Building a Belief by Ben Younan
If you met me 12 years ago, the person before you would have had many of the world’s problems accounted for through a narrow theology of God’s plan for our lives. You would have encountered a self-certain, skinny college kid who believed that there was no greater good than evangelizing a non-believer into a scripted prayer of salvation in order to be saved!
12 years ago that college kid’s world began to unravel, the proverbial dominoes started to fall. The world as I new it was dismantled because for the first time I left home and saw the world outside a Christian, privileged, American, educated, male, perspective. I saw pain and poverty and struggle and discovered that the majority of the world was nothing like me or what I believed. Everything about my faith and worldview was challenged and in question, and it was that spring of 2004 that my world had indeed, flipped: Trademark, copyright, Doug Pagitt 2015 all rights reserved.
Nowadays I consider myself a recovering evangelical. I've almost, but not entirely, thrown the baby out with the bath water, but my belief is more about a posture of humility and uncertainty.
I believe I don't have life all figured out, but I do believe In the discovery of truth and goodness everyday.
I believe in humanity and our ability to love and care for others, even in the face of injustice. I believe that's what Jesus' life was about.
I believe in accepting love, even when something inside myself tries to protect me from doing so.
I believe in the power of forgiveness when forgiveness is unimaginable.
I believe in loving my enemies.
I am certain of uncertainty.
I believe pain and struggle help us grow and build our character and that sometimes pain and struggle are just plain no good.
I hope for my kids, and their future, but wonder about the other billions of kids and their futures too.
I believe in the power of gratitude. It really has this tendency to change everything.
I am grateful for all of you.
I believe I find God in community.
I believe that one of the hardest things in the world to do is to draw a circle in the sand, gather a group of people together and stand inside that circle and figure out how to accept and love each other.
I also believe community is one of those things in this world that is most- beautiful.