A Faith That Can Be Questioned Can Be Trusted

One of the most faithful things we can do is admit that we do not know everything.

That sounds simple, but let’s be honest: a lot of religion has been built around the opposite idea. Certainty has often been treated like the gold standard of faith. Believe the right things. Say the right words. Ask the approved questions, but only if you already know where the answers are supposed to land.

But Jesus did not seem nearly as interested in handing out easy answers as we sometimes pretend. Over and over again, when people came to Jesus with questions, he responded with another question, a story, a challenge, or a holy little riddle that made everybody uncomfortable at brunch.

Jesus did not invite people into a faith that required them to stop thinking. Jesus invited people into a faith deep enough to keep asking.

Progressive Christianity, at its best, understands faith as a lifetime of learning. That means we remain open to new information, new experiences, new scholarship, new relationships, and new ways the Spirit may be speaking. It means we are willing to ask, “Does this new information change my understanding of my faith?”

That question can be scary. It can also be sacred.

And during Pride Month, this matters deeply.

For too long, LGBTQIA+ people have been wounded by people who were absolutely certain they understood the Bible perfectly. A handful of verses, often called the “clobber passages,” have been pulled out of their ancient context and used like weapons against people created in the image of God. Not studied. Not wrestled with. Not held with humility. Weaponized.

That is not faithfulness. That is fear with a scripture reference.

The theologian Gordon Kaufman wrote that faith in God means living with a tension that requires us to recognize the “questionableness” of our convictions and the need to “revise, correct, and refine them.” In other words, real faith does not demand that we pretend our interpretations are infallible. Real faith gives us the courage to admit that we may have inherited readings of Scripture that need to be challenged, corrected, and healed.

That is especially true when those interpretations have produced rejection, shame, exclusion, and spiritual violence.

There is a difference between having convictions and clinging to certainty. Convictions can guide us toward love, justice, compassion, and courage. Certainty can become a locked door. It can keep us from learning. It can keep us from one another. It can even keep us from God.

Karl Rahner once described knowledge as “a small island in a vast sea” and asked whether we love our little island of certainty more than the sea of infinite mystery.

Do we love our familiar interpretations more than we love our LGBTQIA+ siblings?

Do we love being right more than we love being transformed?

Do we love certainty more than we love God?

God is not made smaller by our questions. God is not threatened by scholarship, history, context, or the lived experiences of queer people. God is not offended when we revisit the text and ask whether what we were taught is actually true, loving, just, or faithful.

Maybe our questions are part of how we honor the Infinite Mystery we call God. Maybe faith is not about standing on a tiny island of answers, pretending we have mapped the whole ocean. Maybe faith is about learning to trust the sea.

So ask the question. Revisit the belief. Study the text again. Listen to the voices you were once taught to ignore. Let your faith breathe. Let it stretch. Let it become more loving, more honest, more just, and more alive.

Because a faith that cannot be questioned cannot be trusted.

And a God who is truly infinite will never be threatened by our curiosity.