Long and Tortured Thoughts About the Long and Tortured Journey to This Week’s General Conference

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

This week, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church will begin in Charlotte, North Carolina. This will be the first “regular” General Conference since 2016. I thought I would put down a few thoughts ahead of this potentially momentous week for the new United Methodist Church. These will be a combination of personal reflections on where we have been and my usual “Inside Baseball” discussions of where we might be going in terms of votes and issues.

I’ve been asked about a half dozen times in the past few months if I plan to attend. The short answer is - “no” for two broad reasons.

The first reason is that in all transparency, General Conference brings up considerable “PTSD.”

Without making this post all about me, let me tell you the stuff I remember…

I lived through, and attended, several GCs in the period between 2000 and 2016. I was pastor of a Reconciling United Methodist Church, one of only two in North Texas, at the time of my appointment.

During that first decade of serving more progressive United Methodist Churches, we were a small, if mighty, band of the faithful. Politically, Progressives were a blue dot in a very Red Dallas County. Theologically, it was much the same. Again, perhaps only three or four United Methodist Churches would willingly admit to being “Progressive” in those days. Progressive congregations saw themselves as a distinct minority, keeping alive the hope of a church where “All” truly means “All.”

We did a lot of organizing around General Conference and issues of human sexuality.

In the late 1990s, the congregation I served wrote an entire book (clearly too optimistically titled) called “Finishing the Journey.” Upon my arrival, it was revised and copies were sent to every delegate to the General Conference.

Our members participated in the national Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) strategy every year. We attended General Conferences, RMN Convocations, and did a LOT of work locally.

Our congregation met with local North Texas “delegates” to the General Conference around issues of human sexuality at the LGBTQ community prior to every session every four years.

This involved our members —who were themselves either LGBTQ persons or a family member— setting lunch and coffee meetings with our delegates and sharing painful stories of rejection at the hands of Christian Churches. Our members intentionally revisited their own traumas in an effort to win the hearts and minds of our “delegates.”

More than once, these local leaders…often Moderates more than Conservatives…would talk of how these messages of witnesses, along with their own “faith seeking understanding” had helped them change their minds.

We did this in other churches, too. We visited other churches —those we knew were “Progressive” in theology—and urged them to join the movement.
(The RMN movement now very clearly posits itself as intersectional in its understanding of the inclusion of all people….like the rainbow flag itself, it’s a signifier of a larger commitment to broad social justice, not just the LGBTQ work…)

Locally, that kind of strategy absolutely worked, as I will return to in a moment.

But, in the end, every General Conference would again and again feel like another kick to the gut. In our physical bodies, not just our souls, we would feel it…for weeks, months, and years afterwards.

Therefore, despite the demonstrable gains we achieved, as it pertains to General Conference, they always ended up being a moment of re-traumatization for all of us who truly believed and lived the phrase, “All Means All.”

We would come home to national news stories about how the United Methodist Church had become *more* conservative. I would watch LGBTQ folks who came to our Church believing they had finally found a safe harbor for themselves and their families once again feeling betrayed by yet another branch of organized Christianity. In a sense, they’d feel as if they’d again been “tricked” by another Christian Church…promised full inclusion while the fine print of the denominational rules appeared to say otherwise. (Appeared…)

In the midst of my own physical and spiritual pain, I’d watch helplessly as members either in righteous anger or deep sadness (often both) withdrew from the United Methodist Church and our Church, and either united with more progressive Christian denominations or drifted into the ever-growing throng of those called the “Nones” and “Dones.”

Remarkably, after every General Conference, once a period of anger/pain subsided, another period of growth would come to us locally.

But we were becoming modern day Sisyphus. It seemed we’d always get gut-punched again, four years later. It is very easy to see how such a dynamic could come to feel spiritually abusive and why some folks chose not to stay. Those of us who *did* stay did so with an understanding that we were fighting an uphill battle.

Especially during those first ten years (2000-2010), I allowed my own personal health to become severely compromised. I ate my feelings, and I became morbidly obese, completely failing to take my own health seriously.
(This means, of course, ⅓ of the Great Commandment…to “love yourself”… seriously as well). I am not blaming “The Church” for this. I am explaining *why* I will not be attending.

For my own personal health and ongoing PTSD, I will not be attending General Conference. For years, I used to tell everyone that no one can judge anyone’s decision to “stay or leave” United Methodism.” I still deeply believe that. Church membership is (or, should be) an act of faith between a Christian and their God.

When those hundreds —and, it was hundreds— of members left us over those years, I grieved deeply. But I defended their faith-choice too.

(This is probably a good reminder for all of us in the present-day UMC, as we deal with our feelings toward those who have “disaffiliated”…)

It took remarkable courage to leave.
It has taken remarkable courage to stay and fight.
And, in the end, if we really are living out our Christian faith, we must trust in God to lead us into whatever space, and place, God calls us to be faithful.

So, look, I’m not sharing any of the preceding few paragraphs —the first reason why I am not going to General Conference— to ask for any great sympathy. Whatever trauma I still carry pales in comparison to what’s been done to the actual queer community over the years.

But when folks seem surprised that I am not going, especially since it appears things might go quite well, legislatively…this is why.

But there is a far more optimistic reason I will not be attending General Conference 2024; and telling the whole story means I must mention this too…because it truly is the center of my hope and optimism.

The “rest of the story” is of my own true faith in Jesus Christ and the future of the United Methodist Church, my calling to trust the “next generation.”

Because what has also emerged since the last “regular” General Conference in 2016 are entirely new cohorts of leaders who are picking up the cause, engaging in the work, and giving me incredible hope for our future.

Alongside every gut-punch General Conference, simultaneously Christianity (and America) was undergoing a remarkable change too. As I often say, the United Methodist Church tends to mirror, not lead, our culture.

As with America —which has demonstrably become “Center-Left” since the late 1990s— Progressive and Moderate United Methodists were “losing” the struggle at General Conference. But we were gaining everywhere else.

(If you are confused by my assertion that America is a “Center-Left” country, please find writings on this at WhenEFTalks…it’s a demonstrably provable assertion of the true views of most Americans…)

In North Texas, we saw the number of Reconciling Churches move from only two to almost ten, with perhaps a half dozen more who are clearly “Progressive” in nature.

Same Sex Marriage, thanks be to God, became legal in the United States.

Even in our most rural areas, we started to see clergy and lay folks defending queer people. What we have found —especially in the period since Same Sex Marriage became legal— is a remarkable number of clergy in rural and suburban areas who now openly speak and act of their acceptance of the queer community…and who encourage their congregations to do the same.

The “Fight” is over and has been for a long time now in our big cities. But these rural and suburban United Methodist pastors (those who speak up and show up) are modeling true courage.

This is similar among our “Big Church Pastors” in Dallas…many of whom have moved from uneasy silence to clear support for LGBTQ persons. (Again, this is clearly not everyone. But to fail to note their work also fails to honor it too….) I personally witnessed “big church pastors” — who tend to be more moderate than me, for sure — take stands that were truly courageous for their contexts. Following 2019, I saw them, finally, stand up to the “Traditionalists.”

We saw this in our Cabinet too. I personally saw them defend the rights of Progressive United Methodists just as strongly as they had always defended faith of the “Traditionalists.” Our large-church pastors, even, have used their voices and influence to advocate for a true “One Church” model/metaphor for our future together.
(Which, really, was always the heart of that model…)

Note: I am not saying everybody in North Texas became a left-wing Christian. Far from it.

But what definitely happened, what just about everyone in North Texas agrees happened, was a shift of alliance that foretold what was about to happen in the denominations’ whole:

The Moderates and the Progressives decided they wanted to stay together, and the Conservatives overplayed their hand.

I don’t mean to sugarcoat any of this. There were colossally bad decisions still sometimes still made, down to the very recent moment. And every bit of progress is always too often accompanied by continued heartbreak or foolishly high levels of fear by those in places of “power.”

But something shifted, and telling the story means being honest about this shift too.

And so, by the time we elected our last batch of “Delegates” (2019) to General Conference, it was very clear to me that we here in North Texas are now in good hands.

Younger clergy and passionate younger lay folks —Moderates and Progressives— were stepping up, showing up, and making a difference.

And so, their presence gives me new and renewed hope. And my own faith in God has taught me to trust their leading and to not just step in and try to “control” things behind the scenes.

One of my life lessons during the past decade is: Usually when we humans try to “control” things behind the scenes, we will simply create unwanted “unintended consequences” later. I see this in both Church Leadership and Politics.

But if we are to trust in the leading of God, we’ve got to trust in the leading of God.

We’ve got to understand that each of us has a role to play, and none of us controls the entire drama. (I am thinking of Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer here.)

This is not hopeless acquiescence. This is hope-filled TRUST.

As usual with me, these are a lot of words to make a short point: I’m not going for both personal and strategically faithful reasons.

So….with all that incredibly long prolegomena, let’s switch to a little “Inside Baseball for Methodists.”

As you know, I love to think about game theory and General Conference too. Because, whatever else General Conference is, it’s an organization explicitly designed to mirror democratic political values….just as our American political system is. That is not to say (as we can also not say about politics) that the system is “perfect.” Far from it.

In fact, in another way that the United Methodist Church mirrors America, both systems clearly often fail to live up to their highest core ideals, and both systems can be “gamed” by partisans with an agenda.

This is clearly what we’ve seen, for forty years now, from Conservatives in the UMC, who have done all they can to cling to control, all while their own positions on human sexuality have become so toxic that they won’t even admit anymore that this was their original concern.

Conservatives now pretend they’re leaving the denomination because they want “local control” or because they fear some kind of progressive retribution.
(This is, again, another symbol of how much THEY know the acceptance of homosexuality has shifted within the Church…)

One final reminder, before my game-theory thoughts…

We United Methodists tend to think we are good at politics.
We are NOT good at politics.
We are BAD at politics.

We exist inside a system designed around democratic voting and elections, and we honestly have no idea what we are doing, most of the time.

My life has given me an upfront seat into ACTUAL politics….and, trust me, these games we play inside the Church pale in comparison to what happens in the political area.
(Pretending we are good at politics is, again, one of our own United Methodist bits of hubris. I am speaking now to ANYONE in the UMC…Conservative, Moderate of Political. Beware our own unacknowledged political hubris….)

All of these incredible caveats now out of the way…what’s going to happen at the UMC General Conference?

Beats me.

Sorry to tease you for several long pages and then get coy. But if we’re all being honest…we all have no idea. This is part of the humility and attempt to avoid hubris that I just spoke about. This is a part of my own PTSD. This is because of being wrong so many times before.

But, starting with my very old - and always right - assumption that “elections are all about math,” it seems like we can make certain assumptions based on what’s happened to the membership of the UMC since 2016…and especially following 2019. And those assumptions make me optimistic in a way I have not been for a very long time…

Here’s a few math-based assumptions for you…

1. One quarter of all United Methodists and congregations have left the denomination. (24% of people. 25% of churches).

2. Virtually ALL of those were “Conservative,” “Traditionalist,” (whatever you want to call them…)

3. This means, as I’ve written before, the UMC is now a “Center/Left” denomination, just like America.

4. A significant effort has been made to replace those more Conservative “delegates” with those who, it stands to reason, lean more to the Center or Left.

5. Many International Bishops and Conferences, notably in Africa and the Philippines,  have made public commitment to “regionalism” and to stay as United Methodists, understanding implicitly that the denomination is now Center-Left, and that the American Church will likely shift on human sexuality.

Given these assumptions, IT APPEARS QUITE CLEAR that there should be a more than credible path for any vote that requires “Simple Majority.”

It also indicates that JUST A FURTHER SMALL shift in other voting patterns would give a credible path to a ⅔ Super Majority vote (Required for regionalization…)

How do I get to this?

The following back-of-envelope math, taking the 2019 vote on the “Traditionalist Plan” as a baseline and shifting ¼ of votes.

2019 vote on Traditionalist-vs-One Church Plan:

459-403 (862 votes cast) in favor of the “Traditionalist Plan.”
A 53%-47% in favor of Conservatives.

Intervening Data: 25% Dissafiliation on “Traditionalist” side: 115 votes out of the 459 total.

New Potential 2024 Tally Counting American Shift Only:
Progressive/Moderate: 518
Conservative: 344
A new 60%-40% shift in favor of Moderates/Progressives.

This is why I assert that any Progressive-to-Moderate legislation that takes simple majority could credibly have a result of as high as 60%-40% in favor of change. It might not be that high but very credibly could be.

Game Theory suggests this could even be a conservative guess. Some folks who have been on the fence in the past might just switch votes to be on the winning side…could be, not guaranteed…

But!
This does not account for *any* shift in the International Delegates.
And we know there have been some.

Known International Facts:
1. The Philippines supports regionalization.
2. Eight currently serving African Bishops have publicly stated that they support regionalization.
3. As I’m writing this, the more conservative Russian church will likely be leaving too (I’ll  no doubt have something to say about that in the future…)

Are they all becoming “liberals?” No.
Do they all support changing the Discipline on human sexuality? No.

But…if even as few as 6.4% of delegates from the Philippines and Africa shift, that should create supermajority in favor of a regionalization vote.

Of course, nobody knows how ANYBODY will vote ahead of time. All these assumptions could be way off…but they are back-of-napkin “swags” that make credible sense, based on the best available data.

Is that going to happen?
Again, this is where I have to say “I have no idea.”
If I had less PTSD, I might say it WILL happen.

But we know that the same manipulative Good News coalition (the small part of it that remains) is still active. And, folks, they are good at politics…

I have always been pretty good at looking at the “forest,” and I have a harder time looking at the “trees.”

This is why I was incredibly skeptical about the “One Church Plan” passing in 2019….I just didn’t understand how the math worked…and I was clearly right.

But now, given the defections within the UMC…those who’ve left for other places…given the very hard work that’s been done with the remaining international church…there seems a credible path forward.

Not guaranteed, but credible.

As General Conference starts, I have several prayers for all those who will be United Methodist:

First, that every delegate remember that there are real human beings behind each of these “issues.”
I fear that everyone, on all sides, tends to forget this. We too often “talk about” Queer people, outside of their presence. We fail to remember how horrible it must feel to be “talked about” by a political/religious system like the General Conference. This was something I was convicted on in the mid 2010s. And I try to remember it still.

Secondly, that we trust that those who are still “on the fence” about human sexuality still be allowed a place in the United Methodist Church, so long as they are willing to live in a truly “Big Tent” denomination.

This was the moral/theological heart of the “One Church Plan,” and in my opinion, it is still the best path for the UMC.

Despite just now writing pages and pages about political machinations, my own passion in life is: Helping folks change their hearts and minds through their faith in Jesus Christ.

This has been the story of my own evolving faith for forty years. I started life as a Conservative North Dallas Republican, and anybody who fails to remember this fails to understand. God has saved me through my study of scriptures, my faith in Jesus, and my walk within the UMC. And I know that there are many more like me out there still.

But because our culture is so terribly balkanized, we are losing the ability to talk with each other along political and religious lines. (Again, this is another example of how the United Methodist Church mirrors our culture….)

Conservatives have decided they can no longer be in fellowship with the rest of us. We are moving out of a time of disaffiliation.

We see this balkanization in politics…where intentionally gerrymandered or “packed” areas predictably result in ever-more extreme political ideology.
(Don’t miss: I’m suggesting this is happening on both sides…)

If we intend to have a country or an international denomination that truly welcomes “ALL” to the table, then we’ve got to continue to intentionally make room for all inside our systems. (Again: with the caveat that “All” means, “all who can coexist, in a true Big Tent, with those they sometimes disagree with….”)

We must, clearly, get rid of all the discriminatory language in our Discipline.

But for anyone —Left, Right, or Center— who expects, wants, or seeks a United Methodist Church that becomes “Ultra Liberal,” rejecting anyone who in good faith can continue to walk with us, count me out.

My desire has been to continue to trust that Jesus will change hearts and minds and that these changes are healing for our nation and world.

Because I’ve seen it happen.
Because it happened with me.
Because it’s happened in the churches I’ve served.

And it's a major part of how I understand the concept of "conversion."
Jesus seeks to convert us all from our own regional and local tribalism to an embrace of all of humanity, as Children of God. This was the mission that got him killed, and the inherent tribalism deep within every human being still makes it challenging today.

But I can only tell you what I’ve seen. I've seen conversion among older straight White folks in Dallas churches tell me that their connection with LGBTQ persons helped save…helped spiritually save them, through faith in Christ… from their own closed views.

People CAN change.

And if we ever get to a place where we believe it’s no longer possible to change or create a denomination that does not invite folks to change, then we’re really also failing to believe that Jesus has any power at all in our world to change our hearts and minds.

Balkanization is destroying the fabric of American society. Authoritarianism is on the rise, everywhere in the world.

The new United Methodist Church has the potential to be an almost unique institution in our country and world, bringing together….
Conservative/Progressive.
Rural/Urban.
Rich/Poor.

And people of all orientations and races…at a single denominational table.

This must be our calling.
And I’m not joking when I say that, if America has a chance of surviving, if our world does not descend into autocracy, we’ll have some very hard ministry to do to help that happen.

I’m ready for that future, and I’m cautiously hopeful that, through God’s grace, this is where we’re going.

The Ah-h-h-h! Moment

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Frederick Buechner once described “Prayer” in a way that leaps to my mind this week, in these days after our communal experience of the Eclipse.

Buechner said:

“We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good or very bad. The "Ah-h-h-h!" that sometimes floats up out of us as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the skyrockets burst over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds we use for sighing with over our own lives. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken, not just to ourselves but to something even more familiar than ourselves and even more strange than the world.”

This might not be a definition of prayer that you’re used to hearing. But I think it gets at something important.

If there is a God worth understanding, connecting with, experiencing…then the experience of that God must START at this kind of primal level of human experience.

If we want, it can go all sorts of places after this. But it has to start at this very broad level of human understanding.

The fancy-theological word we United Methodists use for this is “Prevenient Grace.” This is the grace of God that comes to all folks…at all times…in all places, whether or not we understand it…can name it…or even realize it as “Grace.”

My own sense is that whether we are religious or not, we tend to race past these kinds of moments. We name them. We categorize them. We cut them down to size….and in doing so…imho…something is lost.

If we are religious, we immediately stick our own theological language on these “numinous” experiences. We quote scripture. (In these moments, we seem to quote a LOT of scripture…) We squeeze down ineffable moments into bite-sized pieces.

If we are not religious, we often look to science to explain our feelings and experience. We marvel at the human reason that helps us describe how an Eclipse is going to happen at just this moment and last for just this many seconds.
We take comfort in the “facts” as they can be known. But, again, this often reduces and explains our own experiences into more bite-sized pieces.

I’m not here to suggest one approach is better than the other, and I definitely don’t believe in a binary choice between the two. Further, I hope whoever you are you don’t take too much offense at the broad brush I just used to describe all of humanity.
(Which is, I know, what I just did…)

I’m here to suggest that all of our reactions at moments like this are all based on an “a priori" human experience that is “the same” whomever we are. I’m suggesting this experience is the heart of all human spirituality or experience, whatever form it takes, and whether or not we ever name it as “spiritual."

Whether your response to the Eclipse was a religious one, a secular one, or something else…I’m inviting you to PAUSE with me here…

Pause…at that moment before we put any other language on such a moment as the Eclipse.

Pause at the moment of experience, just like that 4th of July moment Buechner described.

Pause at the “Ah-h-h-h…” moment of the Eclipse. And see its deep connection with a deep-level spirituality that unites all human beings, a human experience St. Augustine called “the God shaped hole” inside of all of us.

My own strong belief is that we human beings can have these kinds of mystical experiences when we listen to music, poetry, see art…study the sciences…experience other humans through love and connection in many times and many places.
And yes, they can even happen in Church - if we are open to them.

But please note: this “Prevenient Grace,” must, de facto, be experienced in all sorts of times and places that have nothing to do with organized religion or “Church.”
(This must be the case if there really is a God of the universe, far beyond the comprehension of any church language…)

This is what I’m talking about here. This is the kind of “mystery” that we all experience and that we all respond to in our own very human, very personal ways.

This is what writer Patricia Hample meant when years ago she said:

“I don’t know if everyone has to come to terms with religion, but everyone has to come to terms with mystery, which is the business of religion.”

This quote from Hample is kind of an inverse of St. Augustine’s quote about the “God shaped hole” in our hearts. Instead of describing the moment of *absence* of God (Augustine’s thought), Hample describes the moment of PRESENCE.

Like Buechner’s “Ah-h-h-h!”

She suggests a universal ability to have spiritual experiences as I tried to suggest just a moment ago.

Almost all of us are gob-smacked by certain moments…
…The birth of a child.
…The death of a loved one.
…The horrors of war.
…Acts of selflessness…or selfishness.

Even an Eclipse.

And these things tend to take us out of ourselves, whether we are “religious” or not. They remind us of that common mystical bond between us all.

This helps explain the reaction of so many this week, who described the Eclipse as…

“Spiritual…mystical…”
“It reminded me of how small we are in the universe…”
“It felt like all my problems went away for a moment and everybody was just ONE…”
“I was filled with awe…”

This is what Hample is talking about when she says the business of religion SHOULD BE “mystery."

I don’t need to tell you that far too often the “business of religion" devolves into something far less, and far less beautiful, than “mystery.”

— A set of moral rules to be followed.
— A set of rote practices to be repeated.
— A way to become more, not less, tribal.
— A corruptible institution manipulated by Empires, Church leaders and those exploiting the Earth.

None of these, of course, get at the kind of mystery we are talking about here which is why so many human beings get so frustrated (and “Done” with) organized religion.

In his autobiography St. James of Taylor suggests that church and concerts are really quite similar in terms of their communal and spiritual experience. He suggests they are unique in our culture. I tend to think many communal events can have this spiritual dimension, but I take his point and certainly have agreed with it about music and church for many years.

Do we find this gold vein of spiritual experience every Sunday in Church?

No. We do not. Because we are human, we use too many words, or we are too worried about the “performance” of religious ritual (whether we’re a leader or a participant…). We get distracted or bored. Or the suffering and pain of our own life get in the way. Or our own sense of self-sufficiency blinds us from our need for God.

There are sooooo many distractions to pull our focus away from the mystery.

But I am so overjoyed with how Monday went here in our city. The clouds parted. The skies darkened and millions of us looked up and said…

“Ah-h-h-h!”

I talked with Jimmy Contreras over at Taco y Vino on Sunday and he said that this weekend had been one of his busiest in a long time. News reports shared that Dallas hotels were 90% full!!

And, sure enough, this weekend as I drove around Oak Cliff, Downtown and East Dallas, I saw dozens of small groups of obviously lost out-of-towners wandering around and trying to get their bearings.

Even as late as Monday morning, though, it was still cloudy. Really cloudy. The forecast was for possible clearing later in the morning. But just based on the feel of the 9 am temps, it seemed like all we’d experience was four minutes of “dark.”

As you know, the clouds started to break mid-morning. Then as temps cooled the clouds evaporated even more, and the moment of totality was suddenly completely clear! The break in the clouds seemed magical as well. (But I’m told it was likely completely attributable to the drop in temps…)

And the experience?

It was exactly as Buechner described…

“Ah-h-h-h!”

Here’s my own little backyard video.

Again, our human problem is:

1. We dismiss these kinds of moments by explaining them away (whittling them down either through our logic or religious language…)

2. We fail to connect them at the deep level of human spiritual experience.

One more thought from Frederick Buechner (and I’ve already quoted this once this week…)

Buechner liked to describe reading the Bible in the way the theologian Karl Barth used to describe it. And it’s very much like watching an Eclipse.

“…reading the Bible is like looking out of the window and seeing everybody on the street shading their eyes with their hands and gazing up into the sky toward something hidden from us by the roof. They are pointing up. They are speaking strange words. They are very excited. Something is happening that we can't see happening. Or something is about to happen. Something beyond our comprehension has caught them up and is seeking to lead them on…”

At Kessler Park we practice our faith through the language of Christianity and United Methodism. We “point” to these mysteries…yes, we sometimes use “strange words.”

But we try to remind ourselves that the spiritual reality behind all the words we say…the songs we hear…the experiences collectively shared…are trying to get at the

“Ah-h-h!” moment…

Where all falls aways and everything is holy.

Faith-FULL

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Increasingly I am convinced the opposite of “faith” is not “doubt,” but “fear.” This is because the deepest level of “faith” is not “belief,” but “trust;” and the opposite of “trust/faith” is “fear/anxiety.”

Instead of faith’s opposite, doubt is a part of the journey of faith. Skepticism is, or should be, embraced as how we grow, not how we “gain or lose” our faith. Long ago, I came to dearly love Frederick Buechner’s definition of “doubt”…

“Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”
(From “Wishful Thinking.”)

This has always been how I’ve seen the connection of faith and doubt. Doubts keep our faith awake and moving. They keep it from calcifying into fundamentalism. They push us to know more, do more, be more. This kind of faith is like Jesus coming down the mountain instead of building the “Transfiguration Shrine” that Peter wants him to.

This kind of faith doesn’t attempt to literalize or concretize spiritual experiences which are, at their heart, always ephemeral. (And must be!)

My overall sense is that my own tradition (Mainline Protestantism) has done a much better job of reminding its adherents that doubt is a part of our faith journey.

I was a very young man when I first understood this. And I am grateful to my own youth minister, Ben Marshall, for both being a calm, non-anxious leader, but also for inviting us kids to always unpack our doubts, our fears and our skepticism. We were never once shamed, dismissed, or shunned for questioning the Bible or any facet of the Christian religion.

But throughout my adult life I’ve encountered many folks who were. For many who grew up in evangelical/fundamentalists traditions, if they even so much as *slightly* “doubted” or questioned the “logical propositions” they were told to believe, they WERE shunned, shunted aside, or worse, even cast out of Christian fellowship.

In these more evangelical and fundamentalist traditions, “doubt” was the *worst* thing a “believer” could ever have.

This next part may feel controversial to some, but it’s how I see things.

Most of the debate I hear between “Atheists” and “Believers” seems to take place at this level…the level of debating “belief in logical propositions about God.”

There’s a lot of “proof-texting” that seems to go back and forth. There’s a GREAT DEAL of assuming that:

“Faith” = “Belief in factual or logical propositions about God.”

Many churches websites feature a “What We Believe” page. And many times this is where you can find these “logical propositions about God” spelled out. And many times it’s assumed that any “real” Christian will believe these things *literally.*

From my chair I see a lot of “Atheists” attempting to undercut these types of factual or literal claims about God. I see a lot of “Evangelicals” defending them, often twisting themselves into theological pretzels —dancing on the heads of some very small pins— to defend their “beliefs.”

Secularly there are similar debates over “facts” happening everywhere of course.

Right now all over social media there are raging debates over the truth claims made by Donald Trump.

Right now there are *still* debates about vaccines and the science of pandemic medicine.
(I have a near-neighbor with a “Kennedy for President” sign up. :( )

Just last night we watched a chilling documentary about Alex Jones and the horrific way he lied for decades about the massacre of children at Sandy Hook. EVEN DURING HIS TRIAL, even as he repeatedly apologized in court, Jones continued to publicly lie about the situation on his internet show!!

His lies helped keep alive the conspiratorial virus started by Trump’s “Birthirism” and later led to the kooky views about Hillary Clinton eating babies in non-existent pizzeria basements.

Folks, we’re in the midst of a full-on “war” about facts in our nation. And it’s not over yet.

What I’m suggesting here is that beneath all of this back and forth about “logical propositions,” there is an entirely *different* level of “faith” that is not primarily dependent on this debate at all; that does not “stand or fall” on its outcome.

And that is to see “Faith” as “Trust, Assurance, Confidence…or Hope.”

Faith at this level isn’t nearly as concerned with the literal truth or falsity of logical propositions, or even with our “gut emotional feeling,” but instead with developing a deep-level TRUST in the presence of God.

As Marcus Borg so well puts it, “Faith is trusting that the reality of reality is gracious.”

This gets me to this story about “Doubting Thomas.” (John 20)

Again, lets remember this story starts on Easter Day. That night.

The Disciples appear to be in shock. They are confused. Their spiritual/emotional teeth have been kicked in by the Roman Execution of Jesus and a fear of marauding collaborators who are potentially out to harm them, too.

The Gospel literally uses the word FEAR to describe them.

“The doors were locked, for fear of Jews.”

“The Jews,” here —and this is important— are not clearly *all* Jews in Israel (they are all Jews, too!). But “the Jews” here clearly refers to some folks who want to show their loyalty to the Roman Empire by turning in associates of Jesus.

But the point is not WHO they are afraid of, though.

The point is that they ARE afraid. And their fear is the opposite of faith.

This is the moment when they are most “faith-empty.”

The story goes that Jesus comes and stands among them. Note that he apparently has some kind of non-normal body that can walk through locked doors. The text doesn’t seem to worry about this, and we shouldn’t either…because (and I can never emphasize this enough…) the point of the story is not logical, factual, literal, consistency.

Jesus breathes on them. Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit and wishes them PEACE.

Thomas isn’t there. It’s not explained why.
It doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s an introvert.
Maybe he couldn’t take being with the group.

But he comes back and hears of their miraculous encounter. But instead of taking their word for it, he tells them that he won’t believe unless he can see for himself.

And then…a week passes!

A WEEK!

Don’t rush past this. Thomas has to endure the Spirit-filled joy of the other ten for a week…all the while insisting that HE be given what THEY got. He’s not asking for more than them or special treatment. He just wants to see as they have seen.

He gets his wish. Jesus pops back in the room a week later and allows Thomas to see his weirdly physical/non-physical body. And that’s why Thomas’ doubts fall away.

But its the final line of this story that, imho, is the most important. Because I always imagine Jesus ends this story by addressing US. Jesus’ last line can’t be addressed to anybody still in the room because they’ve all seen the physical-him.

Instead, Jesus breaks the “fourth wall” of the Gospel drama and turns to all of us readers over the past two thousand years and says:

“Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”

You see it?
He can’t be speaking to any other character. (They DID see him…)

But we —unlike the ten and now Thomas— are never going to get a physical glimpse at this weird post-resurrection body of Jesus. We live in a time when all that’s available to us is the still, small voice of God.
The whisper of the Spirit.

So….
We can argue about “facts.” (And we most certainly will…)
We can argue about “beliefs.” (And we’ll do that, too…)

But can we find —through the grace of God— some sense of bedrock TRUST beneath all of this?
Because this trust is the heart of what Jesus calls “blessed.”

Can we believe —all evidence to the contrary— that “the reality of reality is gracious?”
Because this reality is the heart of what Jesus calls “blessed.”

The most “blessed” form of faith is below the level of human doubt and anxiety.

None of us have it all the time.

Few of us have it most of the time.

One paradoxical dynamic I see? The more we are trapped by a “faith” that logical propositions about God are all that matter, the less of this bedrock trust we humans seem to have.

This is why some of the fundamentalists/evangelicals you know seem to be deeply distrustful and incredibly fearful (Literally: “full of fear”) because their sense of faith has never led them to this deeper place.

But pursuing faith-as-trust by finding it (or, perhaps better, allowing it to find us…) we live out the deepest calling God has for us.

This kind of faith is outside the level of logical propositions about God. It’s beyond the reach of human evil and even past the event-horizon of human logic, outside of our sense of history, space, and time.

This level and form of faith is a kind of foolish-seeming TRUST in God.

We often say that “believers” are “faithful.” But pull those words apart and recall their deeper meaning.

Those who have “faith” the way Jesus is describing here are “faith-FULL.”

They are FULL of a specific *kind* of faith…a trust, hope and assurance… that is not dependent on the logical mind or the emotional heart.

It’s Buechner’s “ants in the pants” kind of faith that somehow still finds trust in God, even though we live in a world where it’s hard to trust anything at all these days.

This is the heart of what Jesus means when he says….

“Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”