So, apparently Michael Palin thinks Sven is the greatest living Englishman and far more interesting than he is, so I guess I’d better write something in response to Sven’s post on studying theology and being a heretic and that. Even though I’ve not done a degree in theology (nor ever really studied it in anything more than a pop-theology sort of way; sort of the theological equivalent of a New Scientist reader – which, funnily enough, I am), I’ve faced similar sorts of issues, challenges and questions over the last couple of years and have similarly been forced to face up to and rethink a large amount of my faith.

Like Sven, I spent a number of years as a charismatic/fundamentalist – I threw myself into the certainty and absolutes that the modern Evangelical church offered and shrugged off any of the doubts I had by reassuring myself that “if it said it in the Bible, it must be true, so any questions are obviously from the devil”. For a while, I was a literal seven-day creationist. But I couldn’t keep it up: I became jaded and eventually bitter. I sat through sermons at church picking holes in everything that was said. Gradually, I became aware that this surely could not have been the God I signed up to worship, and I began to rethink, well, everything.

The underlying motivation for me was one of being honest with myself, intellectually, politically and spiritually: I’m no longer prepared to accept the switch-your-brain-off-and-just-believe attitude that formed such a large part of my time as a charismatic/fundamentalist; I’m no longer prepared to compromise on political or moral issues because of some dubious prooftexting by a shouty preacher; and I’m no longer prepared to put aside issues I have with the theological teachings I’ve been presented with over the years.

The easiest way for me to deal with this would obviously have been to have just given up – to renounce my belief in God, become a secular humanist like all the rest of my friends and get on with enjoying life. And, on occasion, I’ve come close to doing just that: as I said to Naomi once, if I really thought that the modern Evangelical church really was the one true expression of Christianity, I could no longer be a Christian.

But, if I’m honest with myself – and that’s what we’re all about here, right? – I’m still convinced by the reality of God, of Christ and his redemptive work. And so I have to square that with my conviction in my left-wing, liberal, humanist beliefs – something that I felt quite strongly up until the point I became a Christian and then increasingly fell by the wayside as I became radicalised and fundamentalist, but something which I count as an important part of my identity.

And the answer? Well, I don’t know. But that’s not a problem. I’m still searching. I’m reading books by Brian McLaren, NT Wright and Dave Tomlinson; I’m having conversations with Richard and others about our journies of faith; I’m pushing my way down different intellectual and theological avenues just to see what happens. My notion of what is true and what is not has been radically rethought; I’ve given up on the idea of absolute morals and become more and more convinced about God working within culture rather than imposing himself upon it; and I’ve become very uncomfortable with the idea of a black and white, personal, in-the-club-or-going-to-hell model of salvation – did Christ really come to create an exclusive ‘club’ of believers, or did he come to redeem creation as a whole and bring it into a restored relationship with himself?

But the most important thing so far as I’m concerned is that I have started to ask questions – without necessarily being concerned about finding definitive answers. I don’t think God is going to be angry with me for honestly and earnestly seeking a way in which I can be both fully myself and fully in a relationship with him; and I think that, for this life, that’s about the best I can hope for.

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