I get a lot of great, honest questions from my students. Here\u2019s one:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you read James 1:6-7, particularly as it concerns doubting? It seems as though James is saying that those who doubt God\u2019s power are like waves and what not. Is this a specific theology of the time, or is it really saying TO ME that I should never doubt?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m guessing he\u2019s not the only person in the world with a question like this, especially those who have been taught that struggling with faith is a sign of weakness\u2014in part because of James 1:6-7:<\/p>\n But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind;\u00a0for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n Well that\u00a0seems clear as crystal: doubt = bad. So I told my student, \u201cGet with the program, pal. You can read the Bible just as well as I can and you know that any shred of doubt makes God very, very, very angry. I hope you can live with yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, I\u2019m hilarious.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t say that, of course, largely because I wrote this book The Sin of Certainty<\/strong><\/a><\/em> where I argue that doubt is normal, biblical, and spiritually beneficial. So here\u2019s what I actually\u00a0said.<\/p>\n First, different<\/strong>\u00a0biblical authors have different perspectives<\/strong>. I don\u2019t think we should read one author as cancelling out another\u2014like James cancelling out the spiritual struggles of, say, Job, some Psalms, or Ecclesiastes.<\/p>\n As tempting as it might be to take James 1:6-7 as a clear command for all time and every situation, it is more responsible to try and understand why<\/em> James says what he says in this particular letter, and then see how it might apply to one\u2019s own situation. Which brings\u00a0us to . . .<\/p>\n Second, James is speaking in the context of \u201ctrials\u201d and the \u201ctesting of your faith\u201d<\/strong> (James 1:2-3) in what was thought to be the end of the age. Like other New Testament authors, James likely thought of Jesus\u2019s resurrection as stage one of a two-stage process\u00a0that would come to completion soon.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n In that context of urgency, of \u201csuffering, though the time is near,\u201d a tone of\u00a0warning and \u201cpull yourself together, man!\u201d is the expected rhetoric.<\/p>\n That context, however, is not one which I or my student share. We have, rather, more in common in this sense with Old Testament authors for whom no end was in sight, which afforded\u00a0plenty of opportunity to struggle with their faith <\/a>(again, Lament Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations).<\/p>\n So, James is valuable (of course) but not as the crowing once-for-all view a Christian should have when struggling with their faith. I don\u2019t believe\u00a0James simply trumps Qoheleth, Job, or a psalmist.<\/p>\n (which loops us back to the first point).<\/p>\n Third, the Greek word there translated as \u201cdoubt\u201d<\/strong> does not mean what it might appear to mean at first blush, especially filtered through our western rationalist society, namely \u201cintellectual uncertainty\u201d\u2014intellectual struggling\/questioning brought on by life experiences, bouts with depression, personal tragedies, etc.<\/p>\nScripture is diverse and multivalent<\/h2>\n
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) a \u201cdivided loyalty\u201d (aka \u201cbeing double-minded\u201d), which, as we saw in #2, is a particularly pressing concern in James\u2019s context.<\/p>\n