I am a thinker, and a doubter. I have always thought deeply about things, and doubts have often followed those deep thoughts. My doubts about the Christian faith, however, began to intensify greatly when I was taking classes in college at the University of Alabama. I was challenged to think about my Christian faith in ways I had never been challenged before. In retrospect, I can see where my faith is stronger now than it has ever been, but at the time it was quite painful. Having doubts can be painful and can lead to despair because you don’t know what to believe or who to trust. Can you think of a time in your life when you’ve encountered a crisis of faith brought on by intellectual doubts and skepticism? If so, then keep reading!
Oftentimes when we are going through difficulties we will have the feeling or the thought, “Am I the only one struggling with this?” I can remember sitting in church history class in seminary and struggling with a particular question in my head. While I don’t remember the specific doubt or question that I had, what I do remember is that our professor was speaking of some monk in the Middle Ages that was having the exact doubt I was having! Here I was in the 21st century struggling with the same question that this monk from the Middle Ages was having, and he’d already thought about it and had answered it! This was quite comforting to me to know that not only were there, possibly, others alive today that may be struggling with this question, but that there have been others over the centuries that have struggled with this issue as well! You are not alone in your struggles, and you are certainly not alone with your questions and doubts! Christianity has been around for 2000 years, and it is quite unlikely that we are going to ask too many questions about Christianity that haven’t been asked before.
