Doubting

I just did a message with my students about doubt, and I'm not sure I really said anything.  I told them of times of doubt in my life.  I said that doubt can be used to deepen or further your faith.  I'm not sure I really explained how.  It turned into a "look at other people who doubted but chose to act on faith anyway" message instead of a "this is how doubt can be good for you" message.  All I really said is that you are going to always have doubts and questions, but I didn't get into how it works.  Maybe it's because I have some residual "it's not okay to doubt" lesson leftover from my childhood.

As I think more about it, I keep coming back to the book Insurrection by Peter Rollins.  In this book, Rollins talks about what he termed "Pyro-Theology" (please excuse the lack of page numbers, I don't have the book with me).  This is the process of lighting everything about your faith and religion on fire.  Whatever stands at the end of the fire is what faith is about.  Run with your doubt so that it completely deconstructs all that is part of your religious and faith experience until you get to the stuff that can't be taken apart any further.  Then, build your life on that.  Doubt is what you use to grind away the unnecessary fluff of religion, the stuff that doesn't make sense, the stuff that is contrary to real life experience, the stuff the leads to hate or destruction.  Doubt is needed to get past the junk in our faith traditions so that you can truly come face to face with truth.

Trying to do this Pyro-Theology would definitely not be easy.  It wouldn't be comfortable, but maybe it's comfort that is keeping us from authentic faith.  Maybe authentic faith cannot come without setting fire to the faith you have.  Maybe doubt is more important to faith than acceptance.  And perhaps once you burn it all down to see what's standing, you'll find that all the fluff that burned to the ground makes more sense.  Then you can build it back up with purpose and understanding, while replacing the structures that don't fit.

What do you think?  How has doubt helped you go further and deeper with your faith?  What have you burned to the ground?  What was left standing?