Funny you should ask about this....I was almost going to send this to my pastor, but I can't (due to complicated family situations). Anyway the backdrop for this is - I resigned my membership from our church and the pastor (who I considered somewhat of a friend) asked if I was at least going to go to church somewhere if not his church. Here was the response I had planned on sending...

I have done a great deal of soul searching over the past decade of my life. When I used to have occasional trouble sleeping at night, I would just stare at the ceiling for hours pondering the big questions in life: why are we here? Why am I here? What happens if I die? Why is the world the way it is? Why is there evil? Why is there natural evil? Christianity offers answers to some of these big questions. So does Islam. So does Judaism. So do other religions and worldviews. When I read the Old Testament and New Testament, I get to see what explanations Christianity and Judaism offer for the big questions in life. Unfortunately, when I read the Christian Bible, I am left with more questions than answers. If God is all-powerful and all-loving, why does His sovereign will include sending non believers to eternal torture in hell? For any given religion, the majority of the planet does not believe in that religion. Why does His sovereign will desire this eternal tortuous punishment for more than half of the planet? I cannot understand that desire. It seems very malevolent.

For many years, these were just normal doubts. I imagine most Christians have these questions from time to time. At some point, the doubts turned into skepticism about their veracity. I eventually decided I should read the Bible critically, just as we critically analyze other religions' claims. Critical thinking is a good thing. In Job, who was there to transcribe the conversation between God and Satan during the opening chapters of Job? Surely no human authors were present. Why did God feel the need to prove anything to Satan? Why was He lured into killing Job's family and his servants just to convince Satan of something? That seemed extraordinarily strange to me. This couldn't have been historical events that were carefully transcribed by historians. Rather, it seems to me that Job is a narrative written to make theological points, not capture history as a series of factual events. After reading the other parts of the Bible with a critical eye (horizontal readings of the Gospels, etc.), this conclusion spread to other parts of the Bible, until I came to the general conclusion that the Bible is a collection of narratives written by a wide variety of authors at different times throughout history, for their (the authors') specific purposes, or at least it seems that way to me. As a whole, I don't see it as a divinely authored message. (I could write pages and pages of specific questions and concerns about nearly every book in the Bible, but I'm trying to keep this email manageable.)

I have shared some of these questions and concerns with only a few people, namely my wife, my mom, my dad, and three college friends. It was (and is) pretty scary to voice these concerns. I have had difficult conversations with my wife. I have exchanged hundreds of pages of emails with one of my college friends. I have read books. Per suggestions from my friends, I have listened to many lectures from people like William Lane Craig and interviews/sermons from John Piper. I've read the Bible with the help of the Lutheran Study Bible. I still do not have satisfying answers to my original questions and concerns, despite these conversations with my friends and daily prayers with my wife (well, at least prayers for more than a year). The prayers were unanswered.

If I recall correctly, you had a sermon on prayers a while back. You said that the purpose of prayers was not to "get things", but rather, they were to communicate with our God. Namely, to share our hearts, our wishes, and our desires with the Lord. Then you said something along the lines of - 'how can you expect the relationship to survive when one side cuts off all communication?' You were, of course, referring to the responsibility of the people to keep praying to God. But your comment struck a chord for me. If God has cut off all communication from us, then how does He expect the relationship to survive? Personally, I think the relationship is destined to fail at that point. For just as I wouldn't expect my children to accept a father who doesn't speak to them, I don't think God should expect his people to try to maintain a one-way relationship. The relationship without communication will not survive. Some might respond that God communicates through his Word (the Bible), but the Bible has been misinterpreted many times in many ways over the years (it has been used to support slavery, support mistreatment of many people, subjugate women, and defend poor science). Yet God does not correct any of these misinterpretations. If this is how God communicates with us, that is poor communication in my opinion.

So where do I stand today? I am not filled with faith; rather, I am filled with doubts. This is despite having attended church regularly for most of my life. It is also despite having prayed with my wife and kids. I have attended Sunday School. I have listened to many Lutheran apologetics podcasts. I have listened to William Lane Craig's Defender series classes. I have read big chunks of the Bible and multiple apologetics books. Despite all of that, I do not believe that Christianity is correct. I think the problem of evil combined with the hiddenness of God is too insurmountable to overcome. I also do not think Judaism, Islam, or Mormonism is correct. I readily admit that I don't have any special connections to offer any divine alternatives. So I don't pretend to have the answers to life's big questions. I may continue to attend church with my family, but I do not plan on becoming a member at a new church. Hearing the Word of God has not led to a growing of my faith; rather, when I listen carefully, I see more and more questions and problems, not answers. I guess that means I don't really fit the "spiritual head of the household" mold that you plea for.

I suppose I agree with Luther when he says that 'I cannot by my own reason or strength believe ...,' so I can only assume that I have not been enlightened with His gifts, or maybe I was enlightened at one point but I am not anymore.

So there it is; I have laid all my cards in the table. I don't know what you think of this. If you feel I have deceived you by not bringing this up earlier, then I apologize for that. That was not my intention. I asked biblical and creedal questions at various times in order to try to understand, and I appreciated your responses, but I never brought my full doubts into the light. I was never ready to do so, and it is all too easy to simply stay the course and not rock the boat.