Dialogue with William Lobdell's Story

Below is my brief response to an interview with William Lobdell with Tom Ashbrook (NPR, On Point)

Having heard William Lobdell’s story from various news venues over the past year, I am struck by his genuineness, openness and sense of “peace” with doubt. His journey is quite interesting and prompts me to reflect upon the ancient Jewish spiritual roots, which can be accessed in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, various kinds of “Christians” dismiss what I have come to recognize as normative in this literature and further conveyed in the radical life and teaching of Jesus.

Severely lacking in practice and the spiritual vocabulary of many American Christian churches is this normative and valuable experience of doubt. There are clearly large questions that revolve around an active formation of faith, and they can present themselves in complex periods of disorientation, dislocation, and a deep sense of abandonment. Active doubt, such as portrayed in the life of the Qohelet in Ecclesiastes, many Psalms, Job, and the life of Jesus remind us that life can naturally move from periods of orientation into profound and long-standing periods of disorientation. While many American Christians write off experiences of doubt as “lacking faith”, my own journey has allowed me to see doubt as a path to the formation of faith and coming to terms with the hidden-ness, illusiveness, and darkness surrounding concepts of God, the large questions and perplexing experiences of suffering and evil in the world. (I am grateful for the works of Paul Ricoeur and Walter Brueggemann on this topic.)

The ancient Jewish tradition offers some almost lost practices which can be quite redeeming at best or at least able to help move individuals and communities into some sense of being re-oriented. For example, there is the practice of lament and complaint in the literature mentioned above. In my many years of religious experiences (predominately Christian), it has only been recently that I have met a religious community comfortable with practicing lament and complaint within their corporate lives. I am learning that while doubt is normative in human experience, practices such as lament and doubt can assist us in moving into some surprising places: places where we are more comfortable, imaginative, and at peace with the unknown and life as it is.