I received an email today from someone who is losing their faith…in the Bible. They saw me in a YouTube video and was motivated to write because it was clear that I do not believe the Bible is unquestionable divine truth, yet I am a Christian. Since they have been losing their faith in the Bible, they were hoping I might have something helpful to share. Here is what I wrote (edited for clarity for a general readership that did not send me the email in question).
I actually have a book coming out from Eerdmans early next year titled Beyond Deconstruction: Building a More Expansive Faith, which tells a lot of my story in the process of offering advice to those whose faith or worldview fell apart. I hope it will be useful when it comes out, but don’t worry, I’m not going to suggest you wait for that!
I have blogged about this topic a lot over the years and will share some links that may be helpful. Here in this blog post, let me say that, from what you wrote, it doesn’t sound like you are losing your faith in God or desire to follow Jesus, you are losing your faith in the Bible. The good news is that Christianity is not supposed to be about placing faith in the Bible. The reason why some forms of Christianity do that is, in essence, idolatry. Trust (which is what faith is supposed to mean) in God is unsettling, and as humans we desire something tangible and reassuring. Thus we are tempted to substitute a reassuring idol made by human hands, which is what the Bible becomes when we treat it that way.
I too once held that view, but ultimately realized something inherently self-defeating and self-contradictory about my stance. The Bible was supposed to be my authority, and yet time and again I had to defend my doctrine about the Bible from evidence the Bible itself was presenting. It became clear that my ultimate authority was my doctrine about the Bible, and that even the Bible was not allowed to challenge it.
If faith is supposed to be trust in God despite our human limitations, rather than circumventing our limitations and obtaining certainty by placing our faith in the Bible, then there is good news about what you are experiencing: it sounds to me like you are not losing your faith but growing in your faith, discovering that some of what you were taught was wrong and some of it was at best oversimplified. It can be disconcerting, but you’re actually making progress.
Hopefully these thoughts are helpful, but either way let me know. I’ll also share some blog posts about biblical inerrancy below, in case any of them are helpful.
(The following is the first of a three part conversation I had with someone on social media and subsequently shared as a blog post)
There are also a number of authors such as Pete Enns who have written about their journey with the Bible and how changing their mind about what the Bible is led to a richer and deeper spiritual life.
Although I didn’t think to mention it in the email, my book The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith is me wrestling with the inability of history to prove things that were important to my Christian faith.
What are your thoughts on this topic? What if anything else should I have added to my response? What might you have said differently? If you are going through the same sort of experience as the person who emailed me, did you find the above helpful? Please do ask further questions. This is an important topic, and I am eager to help!
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