An excerpt from Why I Still Believe was featured on Ann VosKamp’s blog today. Thanks to Ann for inviting Mary Jo to the farm’s front porch.
Here’s a Preview:
If I ask a person why they aren’t in church today, many may say it’s because of the hypocrisy of Christians. For Mary Jo Sharp, this objection is personal, painful, and forms the background of her latest book, Why I Still Believe. Though she’s an apologist and professor, her experiences in the church have driven her to question if Christianity is true…or even worth it. Having been drawn to God through the beauty of His creation, but seeing the ugliness of human failings, she’s heartbroken that what she found in church didn’t match what she longed for. Mary Jo calls her journey an “anti-deconversion” story about finding hope and answers in the grace of truth of Jesus. It’s a grace to welcome Mary Jo to the farm’s front porch today…
guest post by Mary Jo Sharp:
My husband isn’t good at recognizing the difference in women’s clothing sizes. However, he is extremely thoughtful about washing, folding, and putting away laundry.
When these two characteristics come together, it can be quite amusing.
Roger would fold the laundry and put the items in our dresser drawers. Then, in the morning, I would open my underwear drawer and find my preteen daughter’s set of underwear staring back at me.
“Roger-dodger?” “Yes?”
“Where are you? I need to show you something.”
“I’m in the kitchen.”
I sauntered into the kitchen with my daughter’s underwear halfway up one leg over my clothing, a completely serious look on my face. “So, I think I’ll wear these today. I found them in my drawer. What do you think?”
Roger smiled. “Oh, that’s not your underwear, is it?” “No, but I’m flattered that you think I’d fit into these.”
It wasn’t just an underwear issue. Roger’s clothing-size judgment skills extended to all pieces of my wardrobe. Over the years, I’ve found my shirts in Emily’s room and my jeans in Roger’s closet. I routinely engage in impromptu fashion shows to demonstrate the error.
Now, suppose for a moment that I didn’t recognize the error before I put an item on. Assume that I just put on the under- wear and then wondered why I felt uncomfortable.
For me, that is what “churchy faith” felt like. Trying to put on my church’s cultural expression of faith made me feel like an imposter, like I was wearing someone else’s Jesus-believing clothes.
Yet I had no idea how to find a genuinely fitting faith. And so doubt began to creep into my soul.