The Journey of Faith in The Era of Polarization
It is ironic that a God should call a desperate people-pleaser to write. I feel the irresistible call of the pen: I long to chronicle my journey of reconstructing my faith in the wake of doubt and deconstruction. To share my footnotes with you. To offer the handbook I never had. To document the lessons of the road as I move forward.
My hope is to serve sincere seekers and saints, both. I long for other pilgrims on the journey of life to experience the indescribable joy of discovering they are not alone. I dare not allow my fear to bury the talents God has entrusted to me for serving His kingdom.
And yet, at the prospect of sitting down at my keyboard to write, my breath catches. A dead weight settles into my chest. Those who struggle with anxiety will understand. The choking fear of saying the wrong thing. Or of saying the right thing, yet being misunderstood, judged, condemned, or canceled. Being cast from the circle of firelight into outer darkness.
I feel the paralysis of Moses, tongue-tied at the prospect of proclaiming God’s message to Pharoah and freeing the Israelites. Moses twice begs God to pardon him, to excuse him from his calling. When he does venture forth, it is in fear and trembling.
And honestly, this moment in society is squarely the wrong time to wade into the fray. The violent polarization, the cancel culture on both left and right, the cold stares and swinging fists. Unfortunately, American evangelicalism is too frequently defined less by the metaphor of pilgrimage than by the metaphor of culture war. The metaphor of ‘culture war’ means that if you’re not for me, you’re against me. If you disagree with a single iota of my beliefs, you have clearly surrendered to the enemy. Shrill tribalism and ever-fracturing relationships result.
But what does it mean to be a pilgrim? Merriem-Webster defines it as “one who journeys in foreign lands.” It means to be on a journey. To journey is to travel with a destination in mind. It means to advance or progress along the road. It means being a work in progress, learning things along the way, growing steadily in strength, wisdom, and courage.
In my experience, many American evangelical churches leave little room for journeying: for being a work in progress. If you are to be accepted within the fold, the correct theological and political boxes must be checked. Nary a one may be neglected. To merely question or doubt is to invite suspicion, cancellation and condemnation, accusations of compromise or backsliding. Do not dare question the prevailing opinion on, for example, masks, vaccinations, the presidency, the Holy Spirit, gender roles, or Calvinism. Do you feel the swell of anxiety, the catching of your breath, just reading this list? I do. Questioners will be shamed and condemned. Friendships will be severed. Churches will split.
A Pilgrim’s Ethos
But to be a pilgrim is to journey toward God, growing in knowledge, wisdom, and love. Yet I cannot grow in knowledge without first acknowledging my ignorance. I cannot grow in wisdom unless I admit that I don’t know. I cannot become more certain of my faith by pretending my questions don’t exist, but rather by finding answers to them.
The culture war mentality has shaped Christians who are far too keen to die on untested hills. We are better at militantly guarding the hills of our particular tribe than deeply examining which hills really deserve our allegiance.
A Pilgrim’s Mindset
So how do we test the truth? We seek it through the careful, diligent practice of asking questions, testing hypotheses, and exploring alternative explanations. If Christianity is really true, it will pass every test with flying colors. And if it is not true, we should want to discover what is, in fact, true.
No one comes out of the birth canal knowing everything. No one graduates high school with a lifetime of experience or exhaustive consideration of the available data on the big questions of life - questions of meaning, purpose, and God. We aren’t done learning at graduation. Done rightly, the school of life will continue until death. Even if we’re lucky enough to be born into the “right” general point of view, we won’t know that for sure until we test it against other viewpoints.
Thus, a pilgrim is eager to grow, to obtain greater truth and greater wisdom, no matter the cost. We are willing, even eager, to be wrong, if only we will be shown what is right. We cultivate the ability to admit, “I don’t know.” On my personal journey, I have been dramatically wrong about important essentials of my belief system. I know what it is like to be wrong, a blamed fool. But importantly, these experiences have taught me that I can survive being wrong. Truth is far too great a treasure to let my ego get in the way of obtaining it. We embrace the life of a sojourner and an exile: leaving the fortress of arrogant, closed-minded certainty, becoming a humble yet careful student of the road in the pursuit of all that is true, good, and beautiful.
We are also not content with the provincial, narrow confines of a single intellectual or denominational hamlet. Every person experiences the subjectivity that comes from limited life experience and cultural norms. We long to go into the wide world to expand our minds and hearts. Why? Because God made the world. He made all the people in it. He imbued the world with natural revelation and the people with the Imago Dei, the image of God. So naturally, we should desire to learn from the riches to be found on the road. For example, I have learned good, beautiful things in the Baptist world. But I have also learned wonderful and different truths from Anglican and Catholic perspectives. I have gleaned insights from the viewpoints of both conservatives and progressives. We are meant to learn from God’s image-bearers, even when they differ from us in important ways.
As C.S. Lewis wrote in the final chapter of An Experiment in Criticism, “The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others. . . But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.”
A Pilgrim’s Destination
If we are to test the truth rightly, we must also carefully guard the destination of our heart’s pilgrimage. What we aim for will define the questions we ask and the footpaths we take. If what we love and long for is man’s approval or societal prestige, we will carefully curate an identity that never transgresses society’s trends, reflexively embracing the mood of the age. If our desired destination is fame, wealth, or sexual promiscuity, we will only listen to arguments and walk down paths that affirm the destination we desire to reach. If our desired destination is popularity amongst Christians, we will ultimately compromise truth and conviction in our lust for fame and power (see, for example, Ravi Zacharias or Mark Driscoll.)
But if what we love and long for is all that is true, good, and beautiful, we will eagerly seek truth wherever it may be found. We will call out what is false, unjust, and ugly, even if it is found on our own ‘side’. We will learn to love truth for truth’s sake, regardless of when doing so sets us at odds - or evens - with society or even our church communities. We will embrace both justice and mercy, both love and truth.
In my experience and in my studies of the various evidences for Christianity, I have found that all the evidence, considered honestly, points squarely at Jesus Christ. And so my destination, my love, my desire, is Him. My path and my questions are defined by my desire to know Him better, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3)
A Pilgrim’s Disgrace
The journey of a pilgrim also includes learning to be at peace living with the scorn of those who dwell in fortresses. Many will hate a pilgrim for refusing to take up residence in their particular fortress. The scorn and condemnation of the lawless and the legalist can be equally heavy.
But I’ll be content to live on the road as an exile, because Jesus is here. As the author of Hebrews writes, “And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.” (Hebrews 13:12-15)
A Pilgrim’s Locale
Pilgrims often camp on the road in the wilderness, pitching a tent and roasting food over a cozy campfire. Other pilgrims may gather, drawn like moths to a light towards warmth and fellowship. We gather as mutual seekers, sojourners, and friends. We gasp at the stars, wondering aloud what it all means. We sing songs and swap stories. We laugh and weep in turn over the stories of each other’s travails. We compare maps and manifestos. We hospitably consider each other’s views, arguing vigorously for our perspective yet eager to be corrected if we can be shown to be in error. We are united in love even when divided in viewpoint. We treat one another as fellow sojourners, pilgrims, together embracing the call to seek the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Please, do join me in the firelight.