Download or read book The Journey from Doubt to Faith written by Joseph Eugene Young and published by PublishAmerica. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Journey from Doubt to Faith will help you address your doubts and work through them to a wholesome and vibrant faith. When doubts cloud our thinking we grope in a fog of uncertainty and pessimism. We long for beliefs that will provide our ""reason to be"" and give direction to our living. Our Christian beliefs must be more than a ""hand-me-down"" from parents or church traditions. Beliefs must be ""ours"" because we have thought them through. We need beliefs that will guide our thinking so we can act with confidence and inward peace. Since doubt is a common human condition, we can use our doubts to raise questions and to research so our beliefs become well defined. Indeed doubt is one of God's most effective methods for producing a practical, working faith.
Download or read book Faith After Doubt written by Brian D. McLaren and published by St. Martin's Essentials. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of A New Kind of Christianity comes a bold proposal: only doubt can save the world and your faith. ONE of the Best Spiritual Books of 2021—Spirituality & Practice "Will help you live fuller and breathe easier..” —Glennon Doyle Sixty-five million adults in the U.S. have dropped out of active church attendance and about 2.7 million more are leaving every year. Faith After Doubt is for the millions of people around the world who feel that their faith is falling apart. Using his own story and the stories of a diverse group of struggling believers, Brian D. McLaren, a former pastor and now an author, speaker, and activist shows how old assumptions are being challenged in nearly every area of human life, not just theology and spirituality. He proposes a four-stage model of faith development in which questions and doubt are not the enemy of faith, but rather a portal to a more mature and fruitful kind of faith. The four stages—Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony—offer a path forward that can help sincere and thoughtful people leave behind unnecessary baggage and intensify their commitment to what matters most.
Download or read book Doubting Toward Faith written by Bobby Conway and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to popular belief, doubt is not the opposite of faith. Rather, doubts call for an important decision—will you give in to unbelief, or will you continue the journey toward faith? Doubt can lead to confusion, hopelessness, and despair. But as this eye-opening book demonstrates, doubts can also deepen your dependence on God, develop your sense of empathy for others, and motivate you to find satisfying answers to life's biggest questions. Here you'll find practical ways to use your doubts to build your faith, such as... letting your doubts drive you to Jesus finding a safe community where you can doubt out loud and find support using a journal to clarify your doubts and the answers you find No one can eliminate all doubt this side of heaven. So for now, discover how to use your doubts to keep you headed in the right direction—toward faith.
Download or read book After Doubt written by A. J. Swoboda and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there a way to walk faithfully through doubt and come out the other side with a deeper love for Jesus, the church, and its tradition? Can we question our faith without losing it? Award-winning author, pastor, and professor A. J. Swoboda has witnessed many young people wrestle with their core Christian beliefs. Too often, what begins as a set of critical and important questions turns to resentment and faith abandonment. Unfortunately, the church has largely ignored its task of serving people along their journey of questioning. The local church must walk alongside those who are deconstructing their faith and show them how to reconstruct it. Drawing on his own experience of deconstruction, Swoboda offers tools to help emerging adults navigate their faith in a hostile landscape. Doubt is a part of our natural spiritual journey, says Swoboda, and deconstruction is a legitimate space to encounter the living God. After Doubt offers a hopeful, practical vision of spiritual formation for those in the process of faith deconstruction and those who serve them. Foreword by pastor and author John Mark Comer.
Download or read book The Faith to Doubt written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kierkegaard said that faith without doubt is simply credulity, the will to believe too readily, especially without adequate evidence, and that "in Doubt can Faith begin." All people involved in spiritual practice, of whatever persuasion, must confront doubt at one time or another, and find a way beyond it to belief, however temporary. But "faith is not equivalent to mere belief. Faith is the condition of ultimate confidence that we have the capacity to follow the path of doubt to its end. And courage." In this engaging spiritual memoir, Stephen Batchelor describes his own training, first as a Tibetan Buddhist and then as a Zen practitioner, and his own direct struggles along his path. "It is most uncanny that we are able to ask questions, for to question means to acknowledge that we do not know something. But it is more than an acknowledgement: it includes a yearning to confront an unknown and illuminate it through understanding. Questioning is a quest." Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. He considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. Buddhism has survived for the past 2,500 years because of its capacity to reinvent itself in accord with the needs of the different Asian societies with which it has creatively interacted throughout its history. As Buddhism encounters modernity, it enters a vital new phase of its development. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism's role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.
Download or read book Where the Light Fell written by Philip Yancey and published by Convergent Books. This book was released on 2023-03-14 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this searing meditation on the bonds of family and the allure of extremist faith, one of today’s most celebrated Christian writers recounts his unexpected journey from a strict fundamentalist upbringing to a life of compassion and grace—a revelatory memoir that “invites comparison to Hillbilly Elegy” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). “Searing, heartrending . . . This stunning tale reminds us that the only way to keep living is to ask God for the impossible: love, forgiveness, and hope.”—Kate Bowler, New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason Raised by an impoverished widow who earned room and board as a Bible teacher in 1950s Atlanta, Philip Yancey and his brother, Marshall, found ways to venture out beyond the confines of their eight-foot-wide trailer. But when Yancey was in college, he uncovered a shocking secret about his father’s death—a secret that began to illuminate the motivations that drove his mother to extreme, often hostile religious convictions and a belief that her sons had been ordained for a divine cause. Searching for answers, Yancey dives into his family origins, taking us on an evocative journey from the backwoods of the Bible Belt to the bustling streets of Philadelphia; from trailer parks to church sanctuaries; from family oddballs to fire-and-brimstone preachers and childhood awakenings through nature, music, and literature. In time, the weight of religious and family pressure sent both sons on opposite paths—one toward healing from the impact of what he calls a “toxic faith,” the other into a self-destructive spiral. Where the Light Fell is a gripping family narrative set against a turbulent time in post–World War II America, shaped by the collision of Southern fundamentalism with the mounting pressures of the civil rights movement and Sixties-era forces of social change. In piecing together his fragmented personal history and his search for redemption, Yancey gives testament to the enduring power of our hunger for truth and the possibility of faith rooted in grace instead of fear. “I truly believe this is the one book I was put on earth to write,” says Yancey. “So many of the strands from my childhood—racial hostility, political division, culture wars—have resurfaced in modern form. Looking back points me forward.”
Download or read book A Skeptic s Guide to Faith written by Philip Yancey and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the apparent contradictions in the world and explains how the invisible, natural, and supernatural worlds might interact and affect people's daily lives.
Download or read book Between Faith and Doubt written by J. Hick and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-04-09 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short book is a lively dialogue between a religious believer and a skeptic. It covers all the main issues including different ideas of God, the good and bad in religion, religious experience and neuroscience, pain and suffering, death and life after death, and includes interesting autobiographical revelations.
Download or read book The Rise of the Nones written by James Emery White and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The single fastest growing religious group of our time is those who check the box next to the word none on national surveys. In America, this is 20 percent of the population. Exactly who are the unaffiliated? What caused this seismic shift in our culture? Are our churches poised to reach these people? James Emery White lends his prophetic voice to one of the most important conversations the church needs to be having today. He calls churches to examine their current methods of evangelism, which often result only in transfer growth--Christians moving from one church to another--rather than in reaching the "nones." The pastor of a megachurch that is currently experiencing 70 percent of its growth from the unchurched, White knows how to reach this growing demographic, and here he shares his ministry strategies with concerned pastors and church leaders.
Download or read book Despite Doubt written by Michael Eugene Wittmer and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Christians struggle with the concept of walking by faith, especially in a world that says faith is all about taking risks--leaping into uncharted territory and expecting everything to be okay. In Despite Doubt, Michael E. Wittmer reexamines this popular viewpoint and encourages readers to get a clear understanding of their assurance in God and salvation. Readers will examine the flip side of doubt that opens the door to questions, answers, and knowledge about securing their trust in God. Helping readers to discover how to embrace a confident faith, Despite Doubt includes questions for reflection and discussion and is a perfect resource for small group study.
Download or read book Honest to God written by John A. T. Robinson and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On first publication in the 1960s, "Honest to God" did more than instigate a passionate debate about the nature of Christian belief in a secular revolution. It epitomised the revolutionary mood of the era and articulated the anxieties of a generation.
Download or read book The Pastor s Kid written by Barnabas Piper and published by The Good Book Company. This book was released on 2020-01-06 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advice on how to care for pastors' kids and allow them to find their own faith and identity. Pastors' kids are often burdened by others' expectations, but there is a wonderful solution, both at home and in the church: grace. In this revised, refreshed version of Barnabas Piper's best-known book, the author candidly shares his own experiences as son of pastor and bestselling author John Piper, offering a challenge to our churches and to the families at their very heart: how to care for pastors' kids and allow them to find their own faith and identity. Foreword by John Piper.
Download or read book Searching for Enough written by Tyler Staton and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique and validating look at the tension you feel between disillusionment and a desire for truth, Searching for Enough helps you see your doubt not as an emotion to fear but as an invitation to be followed. Do you ever find yourself thinking, "I'm not enough, and I'm never going to be. And I know I'm not supposed to say this, but God's not enough for me either." Whether or not we attend church, deep down we wonder if the biblical story of faith is really enough for the complexity of the world in which we live. We fill our lives with other things, hoping that maybe the next experience or accomplishment will complete us. Yet with every goal we reach, we still feel discouraged and anxious. In Searching for Enough, Pastor Tyler Staton draws on ancient and modern insights to introduce us, as if for the first time, to Jesus' disciple Thomas: history's most notorious skeptic. Like Thomas, we are caught between two unsatisfying stories: We want to believe in God but can't reconcile his presence with our circumstances and internal struggles. But what if there's a better story than shame? What if there's redemption so complete that there's nothing left to hide? What if there is a God who can heal your resentments, fears, and loneliness in such a profound way that you feel whole? From a place of spiritual companionship and deep authenticity, Tyler shows us that it is not an empty tomb that will change our lives, but the presence of the living God. Whether you are a distant skeptic, an involved doubter, or a busy but bored Christian, Searching for Enough invites you to find enough in a God who offers the only promises that never disappoint.
Download or read book Against Religion written by A. N. Wilson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1991 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author argues that religion has inspired many of man's worst evils: war, prejudice, bigotry, cruelty, race hatred and fear. Without it, man would be free to be God. In this polemic, A.N.Wilson singles out the Pope and the Ayatollah for particular attack.
Download or read book Disappointment with God written by Philip Yancey and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1988 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Is God listening? "Can he be trusted?" In this book, Yancey tackles the questions caused by a God who doesn't always do what we think he's supposed to do.
Download or read book Faith in the Shadows written by Austin Fischer and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People don't abandon faith because they have doubts. People abandon faith because they think they're not allowed to have doubts. Even as a pastor, Austin Fischer has experienced the shadows of doubt and disillusionment. Leaning into perennial questions about Christianity, he shows that doubt is no reason to leave the faith—instead, it's an invitation to a more honest faith.
Download or read book Know Doubt written by John Ortberg and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-12-21 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ortberg demonstrates how doubt is very much a part of faith and how uncertainty can lead to trust. "The beliefs that really matter," he writes, "are the ones that guide our behavior. We cannot hope without faith, and so we must not hope for something but someone--Jesus Christ.
