Spiritual Adolescence

I was trained in a strict fundamentalist Bible College. While I was a student I was required to sign a pledge that I would not indulge in worldly entertainment, like rock music, movies, and I think, even opera made the list of no no’s (the only one that was no personal sacrifice).  I was required to dress a certain way and maintain a clean cut look that mirrored the image of what a good fundamentalist Christian looked like.  I was taught what to believe about every aspect of theology down to the minutest detail.  As I look back to those days of academic training, I see one thing was sorely missing… the freedom to question and express doubt.

It is not just fundamentalist institutions, but the whole culture of Christianity that discourages questions and ignores doubt because it threatens the foundations of the faith and the church system.  Personally, it is scary when we first entertain these new thoughts. It creates a dissonance within us as the new ideas call into question what we were taught and what we thought we embraced. We fear that we may have become the very heretics that our teachers have warned us about.

The whole deconstruction, questioning, and doubting process is a type of spiritual adolescence. Children are vulnerable and inexperienced, so they need a lot of structure and instruction.  Yet, the only path to adulthood involves passing through that messy phase of human development that tends to drive parents crazy, called adolescence.

Adolescence and young adulthood is time of transition and turmoil in which adult teaching and parental values are tested, which involves doubting, questioning, and experimentation.  The end result is a set of values which are truly owned as opposed to merely being recited or mimicked.  Ironically, I have found that most young adults wind up embracing values that are not far removed from those of their parents, because they found that they withstood testing.

Our Communitas Collective team embraces a wide spectrum of beliefs and personalities. The core theology of some team members is basically that of historical Christianity, though they may have some issues with how the church has been going about its work.  Others are out there in the vast, open land of questions and doubts, far removed from the structures of certainty and very unsure about any Christian beliefs.  I have invited this varied group of individuals here to this place of safety for a several reasons.

• I respect them as individuals.
• Their journey is reflective of many others who will benefit from their writings.
• The church needs to hear from outsiders and embrace them as Jesus did.
• Anything that is true can withstand the most severe questions and doubts.
• The process of questioning and doubting usually leads to a more closely embraced faith.

Doubting and questioning is uncomfortable because it disturbs a false peace within us with real tests.  Yet, there is a great reward at the end of the process, when we come out with a much shorter list of things we believe and, because of what we do believe; we are not sweating that long list of things that we still wonder about.