Why A Believer Might Reject the Faith

This week’s online issue of Christianity Today Magazine published an interview with former Christian artist David Bazan (“I Never Wanted a Hard Heart,” by Drew Dyck, 2-2-2010). Bazan is a “former Christian artist.” He is “former” because he no longer is Christian. He has turned away from the his faith and has become an atheist. What is unusual is that Bazan is 35 years old and has written and sung about his faith for at least a decade. His was not a case of a young person rejecting his parents’ faith once he began to think for himself. Rather, it was a case of rejecting his own faith, a faith hammered out by personally wrestling with the claims of Christ, a faith arrived at as his own conviction, and a faith expressed from his heart in his music. Not that he is the first Christian to turn away from a long and dearly held faith. It happens. But it would seem to take something dramatic for someone like Bazan to turn away from their faith. What would cause such a dramatic turn-about? Perhaps by answering that question, we will better understand our own doubts and vulnerability.

Like many others who turn away from their faith, Bazan offers intellectual reasons for his gradual deconversion. He began to wrestle with big questions, and felt that to be honest he had to pursue those questions. I believe he is right to do so. We all face doubts and questions. We would be dishonest with ourselves and with God if we simply brushed those questions aside or buried them under a façade of unquestioning conviction. The truth is, faith in Christ raises tough questions. There are questions in regard to Jesus’ claims and of the witnesses’ claims to his being raised from the dead, questions of the historical truth of the Bible, and moral questions about a God who allows so much evil and suffering to occur in the world. Perhaps most difficult are when those moral questions become personal through our own suffering and disappointment. Where is God when we suffer tragic loss?

There is no need to fear such questions, whether intellectual or emotional. Perhaps the intellectual questions are the easiest to settle. The Bible and the Christian faith has withstood the test of skeptical examination for 2000 years. Honesty may demand that we pursue such questions when they arise, but it also demands that we pursue and examine all the possible and proposed answers. Too often, however, we use intellectual arguments to cover what is really a problem of the heart. It is not “Can I intellectually and honestly believe this?” so much as it is “Am I willing to surrender my life to this?” That’s more of a heart issue than a head issue. I don’t know if Bazan’s doubt arose out of some deeper heart issue, but I suspect so.

To understand why a believer would give up his or her faith, it might help to ask why an unbeliever would come to faith to begin with. Is it purely an intellectual decision? I’d like to think that we all came to faith after having pursued all the possible questions and all the possible answers, and have concluded intellectually, based on the evidence, that Jesus is the Son of God. But who of us can say we did? Hopefully we at least considered the evidence and concluded it was reasonable enough to give our lives to. But even then, we still had to make an emotional decision. We had to wrestle with questions like, “Do I need Jesus? Am I willing to surrender everything for Jesus? Is it worth the cost?” If coming to the faith involved a combination of intellectual and emotional considerations, leaving the faith would seem to as well. When intellectual doubts arise, don’t be afraid to examine those doubts. But we may need to examine our heart even closer.

Reaching those who do not seek God

Looking forward to the time when the Messiah would come and usher in a new age and a worldwide kingdom, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah records the lament of Israel because Jerusalem is a desolation and God seems to be silent and unresponsive to Israel (Isa 64.8-12). Isaiah follows with an interesting response from God that perhaps has some things to say to our situation today as well:

“I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me,
I permitted myself to be found by those who did not seek Me.
I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’
To a nation which did not call on My name.” (Isa 65.1).

The apostle Paul quotes this verse in Romans 10, applying it to how the Gentiles came to Christ in large numbers while God’s historical people rejected him. Those who historically were furthest away from God (the Gentiles) came to him when they were presented with the message of Christ and the cross, while those who were historically God’s kingdom people (Israel) rejected him.

I wonder if this might have some relevance for us in the church today. For example, surveys and statistics show that churches of Christ (and most or all other churches as well) in America are either declining or simply maintaining, and we are not having a radical impact on the growing masses of unchurched people in our culture (those who “did not seek me”?). Many churches are in maintenance mode, which means that most of their efforts are directed inward toward the body, with at best only a small element of their work focused outwardly. What does that have to do with the prophecy in Isaiah. Maybe nothing. But I wonder if God isn’t about to do a great work among “those who did not seek” him, even as we see the church as we know it become desolate. That’s probably too strong a word, as I am not suggesting we aren’t doing anything at all to reach out to our culture. But if we are going to be used by God so that he might be found by those who did not seek him (the unchurched) we need to do some radically different things. We need to change our methods, and perhaps our model, without changing the message. But perhaps more than anything, we need to change our focus and our priorities. Are willing to make those changes so that we might reach a “nation which did not call on My name”? Only time will tell.