Crisis of faith?

 

Crisis of faith. How do you deal with it? 

Professor Chong Siow Ann wrote about it over the weekend. “Dealing with a loss of faith and the will to live” starts off with a young man from a Christian family. His parents are missionaries and he grew up as a passionate believer. 

Over time, he went through what is intense self-interrogation and vexing doubts. He started asking the usual questions about God and the seeming triumph of evil, and suffered from a crisis of faith - that is, “how can a loving, powerful and all-knowing God allow such gratuitous sufferings to take place under His watch?” 

That endless wrestle with theodicy’s Pandora box pushed the young man to the edge of faith, into the abyss of despair, even dark thoughts of suicide. 

Professor Chong wrote: “Losing one’s religious faith may be liberating for some, but for others it is like being an exile and a castaway at the same time: drifting unmoored from their former spiritual communities and buffeted by waves of anxiety, despair and hopelessness.” The guilt may be oppressive and the self-censure crushing. 

The young man sought counselling and treatment from Professor Chong and his team. And a few weeks after a consult, he ended his life. That is indeed a tragic end for a young man, beloved son born into a missionary’s home. 

Lesson? Just one, and let me cite scriptures since this is about religion. This is a popular verse in Revelation 3:20 - Jesus says he stand at the door and knocks and anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them and they will me. 

In the past, I often used that verse to evangelise, telling non-believers on the street that Jesus is standing by the door of their hearts, knocking for a response. But, no, that verse was meant to be in the context of the church, the faith community of believers. Jesus was speaking to the church, first and foremost (because that may just be faith’s greatest challenge). 

I can imagine a time when we invite Him in, but over time, the invite becomes a challenge to our faith, overbearing even, that is, when the reality of life sinks in, and we start to question the purpose of that invite, that first knock. 

Like that young man, we all (at some point in our faith journey) suffer from the disillusionment of the faith, clinging on to His coattails like the woman with an issue of blood yet, struggling to believe like the father who pleaded with Jesus, crying out, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” 

Mind you, that tension for some can lead to a long and lonely walk into the dark fortress of one’s existential terra incognito, an uncharted territory where we suffer from a “crisis of meaninglessness”. 

God knows I have been there countless of times. When a much admired man of God falls. Yes, I was there. When the church differs little from the world. When Christian leadership is so desperate to seek worldly approval. Yes, I was wandering in that dark fortress. 

When a scripture mutates into a self-serving doctrine dangled before a mindless audience. When believers proclaim with one heart their undying devotion and loyalty to a man of the most confounding moral standing. I was there...sometimes groping in the dark. 

And I am not even talking about the problem of evil aptly captured in this brief deductive exercise: -

“1) God exists, is all good, all knowing, and all powerful.

2) Such a being has no limits to its ability.

3) A good being will always eliminate all the evil that it can.

4) Evil exists, so God must not.”

CS Lewis once said: “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

Yes, that is the same invite Jesus extends to all who desire to follow Him. Count the cost. Bear the Cross. Overcome the world. Theodicy is therefore not about understanding why evil exists in a world under God’s watch. It is about why you still believe in a world where evil nevertheless exists under God’s watch. It is about you, and which direction you desire to go at many of faith‘s crossroads. 

And it is not so much about a comfortable understanding of faith as it is about a persistent overcoming by faith even when the going gets tough and the world is moving on without you. Some prodigals do come home after a long journey to find the meaning they have been chasing after, but never thought it would satisfy so little, if at all, when they finally found it.

 

Alas, other prodigals never came home. That is reality. They couldn’t confront a faith they could not understand, a love so contradictory, and a God who stood idly by when sufferings abound. No doubt, a reality we must also come to accept. 

So, will I ever come to accept the rigors of my faith, its tauntings and disillusionment? I hope not. For it would be a faith too comfortable for me. A faith I am scarce to indulge in for fear that it may turn me to one who rather seek the equivalent of a bottle of Port instead of the flowing river of life. 

Yet, I don’t deny the temptation is immense for a broken man like me, but the pull of Calvary is also immense as I, with eternal hope, earnestly struggle with the immensity of me.