A surprising discovery about doubt and fear

A potent storm system is bringing a multi-day threat of tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail to the Plains, Midwest, and the Ohio Valley. This after a tornado with maximum wind speeds up to 130 mph ripped through Michigan last week, leaving a trail of destruction in its path. The mayor of Three Rivers, Michigan, told FOX Weather that the storm damage is so extensive that she does not recognize parts of her city.

I can understand on a logical level the suffering that results from human sin: God honors the free will with which we are made in his image, so the consequences of our moral failures are not his fault but ours. I can even stretch this logic to include the suffering our sins cause others; if God removed all such consequences, we would not have moral agency.

But this is easy for me to say when I am not the innocent victim of such sin. I would be horrified if someone used this logic to explain the Holocaust to the Jewish people or the horrors of 9/11 to those still grieving those who died on that tragic day.

And it is even harder to understand suffering when it has no moral cause. I know that natural disasters and diseases are the result of the Fall (Romans 8:22); in the Garden of Eden, there were no tornadoes or cancers. But God often intervenes in the Bible and across history to prevent such disasters. When he does not, we can easily question his decision and even his character.

A maxim I have heard over the years advises us to “doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs.” That’s fine until our doubts truly threaten our beliefs.

What then?

“First world” problems

I have been dealing with a series of “first-world” problems lately.

I skipped walking outside this morning because of the rain our local meteorologists forecast that never fell. A repair person is coming by later today to replace our modem because our internet provider couldn’t get the existing one to work, through no fault of the existing modem. I am placing my third call to a repair person who keeps promising to fix our back gate but never shows up. Later today, I will place my third call to an insurance representative who keeps promising to look into a missing rebate but never calls us back.

The other day, my wife and I were talking with an older man on our walking trail who told us about the illness their daughter continues to face. He made a statement that has stayed with me: “Everyone has a million problems until they get sick.”

It’s then, in those crises where we most need God, that we sometimes feel that he is least present. This struggle is not sinful: if the sinless Son of God could cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), so can we.

“But they had no child”

Part of our problem is that our minds are finite and fallen and thus cannot possibly comprehend the character and ways of an infinite and perfect Being. As Elihu noted, God “does things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). If we could truly understand God, either we would be God, or he would not be.

Another part of our challenge is that we can experience reality only in this moment and thus are incapable of seeing the larger perspective within which God operates.

For example, I read this week that Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years” (Luke 1:6–7). Then came the miracle by which Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, promising that he and his wife would have a son (vv. 8–23). We know him as John the Baptist.

They could not possibly have understood that God’s delay was so that Mary could become old enough to bear the Son of God, for whom their son would serve as a forerunner. We can seldom understand God’s timing at the time, but his omniscience is not limited by our limitations.

However, even acknowledging the finitude of my mind and temporality, I still want to understand why God permits such suffering in his creation. I would like to believe that such doubts are motivated solely by my mind and quest for rationality.

But a sermon I read this week has convinced me otherwise.

“In these times of doubt, look to your fears”

I subscribe to a daily devotional from the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston. These brief paragraphs are excerpts from longer sermons the brothers have preached over the years. A devotional I received earlier this week caught my eye, so I opened the sermon it came from.

It was preached by Br. Jack Crowley in January 2025. His message was based on the flight of the holy family to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15), focusing on the doubts and stress that Joseph and Mary must have felt as they left all they knew for an unknown future as King Herod sought to murder their baby boy.

Br. Crowley noted that we all have similar “flights” and the fears they engender: “In our flight to Egypt there will be times of doubt. Times when we doubt if we have done the right things, times when we will doubt the quality of our own selves, times when we will doubt our ability to find God in any of it, and times when we will doubt humanity at large.”

Then he advised:

In these times of doubt, look to your fears. Ask yourself what fear is fueling your doubt? Do you fear that you are not good enough? Do you fear that you are not worthy of love? Do you fear that you have not done enough with your life?

These fears can drown us in doubt. These fears can make our lives impossible. These fears can paralyze our days. We need God’s help. We can admit it, we are not strong enough on our own, we need God’s help.

We need to bring to God our fears, our doubt, our stress and all the other things that keep us up at night. We need God’s help in our journey into Egypt. There is no shame in praying out of desperation and great need.

When we get to the other side of this thing we will be stronger, we will know ourselves better, and we will be closer to God. Our journey into Egypt may take a long time, but it is worth it. May God help us all.

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

Br. Crowley is right: My doubts are sometimes birthed by my fears. What if God is not the loving Father I want him to be? What if his omnipotence or omniscience is limited? What if he doesn’t hear my prayers or care about my problems?

Then I realize these fears are less about him than they are about me. I fear that I am not worthy of his love and care. I fear that I am not able to pray effectively or to trust fully. I fear less that he is not enough than that I am not enough.

At such times, I need to remember the cross, where the Father considered my salvation worth the death of his Son. I need to remember all the sins he has forgiven, all the needs he has met, and to believe that he does not change (Malachi 3:6) and that all of God there is, is in this moment.

And then, if this is not enough, I can pray with the beleaguered father, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

And he will.

Denison Forum

NOTE: As the founder of a non-partisan ministry, I do not endorse candidates or political parties. My focus on the theological issues I will discuss today would be the same if the candidate in question was running as a Republican or an Independent.

Today’s news is understandably focused on Iran’s new leader, the war, and its implications for Iran, the Middle East, China, Russia, and the global future. With all of that, you probably wouldn’t expect me to devote today’s article to a response to liberal Christianity.

However, as I wrote yesterday in explaining the worldview Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico is popularizing these days, the way Christians approach our faith and its relationship with the world is foundational to our understanding of the world and our role in it. Talarico, who is a Presbyterian seminary student and thus considered a “Bible scholar” by some in the media, is advancing his liberal version of Christianity with regard to abortion, transgenderism, gay marriage, and the claim that all religions “point to the same truth.”

In response, I articulated the basic interpretive principle I utilized in my doctoral studies and taught in seminary classes and churches over the decades: the Bible can never mean what it never meant. This principle has been embraced by Christians across the vast majority of Christian history.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Responding to James Talarico’s theology →

NOTE: As the founder of a non-partisan ministry, I do not endorse candidates or political parties. My focus on the theological issues I will discuss today would be the same if the candidate in question were running as a Republican or an Independent.

James Talarico has become a national figure after winning the Texas Democratic Senate primary last week. His theological worldview has especially garnered attention. For example, today’s New York Times headlines that he “hopes to counter what he sees as a conservative takeover of the American church.” A recent Times headline asked if he can “Reclaim Christianity for the Left.”

Talarico has stated that “Jesus never said anything” about abortion, transgenderism, or gay marriage. In his view, Mary’s agreement to become the mother of the Messiah means that “creation has to be done with consent,” affirming what abortion activists call “reproductive rights” for women. Speaking against a bill restricting transgender student athletes, he stated that “God is nonbinary.”

In an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, Talarico said he believes “Christianity points to the truth,” but “other religions of love point to the same truth.” He views Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism as “circling the same truth about the universe, about the cosmos. And that truth is inherently a mystery.” Because he is a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the media often characterizes him as a “Bible scholar.”

Talarico’s positions are consistent with a stream of theology often called “liberalism.” Where does it come from? How are we to understand its core beliefs in light of biblical truth?

A brief history of theological liberalism

Liberalism is a freighted word that means different things in different contexts. If you give generously to others, you are “liberal” with your money. If you believe in freedom, equality, human rights, limited government, and democracy, you have historically been considered to be aligned with “liberal” governance.

For our purposes today, however, we will consider liberalism in the context of Christian theology. Let’s begin with a very brief history.

Until the seventeenth century, Christians were united in their belief that the Bible is the objective and authoritative word of God. Catholics believed that biblical truth is authoritatively interpreted through the teachings of the church, while Protestants insisted on sola Scriptura, “Scripture alone.” But both considered truth to be objective and ultimately revealed by God to and through his people.

However, the European Enlightenment (c. 1660–1798) shifted the focus of authority to human reason and/or experience. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) detached reason from religion, arguing that only what can be demonstrated by reason or learned through scientific discovery qualifies as knowledge.

He and those he influenced reinterpreted biblical teachings in line with their rational principles. In this view, theology is progressive and must be developed by each generation; many redefined miracles as myths that teach spiritual truths; some even reinterpreted the resurrection of Jesus as the resurrection of the faith of his disciples.

In nineteenth-century America, the Social Gospel movement became especially prominent, claiming that Christianity is primarily about the transformation of culture in the context of justice and various social problems. In recent years, “culture war” issues have dominated the conversation as many “mainline” denominations have taken positions endorsing abortion, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ advocacy, and euthanasia (as examples) that contradict historic Christian teachings on these subjects.

(For more, see my article Shaking the foundations: The shift in scriptural authority in the postmodern world, my book The Coming Tsunami, and historian Andrew Hoffecker’s excellent summaries here and here.)

A quest for cultural and theological tolerance

In the view of liberal (now sometimes called “progressive”) Christianity, the Bible can (and should) be reinterpreted by each individual and generation in accordance with their views of truth and their cultural and personal needs. The intended original meaning of the biblical text, so we’re told, is either unknown, unknowable, and/or irrelevant.

Consequently, the annunciation of Mary can be a proof text for “consent” in reproduction and thus for abortion rights. Jesus’ affirmation of the worth of women can be used to fuel feminist theologies that far transcend biblical teachings. Biblical calls for social justice (especially dominant in the prophets) can frame the central mission of the church; biblical claims regarding the uniqueness of Jesus and the necessity of faith in him can be reinterpreted or ignored in a quest for cultural and theological tolerance.

Arguments from silence are especially significant here. If Jesus (allegedly) did not specifically address abortion or same-sex marriage (as examples), we’re told that the church should have no decided position on these issues and that we are free to vote and express our personal convictions on them.

As you can see, this is a large and complex subject, one with massive ramifications for the way we view the Bible, our faith, and the role of our faith in the world.

The Bible can never mean what it never meant

My purpose has been to offer a brief explanation and context for the theological worldview James Talarico has brought into the larger cultural conversation. Tomorrow I plan to offer a biblical, theological, and apologetic response.

For today, let’s close with a principle articulated by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart in their marvelous book, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. I used it as a textbook when I taught seminary classes on biblical interpretation and recommend it highly.

They explain that the “first task of the interpreter” is “to discover the original, intended meaning” of the biblical text. This means “to hear the word as the original recipients were to have heard it, to find out what was the original intent of the words of the Bible” (their italics).

The Spirit who inspired the words of Scripture (2 Peter 1:21) will lead us to know and apply their intended, objective meaning. Accordingly, as I often warned my students, the Bible can never mean what it never meant.

We must therefore measure all theological assertions, whether made by James Talarico, myself, or anyone else, by the objective truth of Scripture. In this sense, we need to emulate those in Berea who, when Paul arrived during his second missionary journey, “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

As a result, “Many of them therefore believed” (v. 12). When we do what they did, we will experience what they experienced.

Will you be a Berean Christian today?

Quote for the day:

“When you open your Bible, God opens his mouth.” —Mark Batterson

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