One of my favorite books when I was a preteen was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. An orphaned girl moves to live with her bachelor uncle in a small village. She becomes friends with the Parson of the local church and begins spending time at the church along with several other children from the village. I remember being fascinated by the Parson, who spoke of God differently than anyone I knew in my childhood. In the Parson’s language and attitude there was a friendliness, a relational aspect, a living-life with God in a way that did not include fear. There was a desire to be better, a sense that a good God saw all, but there was no fear. 

There was the distinct idea that God was in relationship with all—all people, all animals, all beings—and all were in relationship with God. There was the idea that God actually liked people and had hope for their growth.

I remember thinking, as a child, “Oh, I wish God were really like that. I wish God actually liked everyone. I wish God were actually the God of every person.” 

I’d been taught that God was at odds with humans because we were all sinful and separated from God. God may have “loved” everyone (there was John 3:16, after all), but God only “liked” and “accepted” those who had “accepted” Jesus in a very specific way. The “others” were enemies of God—and I should think of them as enemies, too.

So I had this inner desire. I felt it. I still remember it. But alongside a long list of statements about God and about humans, I was also taught this: Do Not Question.

Don’t ask the innermost questions of your heart if they seem to contradict the “truth” statements you’ve been told. 

Sometimes the religious and spiritual authorities in my life raised some of the questions I was asking. They said these were the questions of “skeptics,” “non-believers,” and “the rebellious.” They would bring these up in sermons and classes so they could “debunk” them.

The ways they “debunked” them didn’t make me feel safe in asking my own questions. In fact, I often felt guilty for having my questions, as if my faith were not strong enough, as if I was not able to fully accept God as God is. Clearly, I did not understand God as well as the ones behind the pulpit did. 

But I was trying. Another book I read very often was my Bible. I’d been told it had no error and it was, literally, the Word of God. I was maybe 12 or 13 when I started a project of reading through the Bible and writing down the name of every woman mentioned in Scripture. I remember feeling intense sadness that there were so few of them. I listed them in a spiral notebook. I remember looking at the list of names and distinctly thinking: “As a girl, I am not worth as much to God. I can’t be as close to God as a man can. Why is this? Why can’t it be different?”

My parents sent me to very conservative Christian schools from grade school all the way through college, schools where your theology was expected to be exactly the same when you left as when you started.  

Years upon years of being told not to question things. Years of being told that my questions were wrong, were a sign of a lack of faith. And I’m a perfectionist by nature. I’m a people pleaser. I don’t like to rock the boat. 

There are times when I look at my past self and I wonder why it took so long for me to finally allow my questions and subsequently dismantle much of the theology I was taught.

And then I offer myself some compassion: those were some pretty formative years and there was an awful lot to dismantle! 

I won’t go here into all the things I questioned; eventually, it was pretty much everything!

But I am going to mention a couple of key ideas that have helped me along the way.

The first is the idea that what is unknown is far greater than what is known. There’s a whole bunch of Christian mystics and contemplatives from all kinds of traditions who echo the idea that there is far more mystery than certainty about the Divine, that much of our work in knowing God involves un-knowing what we believe we already know and what has been defined for us.*  

The second is my ability to know a good story. I’m not saying this like I’m different than the next person; I’m saying we tend to know a good story when we see it: when love overcomes differences, when people rise above their prejudices or stereotypes and find friendship or at least common ground. 

I know a good story. I know what kindness looks like. And if any God presented to me is not as good as the best story, the best person, the best act of kindness, then, hmm, maybe that is not God. 

One of my mentors along my way said something like this to me: “You’ve got your lived theology and your stated theology. You have to keep examining them, and when they don’t match up, question the hell out of it so you can figure out what needs to move, the lived theology or the stated theology?”

So, if the God you’re presented with seems to like one group of people better than another, question it.  

If that God endorses a political party or is on one side versus another, please question it.

If that God is okay with hating or condemning people for who they love or what gender they identify as, then question it.  

If that God cares about human-made lines on a map and the documents one has that determine where one is allowed to be on that map, then, for the love of all that is good and true, question it. 

I repeat his advice: Question. Ask. Ponder. 

If your God is not big enough, secure enough, gracious enough to allow your questions—all of them—then that is not God. 

*Here’s a a short essay on this I just found on this topic: What Is Apophatic Theology? Why “Unknowing” God May Be the Most Honest Path Today | by Jovit Paul Magadan | Medium