Agnostic Theism

A little over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about a crisis of faith that was induced by a very powerful email sent to me by Steve Wells, the editor of the Skeptics’ Annotated Bible. If you don't care to follow the link and read it, the short version is that he claims followers of God are a lot like Trump supporters: it doesn't seem to matter what the object of adoration actually does, it's somehow all excusable because we just have faith he's terrific.

I see this in Trump supporters, but as a Christian who is appalled at Trump’s politics and personal life, it's jarring to see that sort of misplaced devotion framed with God at the center. It's especially jarring because really, he's right. Christians are going to do that; it's sort of our thing, isn't it?

There's a lot of unsavory stuff in the Bible, but we just assume God had a good reason for drowning everyone in the story of Noah. There's a lot of unsavory stuff in history, but you chalk it up to “free will” and maybe man's fallen nature. Then, there's a lot of unsavory stuff that we're living through right here in the present, and for me at least, it gets harder to explain how there can be an all-knowing, all-powerful God who supposedly loves humanity.

Watching the acceleration of genocide in Gaza for the past 16 months, as Israelis seem to have no conscience and the American government seems to have no limit to what we will support, it got to me. I was suffering just watching it unfold on my phone; how much more the Palestinians actually living through it?

And then Americans handed over the government to President Trump once again, with virtually the blessing of the Democratic party, who showed very little interest in winning through taking the moral high ground. President Trump, upon taking office, quickly took us on a refresher course on the Third Reich, attacking transgender people, rounding up non-white people into concentration camps, and consolidating political power.

Where is God in all of this? I've been struggling for a year with my faith, and in that time, God has answered none of my prayers and the world has proceeded to go from bad to worse. It feels like something is broken, both in the world and in my connection to God. I've been through hard times, and it felt like God was somehow with me through the struggles. But this last year? I talk to God and it feels like nobody is listening.

I see so many videos of the Palestinians in this brief ceasefire coming home to see Gaza in piles of rubble and bones, and they praise God to be alive. Where does that faith come from? I can't fathom it. I only praise God that so many of my friends and family are not alive to see the destruction of what they once held dear. Is that really faith of any sort, or just cynicism?

I continue to call myself a Christian because I don't know what to label what I seem to have become in the last year. I've prayed, probably more than any other time in my life. I have gone to church and studied the Bible. I've talked to pastors. I just keep wondering that same question; where is God in all of this? He doesn't seem to be in Palestine or America.