{"id":6189,"date":"2009-11-16T05:50:56","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T05:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html"},"modified":"2009-11-16T05:50:56","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T05:50:56","slug":"help-for-the-doubting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html","title":{"rendered":"Help for the Doubting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Thinker.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/120\/import\/imgs\/Thinker.jpg\" width=\"161\" height=\"241\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>Two of my students, in the last month, have sat in my office in tears &#8212; their problem, though from two different angles, was doubt. Everything was changing, they were confused, they were having trouble finding their way &#8230;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/p>\n<div>Robert Wennberg, emeritus professor of philosophy at Westmont College, has given us all a gift: a book about doubting that is brief, thoughtful, careful, encouraging, but deadly honest and realistic. I suspect anyone plagued by doubts will find immense help from this pilgrim who knows the road and one who has lived in both the summer and the winter of faith. So, I recommend <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802864732?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0802864732\">Faith at the Edge: A Primer for Doubters<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0802864732\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important;margin:0px !important\" \/><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>OK doubters, what has been your story? Your discoveries? Your helps? What is the one thing that has helped you the most with doubt? Another question: What is doubt? What are words that get connected to &#8220;doubt&#8221; that you think are mistaken connections? What is the opposite of doubt? (Think about that one.)<\/b><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What I liked most about this book is the topics: the distinctions between doubters, skeptics and seekers; relativism won&#8217;t help; that the first bout with doubt is the hardest; the importance of a theology of God&#8217;s absence; stuff on CS Lewis and Mother Teresa and St John of the Cross; hope as sustenance during doubt; the Christian community as the best location for doubters; that Christians aren&#8217;t always as good as non-Christians; and this one is so good: why God chooses not to make his presence more obvious. And that God is both adversary and ally.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two of my students, in the last month, have sat in my office in tears &#8212; their problem, though from two different angles, was doubt. Everything was changing, they were confused, they were having trouble finding their way &#8230;&nbsp; Robert Wennberg, emeritus professor of philosophy at Westmont College, has given us all a gift: a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Help for the Doubting - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Help for the Doubting - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two of my students, in the last month, have sat in my office in tears &#8212; their problem, though from two different angles, was doubt. Everything was changing, they were confused, they were having trouble finding their way &#8230;&nbsp; Robert Wennberg, emeritus professor of philosophy at Westmont College, has given us all a gift: a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-16T05:50:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Thinker.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Help for the Doubting - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Help for the Doubting - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Two of my students, in the last month, have sat in my office in tears &#8212; their problem, though from two different angles, was doubt. Everything was changing, they were confused, they were having trouble finding their way &#8230;&nbsp; Robert Wennberg, emeritus professor of philosophy at Westmont College, has given us all a gift: a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-11-16T05:50:56+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Thinker.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html","name":"Help for the Doubting - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Thinker.jpg","datePublished":"2009-11-16T05:50:56+00:00","dateModified":"2009-11-16T05:50:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Thinker.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Thinker.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/help-for-the-doubting.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Help for the Doubting"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}