Leave your questions at the door please

David Hayward, aka the Naked Pastor, says churches generally discourage self-examination...

So many people would still be in the church if they were allowed to process their questions openly without fear. Why churches generally discourage questions is obvious.

The bible itself advocates the importance of growth and progress. It is full of stories of people moving out of their typical confines into new frontiers.

The history of the church and her saints illustrate the same, including St. John of the Cross who spent most of his life work on describing the dark night of the soul for us.

Even our own experience, if we accept it as real and valid, proves that pressing through questions is necessary, inevitable and beneficial.

If the church could get a guarantee from us that we promise, after we question, to come back to the same beliefs even stronger in them than before, then perhaps it would be allowed. If we would swear to come back from our personal wilderness more certain with our familiar beliefs even more deeply ingrained, then no problem.

But those in authority intuitively know that we are probably going to come back from the wilderness changed. That’s going to threaten everything. 

And that is unacceptable.

David Hayward is author of Questions are the Answer: nakedpastor and the search for understanding, available now in paperback, priced £9.99.