A Curious Faith (Lore Ferguson Wilbert) - A Review
Years ago, Tom Skinner wrote a book
titled If Christ Is The Answer, What Are The Questions? He wrote in
response to a message some were proclaiming back in the day that suggested Jesus
was the answer to every question. He wanted to push people deeper, especially
since some of the questions he was raising had to do with race and civil
rights. Strangely we’re still talking about many of the same concerns, including
race and civil rights. While those questions remain with us, there is a lot of
talk these days about deconstruction and doubt when it comes to the faith
journey. For many Christians, perhaps especially among younger generations, deconstruction
has become an important process because their faith has proven faulty or
problematic. Truth be told most of us will go through a deconstruction stage. I
know that I did, even if it doesn’t seem to be as traumatic in my case as it
appears to be for others. In any case, once one has entered the process of
deconstruction, what will emerge at the other end of the process? What will you
put in place of the faith that you have deconstructed? I suppose I might ask an
additional question: Will that new faith profession have to be deconstructed?
Perhaps there is another pathway that includes some form of deconstruction, but
more likely involves curiosity. Might we embrace the path embraced by St.
Augustine among others that speaks of faith seeking understanding? In this process,
the focus is on continually asking questions. This pathway, according to Lore
Ferguson Wilbert involves embracing A Curious Faith.
A Curious Faith is the
product of an effort undertaken by Lore Ferguson Wilbert, a blogger and writer
at Sayable.net. She is the author of the book Handle with Care: How
Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry (B&H, 2020),
which won a 2021 Christianity Today book award. She has also written for
several journals and magazines. She lives in upstate New York and is part of an
Anglican church. I should note that when one identifies as part of an Anglican
Church, that usually means the Anglican Church in North America and not the
Episcopal Church USA. Thus, she would be part of an evangelical version of the
Anglican tradition.
I think it’s helpful to note
upfront that Wilbert writes from a fairly traditional theological perspective. As
such, she's not so much a deconstructionist and a doubter as she is a person
who simply wants to understand the faith that has sustained her and encouraged
others as they have taken their journey of faith. Thus, you won’t find anything
radical here. At the same time, Wilbert writes with a rather open, should I
say curious, mindset. Thus, her opening chapter, which falls under Part One, carries
the title "Living the Questions." While that doesn’t exactly ring
with deconstructionism, it does involve a bit of doubt since asking questions
means you don’t have all the answers.
Wilbert writes in her opening
chapter, “Living the Questions,” that she grew up in a context where the
Christian faith was "more behavior modification and moralism than it was
abundant life." As she experienced this version of Christianity, she
looked for certainty. She didn’t find that sense of certainty until she
encountered a word from Maria Rilke that invited her to "Live the
questions." She might not have found certainty, but she did find "safety
and security in spaces where my questions were welcomed, and my doubts not
judged. But I also found friendship with God, security in him, and hope in
me." (pp. 17-19). She speaks of this process of curiosity and asking
questions as a spiritual discipline in which we can inspect "our lives,
our faith, our friendships, our friends, our churches, our communities, and God
himself" (p. 25). The subtitle of the book describes the trajectory the
book takes. As the subtitle suggests, she divides the book into three parts.
Part One focuses on "The
Questions God Asks." Yes, God has questions for us, which invite us to
live curiously. While the opening chapter of Part One serves as a kind of
introduction to the rest of the book, over the remaining eleven chapters in
this section she invites us to explore eleven questions. The first question in
the section takes us to Genesis 3, where God asks Adam and Eve: "Where are
you?" The concluding question takes us to Jonah 4, where she invites us to
consider the question: "Is It Right for you to be angry?" In between
these two questions we hear God ask us what we’ve done (Gen. 3), where we’re
going (Gen. 16), what is your name (Gen. 32), what is in your hand (Exodus 4), what
are you doing here (1 Kings 19), where were you when I created all this (Job
38-39), will you correct me (Job 40), and finally, whom shall I send? (Isa. 6).
Having invited us to live curiously
by listing to God's questions, in Part Two, Wilbert points us to the questions that
we ask of God. The point here is that by asking questions of God we can listen
curiously to God's answers. With that in mind, Wilbert explores eight
questions, beginning with the question of why we are born—Jeremiah 20 (chapter
13). In this section, as with Part One, the scripture passages that evoke
questions are drawn from the Old Testament. After the question of why we are
born, we ponder questions such as where God is at and how we can be right with
God. The section ends with a question from Habakkuk 1: "Why do you make me
look at injustice?" The answer is: We must look so we can see how God
undoes injustice. I’m not sure that works well for me, but it is the answer
given to Habakkuk.
Finally, in Part Three, which Wilbert interestingly titles "Questions We Wish Someone Would Ask Us:
Loving Curiously," she speaks to questions asked by those who seek to
emulate Christ. The twelve chapters in this section are all drawn from the
Gospels, beginning in John 1 with the question "What Are You Looking For?
This is the question Jesus asked of those who drew close to him after his
baptism in John 1. These folks answer Jesus with a question of their own,
"where are you staying?" Here is an invitation to be honest with God
about what we as Christians want from God. She notes that the process here of
deconstructing and reconstructing involves not only our minds but our hearts.
Here is an invitation to pursue the integration of our faith into our entire
lives. As she moves us through the questions we ought to ask of each other by
reflecting on passages from the Gospels, she brings the conversation to a close
with a reflection from John 21 on the question Jesus asked Peter: "Do you
love me?" Here she writes about a faith that centers on one's love of God.
She writes, helpfully, that "God is not interested in followers with all
the right answers or even the right questions. He wants us to ask the
questions, whatever kinds of questions we want, to lead us right to the locus
of his love" (p. 182).
As one who has been on a journey
that has taken me many places within the Christian faith (see my book Called to Bless: Finding Hope by Reclaiming Our Spiritual Roots, Cascade Books,
2021), I welcome Wilbert’s invitation to engage in A Curious Faith. Shouldn’t
that be the way things are for us? Is this not the path of faith seeking
understanding? Is this not a life-long journey? So far, that has been true for
me. I expect it to continue, as God asks questions of me, I ask questions of
God, and others ask questions of me. Each of these pieces of the puzzle helps us
develop our understanding of God, ourselves, and creation itself. So, yes, I
believe that we are better off if we continually pursue the questions that
deepen our faith in God. It's not always easy, because it can require us to let
go of easy answers, but in the end, we are better for it. While Lore Ferguson
Wilbert writes from a pretty stable evangelical perspective, she is open to
learning new things by asking and listing to faith questions. In her quest for certainty,
she found a place of security and safety that allows for questions to be asked.
Should not that be true of us all? Let us, therefore, embrace curiosity!
Note: I need to add that I wrote
this review based on reading an advanced reading copy that was provided by the
publisher (Brazos Press). That means I don’t have the exact page numbers
available to me, though I’m assuming that they will be largely the same when the
book is published in August 2022. It is, however, as I write this review,
available for preorder.
Comments