Welcome to the Skeptical Believer!
I started this blog in tandem with the upcoming publication of my first book, Who’s Got God? Co-written with a colleague, it’s an honest exploration of faith, truth, and finding common ground with those who see the universe differently.
The Skeptical Believer is all about taking an honest look at faith. Let’s face it–all of us have questions and doubts about our worldview no matter what we believe in. My premise is that it’s vital to meet these challenges, confront them head-on, and be able to admit that we don’t have all the answers. And just as importantly, to never settle for pat, skin-deep cop-outs when it comes to the most profound and sometimes troubling issues of life.
A little background on me: I am a follower of Jesus. If you were to put me in a corner and force me to label myself I would say that I am a Christian. I really dislike that term, however, mostly because the word ‘Christian’ carries so much baggage today that it was never intended to. Remember that scene in Spaceballs when the heroes crash-land on a desert-planet and Lonestar tells the princess to “take only what you need to survive,” and the very next cut shows him and his sidekick Barf weighed down with a ridiculous number of extra-large steamer trunks? Well, the word Christian is under the same load today.
These days when you tell someone you’re a Christian, they often think that they suddenly know everything about you, from who you vote for to the kind of personality you must have. Therefore, in my view, we need to give the word a breather for awhile…it needs some rest.
I used to spend lots of energy trying to redeem the word ‘Christian’ in conversations with people, but I finally came to believe that it’s a waste of time. There’s no need to defend a word…all I care about is following Jesus, and using that word just forces you to wade through way too much muddy water before being able to talk about what really matters. It’s not worth the time and energy. What really matters is the “purity and simplicity of devotion to Christ.”
So with that said, in this blog I want to explore many of the varied questions that arise for the modern disciple of Jesus. Even though I believe firmly in the divinity of Jesus and trustworthiness of the Bible (for reasons which I’ll go into in future posts), there are lots of issues, questions, and competing ideas for which I have no easy answers.
What this means is that if you have a closed and dogmatic mind, you’re probably not going to get much out of this. All are welcome, but if your starting point is that anything that’s different from what you believe is automatically bad…you’re in the wrong place. This applies to Christians as well as non-Christians, conservatives as well as liberals, Rushies and Beckies as well as Olbernuts. For purposes of this blog I don’t care what you believe as long as you show maturity and charity to all.
I invite you to come along with me and contribute to this discussion. The raison d’être of The Skeptical Believer is to exchange ideas and in so doing, perhaps increase in wisdom, truth and charity.
-Jeremy
Truth poorly defended loses not its truthfulness;
Falsehood aptly defended loses not its falsity.