ASM051 Ask Science Mike Mini: Doubt at Christmas

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it's christmas eve and i've got a message from someone who's struggling with doubt and so for today's ask science mike mini the last one of the holiday season i thought we might lean in to his questions about the reality and nature of god at christmas hey mike my name is logan i'm a youth pastor at a little southern baptist church in texas and i've been struggling with deconstruction what i mean is it's happening whether i like it or not i'm not sure how my family and my church are going to handle what i'm coming to believe i don't even know what that is yet but it isn't going to end where they are i felt alone forced to keep these things to myself i don't want to hurt the people i love i was contemplating stepping down from my position as youth pastor how can i expect to lead a group of fragile kids in the way my church would desire if i'm not even sure that god exists on most days i thought about telling everyone about my struggles stepping down and not hiding anymore and then one of the oldest youth and his father died this last weekend in an accident involving a drunk driver who was also killed if i thought i felt loneliness before i had no idea i've been wandering around in the post-apocalyptic parts of my soul watching hopelessly as the foundations of it all crumble and deconstruct all trying to figure out what i believe about the afterlife and i keep hearing people say at least we know they are in heaven do we i don't know how to talk to the youth who have placed their trust in me i don't know how to console these kids searching for answers when i'm not certain there are any answers maybe this is all just senseless suffering and destruction the cost of life until the sun swallows us up in billions of years i don't know what to tell these kids according to what they've been taught their friend is dancing in heaven right now in the presence of the almighty god and i don't know if i believe that anymore i'm not even convinced that scripture teaches that we are heaven bound when we die but i want to believe that there is something pushing us towards the promise renewal of all things i want to believe that i have to believe that i can't leave these kids who are hurting asking the hardest questions i can't abandon them i don't want them to feel alone so what i'm asking is what happens to the brain in the midst of loss and suffering and what can i do to keep my brain healthy through this time and what can i do to help lead the students who have placed so much trust in me in an honest and true-to-self manner without wrecking their souls in the process thanks mike thanks for all you do sorry for the heaviness around christmas logan i identify with a lot of your story and what you're going through follow my work at all you know that i spent several years as a youth sunday school teacher who was also an atheist so i wouldn't say that i doubted god's existence so much that i was quite certain god didn't exist and that there was no such thing as the afterlife i did a pretty good job teaching orthodox christian ideas during that period of my life you can fake it but doing so has a cost a little bit of you dies every day i don't know how to phrase that scientifically other than it's psychologically fatiguing to not be honest about who you are so you're in this tough period you're in this transition and you seem to have some idea of its trajectory because you say that when you land your beliefs will be different from your family and your loved ones i'd start by saying maybe who knows what we'll believe tomorrow who knows where our life experiences will take us so i'd start by stepping back and if you're going to deconstruct go ahead and let go of any idea of where you might end up and that might be helpful but the thing is you can't just hide and that's what you're doing right now you're walking a road alone and it's not healthy and it's not helpful it's not helpful to your church it's not helpful to your family and it's not helpful to you there needs to be someone in your life who you know in flesh and blood who you can be completely honest with about what you're thinking and feeling how your beliefs are changing someone you can trust i didn't have a person like that in my life for two years and things would have turned out differently if i did once i was able to speak honestly about who i was and what i believed i started to heal and grow as a person but it had some cost i'm not at a southern baptist church anymore even though i loved the church i was at i loved the people there i couldn't stay so there's a level of complexity you faced that i didn't your income is tied to an institution that believes different things about god than you do so here's what i'd say in the short term talk about what you do believe what you can affirm you talk about a hope that god is leading us somewhere or drawing us towards some good then talk about those things if you believe the church does good things talk about those things if you believe that these people who tragically lost their lives in an automobile accident led good lives and left a good impact on the world you can honor their memories you can honor who they were without even going into where they are now plenty of people in your church will speak about the good of heaven without you having to do so but what do you do with direct questions because guess what there's students in your group who because of this accident are facing the same questions you are who find these reassurances of heaven to sound like empty promises and there's a chance at some point one of them is going to ask you something you've got to figure out somehow if you'll ever be baptist again and if you don't think five years from now or a year from now you're going to be back into some conventional or or palpable form of baptist theology it's time to start planning a trajectory where your paycheck doesn't come from a baptist church now you use language very similar to what i used to use in my journal when i talked about my obligations to children or kids who'd put their trust in me and i have great news logan and i mean this very seriously you are not god you're not god whether god exists or not you are not god as much as you love the kids in your guth group as much as they love you as much value as you contribute to their lives you are not the only source of good things in their world so if a year from now you're not their youth pastor that will not wreck anybody's life but if you publicly deconstruct and you cause a stink and a stir in your church in the process of doing so that actually could cause lasting harm to people so my advice to you is start with one person who you can be honest with and start working through these ideas with someone else if you think christian faith and practice is important this should probably be a christian person they don't have to be the same denomination as you in fact it's probably good if they aren't but someone who can honestly and lovingly represent christians as you walk through this and as you evaluate claims that undermine your christian faith after that as you start to figure out who you are now you've got to start telling the people closest to you where you are your family first uh your close friend second and eventually yeah your church staff but now you may be at a church where you have a pastor who's comfortable with you ministering while you work through doubts but you also have to understand that you may not be and the day you talk about your doubts may be the last day you draw an income from that church if this means vocational change for you i really think it does unless like i say this is a dark night of the soul of some kind um where your deconstruction will in back in a relatively similar theological place to where you began which does happen by the way it's not like deconstruction and doubt is a death sentence for faith i know lots of people many many people who existentially doubted their belief in god but returned to their original faith tradition that does happen statistically as far as i've seen about half the time and the tradition you're in is one of the two traditions that are least likely to see faith defections or changes in faith traditions unfortunately southern baptists if they do defect are among the least likely to return so that's kind of the dark side of that statistic it's tough to feel this way at christmas it really is i get that this christmas story is about god coming to earth so that we could know and understand god that's what the christmas story is about that's what the life of jesus is about and whether you accept those stories as historical fact or metaphor or ancient literature the fact is right now a god with a face is what you need a god that you can know if faith is where you want to end up if belief in god is where you want to end up so what ideas can you accept about god can you accept that god is love or that love is important it might be time to evaluate new ideas about god i think a book i'd like to recommend to you is what we talk about when we talk about god by rob bell where he starts to look at different ideas about god and different uh forms of doubt and starts to paint a picture of who god could be and i think rob's particular take on the divine and what we talk about when we talk about god might be a good place for you to start evaluating considering your southern baptist roots and your current state of deconstruction so check out that what we talk about when we talk about god by rob bell and above all i just wish you peace your job is not to master reality and know everything the belief system we grew up in tends to make us feel like we should have great confidence in all our beliefs and i think the world is so complex and so mysterious that at some point we realize that it's far beyond our comprehension when that happens we stop finding god in propositions and we start finding god in the mystery and the beauty of living life of sunsets of ice cream and falling in love we start to find god in the most mundane and yet the most marvelous moments of our existence [Music] [Applause] we open this episode with o come o come emmanuel by sleeping at last that's off the liturgist release oh light you can find more about that at the liturgist.com slash olight and i'd like to leave you with amina brown's advent for weary souls as you contemplate what it means to follow christ at christmas in 2015. this year has brought us tears and sorrow watching our world like the very ground beneath us tremble with fear and racism and death and hate so many questions without answers so many mothers who have had to bury their children we cannot unplug from the noise of news our world is being torn at it seems by the tug of war finding it difficult to make or keep peace the fight for human rights the fear of disease the violence of militants lives are being snuffed and stolen typhoons air strikes opened fire this year nearly 300 girls were kidnapped in nigeria while getting an education and most of them have still not returned home the protests in venezuela china mexico ukraine are the same as the protests happening in new york chicago l.a atlanta ferguson our cities and towns are at an unrest as we wrestle with the violence of lone gunmen immigration race relations as we watch our neighborhoods turn into war zones we don't hear the wounds we just take sides and divide to find our us so we can accuse them we have stopped listening we find ourselves with angry fists in what is supposed to be the season of giving there have been breaches in our confidence and trust we have lost our ability to mourn with those who mourn to see injustice with disgust in our facebook statuses turn into the worst kind of soapbox and pull pits hashtag bring back our girls ebola ice bucket challenge i can't breathe why i stayed renisha mcbride occupy hong kong black lives matter gaza under attack yes all women hashtag break the internet take down that post mh370 pray for south korea mh17 hands up don't shoot until our souls need a ceasefire sometimes it's hard to light the candle and drape the tinsel when christmas seems to not unwrap gifts but wounds reminding us of the people we've lost of the things that have been stolen of despair of grieving the kind of sadness a christmas carol can't seem to shake and what do we do with this baby this savior whose arrival had no celebrity no red carpet no paparazzi just mary and joseph and manger animals and stars to lead wise men what does this jesus have to do with our brokenness and wounds what does he have to say when the plot lines of our life don't wrap up cleanly like a christmas tune this jesus is not just a baby he is the radical revolutionary who came to do the saving who spoke uncomfortable truth to the narrow-minded religious who turned over tables for justice who used his voice to speak for children orphans widows who became freedom for the oppressed yes he wanted us to know peace so badly that he sacrificed himself so we could realize we are not us versus them we are us with him us who want to walk and love and serve like him fight against injustice and poverty with him let's listen to those who are hurting mourn with those who are weeping let's do what we hear the angels singing for love for peace for good will for all humanity this advent may jesus teach a weary world and our weary souls to fight for justice and someday live in peace