PTM WEEKLY UPDATE -- MAY 5, 2008

Help! I'm having doubts about the Jesus "story"!

Q. I was born and raised in a legalistic Southern Baptist environment. I accepted Christ as my Savior and joined the church at the age of 12 and, although I believed it, I did so largely because that was what I was supposed and expected to do. I am now significantly older and refer to myself as a "recovering Southern Baptist." We were taught that you believed because that's what you were supposed to do, you didn't question anything the pastor said, and the Rapture was a given fact.

Now that I'm older and perhaps wiser, I question everything, try to use my brain in addition to my heart and now recognize that the Rapture is nothing more that a scare tactic fantasy. I have come to believe that through doubt comes faith. If so, I should be in good shape for I have plenty of doubt. I have no problem believing in God, or at least a higher power. The beauty and harmony of the universe (prior to man's involvement) are testament to that.

Sometimes, though, I struggle with how we can know that "the Jesus story" is a fact and not a religious Santa Claus. As you mentioned in your Easter message on CWR, there are lots of areas in which we might truly believe things only eventually to be let down -- trust in spouses, trust in politicians (maybe some once had that!), even, to use my analogy, the disappointment as a child in learning the truth about Santa Claus. I have studied the Bible and other books and know that "the Jesus story" appears to be substantiated by several independent sources -- but mainly the Gospels. Sometimes I just can't help but wonder if it's not a supernatural story that was "made up" back in the day to gain support for the development of a new religious movement. We have been let down so much by the church through the years -- from people being led to believe that they could pay a penance for their sins to the more modern day abuses by Catholic priests.

I truly believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and I generally accept the life and deeds and resurrection of Jesus. There's just this little lingering doubt. I suppose I take the attitude that I'd rather believe in Jesus and be wrong than not believe and be wrong! I'm actually comfortable with that position.

After all of that, I guess my question is, other than obviously praying about it, do you have any suggestions on how to remove this doubt? Thanks for all that you do.

A. People (like you and me) who have had negative experiences with religious institutions, traditions and practices, and in the process find that their idea of God has been twisted and distorted, naturally ask questions like you do. This is part of the fallout, the debris and the wake of religious legalism. When one discovers that one was manipulated and abused, then one questions the whole package. As you know, the whole end-times madness and Rapture craze has been and is being used, as you say, as a fear tactic.

There is no question that Christendom has taken liberties with the "Jesus story." There is no question that Christendom has hatched all kinds of side issues and plots that are not part of who and what Jesus was or is. There is no question that, in some religious environments, the life and teachings of Jesus have morphed into a religious Santa Claus.

So, first of all -- good for you. Thinking is good. Careful critique of the issues is better than the so-called "checking your brains at the door of the church." Doubt is part of the process - both physically, apart from God, and spiritually, as a part of discovering and knowing God for who he is, and who he isn't.

There is no question that Christendom has taken liberties with the "Jesus story." There is no question that Christendom has hatched all kinds of side issues and plots that are not part of who and what Jesus was or is. There is no question that, in some religious environments, the life and teachings of Jesus have morphed into a religious Santa Claus. The idea that the church invented Jesus because the church needed Jesus -- the church needed a Superman so the church invented a Superman -- is not a new idea. The German rationalists, enlightenment theologians, postured many of these questions and spawned generations of educated critics, who pastored and taught in seminaries. Rudolph Bultmann was one such scholar, who proposed that we separate the "myth" of Jesus -- that part of the "Jesus story" that does not resonate with the modern, scientific mind (miracles, healings, etc.) from the kernels of truth, the wisdom sayings and his moral teaching. One of the fathers of early America, Thomas Jefferson, wrote a book in which he presented the teachings of Jesus, but edited out all of what Jefferson saw as the fanciful, inventive, pre-scientific silly
and preposterous claims about Jesus' life.

There is much historical evidence, outside of the Bible, to prove that Jesus existed. The Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus, and other Roman writers like Pliny, Suetonius and Lucian did not have pre-Christian bias -- but they accepted Jesus as fact. No Jew of that era wanted him to exist (witness the Gospel record itself). No Roman, given the fact that Romans believed in a pantheon of gods, would have any motivation to believe that Jesus actually existed. I recommend two sources to study the extra-biblical, secular evidence that Jesus really existed -- 1) Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, by F. F. Bruce, and 2) The New Testament Background by C.K. Barrett.

How to deal with the doubt? Faith is, after all, faith. At the end of the day, while we may approach this or related topics having to do with our relationship with God as investigative, cognitive issues -- trust and faith will be where the rubber hits the road. We will take the evidence, and then determine whether or not we will believe them. Two people may study the same evidence and come to two different conclusions. As I said in the beginning, those who have, for good reason, "trust" issues with religion often have a longer road, given the number that someone representing God has done on them. But the journey should be taken. The journey of trust is relational. God is either who he says he is -- Jesus is either who he says he is -- or he is not. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, Jesus is either who the Bible says he is or he is a lunatic, on the level of someone some deranged individual who believes themselves to be a poached egg.

I believe this relationship that we have with God should be a relationship outside of religion. It should be a trust relationship directly with God, not arbitrated or mediated by a pastor or a church, but one that is directly between ourselves and God. A church or ministry may help -- (and then again they may accomplish the opposite!?!!?) -- but our relationship with God is intensely and intimately personal. That is how it should be. All humans desire to connect with God (my next book I am working on right now is titled Unhooking from Religion -- Connecting with God). We all desire not simply to know facts about him, but to know him. He has made himself known, revealing himself to us in the person of Jesus. We may either respond and turn to him, or we may decide not to.

My primary suggestion on how to remove this doubt: Turn to God, seek him -- in your own way. The Bible doesn't have some kind of 40 days of purpose or 12 step program as to how turning to God and seeking him must/should be done any more than it gives pointers on how a man or woman must/should fall in love with their spouse. Our relationship with God is a love relationship, based on his love which has been and is being demonstrated for each of us. We must individually determine (and again, please leave religion out of this relationship!) about how we respond to God -- how we talk to him-- how we seek him -- how we come close to him.

In Christ
Greg Albrecht

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