Questioner’s Tool #2: Belief Target vs. House of Cards

Asking big questions can be hard and lonely. That’s why these tools are originally designed for groups to do them together. For the full version including activities, group questions, and more click here. For more info on how to start a group click here.

Problem:

Many religious communities think about their faith like it’s a house of cards. They stack up all their different beliefs about God, the Bible, sin, the afterlife, etc. These beliefs will inform each other. What they believe about the Bible informs what they believe about God. What they believe about God informs what they believe about sin. What they believe about demons informs what they believe about the afterlife. They stack these ideas higher and higher. But they really don’t like questioning beliefs because if one card has to be pulled out, it could bring down their entire system. 

Tool #2

To be clear, if you decide to leave your faith tradition or Christianity all together you are still welcome here. You are loved. You are still one of us. 

That said, whether you leave or stay, it’s usually helpful to not construct your beliefs like a house of cards.

A more helpful way of looking at our beliefs when it comes to faith is like a target with a bull’s eye and rings around it.

On the outside we can put things that we might believe, but we don’t think are ultimately all that important. Maybe for you that’s the number and size of dinosaurs on the ark. You might believe something in particular, but if you change your mind tomorrow, it’s not really going to change things much. 

In the center of the target we put the beliefs that are central to us and our faith. These are the things that we depend on. Then in between these two extremes we can rank our other beliefs.

Then as you question different beliefs you might end up moving things around.

For example: As you start your questioning journey, it might be helpful to place the first tool in this series in the center/bull’s eye. To review, the first tool suggests any true God is true (otherwise it’d be a false god) and this God called Love is at least as loving as a half way decent parent. Therefore, seeking truth (aka questioning) is an act of faithfulness, and there’s enough grace to cover you if you make mistakes. Holding this in the center of the target might help give a sense of stability while questioning other things. After a while though you might not find it as central and move it further out. You may need to question it or parts of it. Like, what is love? Or what is God? That’s ok. These are good questions.

ASH
Here. What if someone grew up with an abusive parent, a father. That father told them that his abuse was just part of his passionate love for them. Then in church this person was told that God was their loving heavenly father. After all that they might have some really harmful ideas about what God and love are about. Do you think it would be good for them to ask questions then?

DUKE
Yes. If they went through that, then yes.

ASH
But you don’t know. You don’t know what they went through or what different words or ideas might mean to someone else. Sometimes we don’t know the depths of it ourselves.

Asking big questions can be hard and lonely. That’s why these tools are originally designed for groups to do them together. For the full version including activities, group questions, and more click here. For more info on how to start a group click here.