Karen, who was 18 at the time, was being trained to become a Nun in the Roman Catholic Church near Birmingham England. 

She was being trained to spit out the theology and tradition which she was being handed in the Convent.  She was struggling to finish an essay in Apologetics entitled”Access the historical evidence for the Resurrection.”  She had read the requisite textbooks, could see what was required and so produced a discussion of the events of the first Easter Sunday. 

 It made Jesus’ rising from the tomb an uncontroversial historical happening just like the Battle of Waterloo.

 She thought it was nonsense, but that did not seem to matter in apologetics.

 Mother Greta, the pale, delicate nun who was supervising the studies smiled at her and said, “Yes, Sister, that is a very good piece of work.”

 “But Mother, It isn’t true, is it?” 

Mother Greta sighed, pushing her hand under her tightly fitting cap and rubbing her forehead as if to erase unwelcome thoughts, “No, Sister, she said wearily, “it is isn’t true.  But please don’t tell the others.”

She feinted several times in the 7 years she spent in the Convent, all because her brain had been bound as tightly as the feet of a Chinese woman.  Traditionally when the bandages are taken off, the pain is excruciating.  Often they are removed too late and the woman never walks normally again.
 
No one in that convent, and perhaps in most of the others, would ever have admitted to doubts.  It was a liberating experience for Karen when Jane, a former num in that convent admitted that she was going to have to carry a “lapsed catholic” label for a while.  She felt endlessly, endlessly guilty about it.  She knew she couldn’t go to Mass, Communion, or confession because she did not have a “firm purpose of amendment.”  She was not going to rearrange her life now because she had not truly repented.  She would have to carry that heavy label.   At least for a while.

 In my Retirement Community is a professor of Theology, who just retired this year.  He says he is still supervising 5 PhD theses, but otherwise has laid the hammer down.  We do not talk theology any more.  All I get from him is a rigid interpretation of scripture or a quote from a Papal
Encyclical.  Original sin, the virgin birth, the theology of the cross, miracles - all are off limits for friendly conversation.  There is no room for discussion or dialogue.

 Have you ever wondered how Job or the Book of Ecclesiastics ever got into the Old Testament Canon?  It is slightly strange when you consider it, but somehow, for some weird reason, those ancient rabbis thought these books of Doubt, ought to be included in our reading.

 How long has it been since you have perused them, studied them, and meditated on them?

 Have you ever taken Job’s side and argued with God?  Fussed at God, been angry at God, Fumed at God, shaken your fist at God?

 Have you wanted to get God into a court of law and plead your case, as Job did?

 Have you ever thought of God as vindictive, judgmental, uncaring?

 Have you ever wondered about God’s justice in Katrina, in tornadoes, in earthquakes, like the one recently in China or the ones in San Francisco in 1906 and 1985?  How about the world wide devastation through the spread of aids on children?  Or the genocide in Rwanda and Darfur?  Or Germany, Russia or our violent vendetta against the American Indian. 

 Have you ever thought, “Well maybe there isn’t a God after all?”  Or, is it only the opinion of a fool, as the Psalmist says?

 Maybe that simply is not possible for you.   Perhaps you have grown up in a convent-like atmosphere where there is no place for doubt.

 The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes was not Solomon, as some would like a person to believe, but someone in the third century BC who had been schooled in Greek wisdom literature, was familiar with Plato and Aristotle, and also with the Hebrew Scriptures and liturgy.  He doubted everything.  All striving has no meaning.  There is nothing new under the sun which has not been questioned, examined, ruled upon.

 It is the kind of atmosphere in which I was raised.  Rigid, inflexible, certain, no room for deviation.   I had all the right answers for all of the questions about the church, the bible our tradition.  I went to Seminary as an un-reconstructed fundamentalist.  If you wanted my absolute and biblical position on any question, just ask me.  

 And then - I began to doubt and to doubt regularly.  It was not one radical skepticism, but a slow, burning process, like a slow starting wildfire.  I picked up some assistance along the way - Plato, Aristotle, and Diogenes, the Cynic.  The life of a cynic required and inspired devotion. 

 It was a rejection of meaning and convention, but it had power to sustain and uplift its followers.  To be cynical about even the things dogs love is hollow and demoralizing; to be a true Cynic leaves one a few devotions: loyalty, food and sleep.

The cynic was like the writer of Ecclesiastes.

 Listen to Chapter 3:19-21. “ Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both.  As one dies, so dies the other.  All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal.  Everything is meaningless.  All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.  Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth. “

 Then there was Cicero, and Pliney the Elder and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.   And what of the Sadducees and their rejection of the resurrection.   And Paul and his rejection and fierce opposition to Christianity.

 Among our own framers of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence:  Ben Franklin was brought up a pious Presbyterian, but soon became a doubter.  Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams - Doubters all - who structured this country. And led us in our infancy.   They saw the danger of allowing dogmatic, certain religion to be a hindrance to classical republicanism.

 Then there was Harriet E. Stanton, daughter of Elizabeth C. Stanton who said in her address, “Antislavery,” in 1860, along with the central issue, she called for those enslaved by religion to be “born into the kingdom of reason and free-thought.”  She noted you can’t even sacrifice a female goat to God.
 And Soren Kierkegaard’s is a doubter that yearns to believe.  Listen to his wistful pride.  “I have seen horror face to face, I do not flee it in fear but know very well that, however bravely I face it, my courage is not that of faith and not at all to be compared with it.  I cannot close my eyes and hurl myself trustingly into the absurd, for me it is impossible, but I do not praise myself on the account.”  (This is a powerful new formulation of the problem of doubt.)  He wrote later,  “I am convinced that God is love; this thought has for me a pristine lyrical validity.  When it is present to me I am unspeakably happy, when it is absent I yearn for it more intensely than the lover for the beloved; but I do not have faith: this courage I lack.”

 And there are those of our generation who were serious doubters:  Christopher Reeve, Jodie Foster, and financier Warren Buffet, film maker Ingmar Bergman and George Carlin who has made a fabulous career of laughing at the “invisible man living in the sky” who always needs money.

 But what advantage is there to doubt?  Why shouldn’t we always preach faith and leave people with hope.  Why look at the dark side?

 John Shanley, the playwright, has written.  “It is Doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things.  When a person feels unsteady, when she falters, when hard won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth.  The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake; like you’ve gone the wrong way and you’re lost.  But this is just commotion longing for the familiar.  Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind.  Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.”

 When we are there, in Doubt, we long for a shared certainty, an assumption of safety, the reassurance of believing that others know better than I do what’s for the best.  But I have been led by the bitter necessities of an interesting life to value that age-old practice of the wise: Doubt.

 Doubt is the most dangerous, important and ongoing experience of life.  It is the beginning of change.  It is that crucial moment when I renew my humanity or become a lie.      Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy, because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite - it is a passionate exercise.  You may want to be sure.  But we’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. 

 There is No last word.  That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.

 It surfaces in our sadness.  When we are left bewildered, broken, wondering let it be there, nurture it, embrace it, hold it in front of you and think.

 Doubt unites.  Conviction divides. 

 We slaughtered people, put them on the rack and burned them to death because they did not believe like us.  That same demonic spirit is present when we insist that people act like us or believe like we do. 

 Imagine being in a Church where your doubts are received, you do not have to hide them, but folks struggle with you in them.  They understand when you are depressed and are questioning.  They do not belittle you.   They do not want to put you out of the Church.  They embrace you and love you in the gentle spirit of Jesus.  They want your best. 

 Let’s think about the Church for a moment.  This may be a radical thought for you, but why not ponder it?  Have you ever thought about the Church creating “a climate for change?”  Couldn’t it be a “change agent?”  Not just on one issue, or occasionally, but every Sunday.  It is in the air we breathe.  With what problem are you wrestling?

      How happy are you with your life?
           Your job or lack thereof.
              With your marriage or your single status.
                With your relationships.
              Your daily life.
            Your life with Christ?            

 What are you in doubt about.  What are you thinking, pondering?   Do you need to change your life to get what you really want?  Where is your doubt this morning?  What courage do you need to face it, deal with it.

 The Church needs to treat you as Jesus treated Thomas.    Jesus came back to the disciples a second time; he made a special trip just for him and invited him to reach out his hand and put in the nail prints in his hands and in his side.  He wanted Thomas to believe and took the time to make that happen.

 There is no council sitting in judgment; no special committee to decide who is to be a saint; no rule of law to say who is “in” and who is “out.”  Mother Teresa may not make sainthood.  Her depression and her doubt may consign her to the realm of the second-class Christian, but she will be in excellent company.  I yearn to see the red faces of her accusers.

 Just think:  Jesus himself was a doubter?  “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”

 John Wesley said, “if your heart is as my heart, give me your hand.”  Not head, mind…”

 Karen, who I mentioned when I first began, is Karen Armstrong.  A great apologist for the role of faith in national and international relationships and she speaks with quiet authority on the theology for our day.  She has come to a new place as a spokesperson for the entire Church.

 As we sing our last hymn, “In our doubt is our believing”, read it, sing it, and rejoice in it.  It is not the opposite of belief, but a life-changing, dynamic companion to it.