When I first came to Bible college, now a year and a half ago, I was not sure what to expect. I knew I was going to learn and that my learning would be challenging. I was expecting that; I could cope with that. What I did not predict would be the completely confused manner of that learning. For the entire first year it seemed information was being thrown at me from every conceivable angle, each morsel of which seemed routed in completely contradictory doctrines.
It felt like I was at the end of a piece of string so long and tangled that it's knots disappeared over the horizon, and that as a Christian committed to reaching as decent an understanding of my faith as possible, it was my duty to untangle it. I did not know where to start nor what to discard or what to hold dear to.
At some point, I'm not sure when, I decided that I would allow myself to put everything to question. This seems like a dangerous, harmful idea to some in the church yet it was the only way I could sort through everything I believe, to start at the center and work my way out. It was not that I questioned whether or not I would still continue my faith but more why I believed what I believed. It was as if my faith was a tower that I wanted to stand and yet continually assaulted, observed and tested.
By the end of the year I was no closer to unravelling my beliefs, and it seemed more and more reading and ideas and debates were raised. Every time one question was answered, three more popped up, but my curiosity kept leading me down more and more theological alleyways, until the theological hydra had an unending list of questions that I just had to shrug my shoulders at and go 'I do not know the answer to any of these.'
For the most part this is still the case. I still have a list of lists of lists of questions I can only shrug at and avoid as avidly as my colleagues will allow. However, there are one or two things that I feel I am on the verge of being able to say I can make an informed decision about. It is on these pinheads I am currently balancing and here in the depths of the internet, where opinions are the currency of controversy, that I have decided to openly think through my decisions as they present themselves to me in an effort to help others that are experiencing similar periods of upheaval. I cannot promise I will ever get to the end of the string I am unravelling, nor that I will not become unravelled myself in the process, but I can tell you that I will make every effort to pursue Christ and the continually search for the cross in an effort to live a life like my Jesus.
