Wrangling with doubts about the Bible, church and God is not only spiritually healthy but also downright scriptural, writer and podcaster Erin Hicks Moon said.
Readers of Exodus, for example, can see an alternately discouraged, defiant and uncertain Moses complaining about the Israelites and God’s will for him. “We don’t get his conversations with God, but we see him struggling and trying to understand what his role is for God’s people,” she noted.
Hicks Moon is the author of the forthcoming book I’ve Got Questions: The Spiritual Practice of Having It Out With God, a framework for Christians reexamining traditional Christianity, patriarchy and biblical inerrancy. Her “Faith Adjacent” podcast and “The Swipe Up+” Substack explore the modern nature of religious belief with a “combined commitment to uncomfortable honesty, authentic weirdness and critical thinking.”
Hicks Moon grew up Southern Baptist in Amarillo, Texas, before undergoing an intense and profound period of spiritual introspection and questioning. She described grappling with questions about churches complicit in abuse, why so many churches are obsessed with political power and why a gulf exists between what the Gospels say and how they are lived out.
She came through the process still a Christian, still a churchgoer but with the ability to sit in the discomfort of not having certainty about every Scripture or theological concept. She also emerged with a much more intimate and grounded relationship with God, she said. “The whole point was to wrestle with Jesus and with God and to have that closeness of relationship with him. I have never felt like my relationship with God has been so natural. But it’s messy and it’s hard.”
Encouragement can be found in the Bible, including Paul’s admonition in Philippians for Christians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” Hicks Moon explained. “It’s an enormously scriptural process and experience. ‘God, are you sure? Are you pleased with me?’ We gloss over that in the interest of handing believers a very tidy package of who God is and what God is doing, but that is work you do with Holy Spirit.”
That process also can spark hostility from friends and ministers, especially in evangelical and other conservative congregations, she warned. Seekers in those settings are often accused of disloyalty, abandoning or criticizing Christianity, challenging biblical inerrancy or promoting forms of moral relativism. “But the people I have talked to, that’s not what they are doing. They saw what Jesus was asking of us in Scripture and that was not what they were being taught, and that’s hard.”
“It’s really, really hard for someone who is paid to be certain about something to admit it’s OK for you to have doubts and ask questions.”
Pastors who perceive spiritual reconstruction as a threat to their authority can be harsh toward members who are engaged in it, she added. “Historically, religious leaders like control. They want you to fall in line. So, it’s really, really hard for someone who is paid to be certain about something to admit it’s OK for you to have doubts and ask questions.”
Fear of judgment tragically keeps many from embarking on the path, she added. “We are bereft of curiosity in this culture, we get scared, we don’t want to get in trouble or be called a heretic or a backslider. But there is nothing wrong with examining other perspectives.”
Yet for many, the pain of ignoring deep-seated stirrings becomes greater than the fear of being judged, Hicks Moon writes in I’ve Got Questions.
“There will come a moment when the cost of stasis becomes greater than the cost of change. You’ll realize nothing could be worse than keeping up a facade that says, ‘Everything is fine.’ You’ll stop ignoring the voice, the hints, the questions, and the thoughts that invade your mind and heart. You’ll get brave and stand up from the wreckage of whatever you’ve built and grown on your plot of land. You’ll hack through the overgrowth and the thorns and say a little prayer under your breath: ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’”
The Holy Spirit is involved in the process to encourage, protect and challenge, she adds. “You won’t get struck by lightning; you will light it up yourself. There is a time to be gentle, and there is a time to be ruthless. Whatever it is that haunts you about your faith, there will not be peace for you until you give yourself over to examining it. Maybe it’s time to ruthlessly survey the damage on your little plot of land and decide what’s next.”
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