is politics that seems to have prompted most of them to start questioning their faith. Unable to accept the church's position on homosexuality, abortion, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and other issues, they left the church.

I, on the other hand, have become more conservative since leaving the church. More pro-life, more anti-drug, and more pro-capitalism and free market. The only thing I have maybe become more liberal on is that I tend to believe God is a more perfect judge and there may be a lot more people in heaven than Christians realize.

But that may be a coping mechanism I have created for myself to handle the fact that I’ve become a person I swore I would never be: a bitter, angry, "exvangelical" who spits at the idea that God’s will is the perfect way. And now that I have a child, I’m even more worried about where I’ll end up — and where my son will end up — if things don’t change.

So where does that leave me? Current Christians can’t help me, as much as I know they want to, because my problem isn’t theirs to fix. Deconstructioners can’t help because they’ve decided to completely shift and become the antithesis of who they once were. I don’t fit in with either group. Neither has the solution I’m seeking. It’s between me and God.

So I guess I’m stuck in this in-between: a struggling Christian who knows better but cannot seem to find his way to acceptance or forgiveness, despite the example of many people with worse circumstances who have done just that. Someone who is still angry that the worst of his suffering was caused by doing what he thought God was leading him to do. Someone who can't understand why some of the biggest blessings in his life, including the birth of his beautiful son, occurred after he left the faith. How does that make sense?

This story doesn’t have a happy ending. Not yet, at least. Maybe I'm just writing this so that any people out there going through something similar can realize they are not alone. That they're not the only ones on this long, uncertain journey, hoping for a happy conclusion, missing the security of their old faith, and striving with all their heart to get it back.