Does our current situation ever make you doubt?
It does not make me doubt the existence or the goodness of God. It makes me doubt God’s ability to act in people who call themselves his followers. I had an interesting experience a few years ago: I was visiting a university, as I often do ... One of the administrators stuck their head in and said the dean wants to talk to Katharine. They ushered everybody out and then the dean came and sat down and said, “I used to be an evangelical.” So I asked the obvious question: “Why are you no longer?” He said: “It wasn’t because I doubted the existence of God. It’s because I couldn’t see any evidence of God working in people. I saw person after person who claimed that they took the Bible seriously, they were Christian” — I’m paraphrasing — “and all I saw was the opposite of love. It got to the point where I couldn’t see any evidence of God working in people.” That’s what I’ve struggled with, too. What breaks my heart is the attacks I get from people who identify as Christians. When someone on Twitter has just called me a whore and I go to their profile and it says something about “loving others” and “so blessed” it makes me feel so discouraged. I’m thinking, God, what are you doing?
I have the same query, and not just about climate denialism. As my students tell me year after year, self-professed Christians are the strongest arguments against Christianity and its God. Like Hayhoe, I want to resist the dean's "they were Christian" with something like "people who call themelves his followers," "people who identify as Christians," but what are they then? My friend Victor Preller liked to repeat the adage - was it from Bonhoeffer? - that the church is the cross on which Christ is crucified daily. And God, what are you doing?
