Let’s start with a little bit of a recap. So far we’ve covered my background and the building and articulation of my doubts leading to the point that intellectually speaking I no longer believed in the Christian message. Sorry to drag it out, but I need to cover the more subjective part of the story before I move on to the “Summer of Clarity.”

A person’s faith is never built on just one or two things. Let’s think of mine as a four legged table. My faith, eternal salvation, place in the Adventist community, my sense of calling to the ministry, and being my parent’s last child to be in the church all added weight to it, and it was really at maximum load. If all of the legs are there then everything is just fine. Knock out one and you can hold it just fine. Knock out two and you can do it with some strain. By the time you have knocked out three of the four legs the weight is unbearable and the load is nearly unbalanceable.

Think of the authority of scripture, creationism, and the doctrine of salvation as each being a leg that was holding up the table. With each doubt a leg would be cracked or broken. During my undergraduate years I was able to slap some duct tape on it and get it back in place, thinking it was stronger. By the time I covered the issues more in depth in the Seminary then the leg was completely shattered. The fourth leg was the personal relationship I felt I had with Jesus Christ. In this post we’ll look at how that started to crack.

I clearly remember that moment in the middle of April 2002 when I knelt down in prayer asking God for guidance about where I should go to college. The question was something along the lines of, “should I go to Pacific University and take the AFROTC scholarship or go to Walla Walla College?” While the answer was not audible, it was clear, “Go to Walla Walla and take Theology.” That was it, but I believed that I heard God’s “still, small voice.”

There were so many times when I was in college where I would have a moment of immense clarity and spiritual peace. There were many times when I felt that I could hear the leading of the Holy Spirit. Yet for some reason this leading never dealt with the doubts that I faced or helped clear them up. At best it would just have me push them to the back burner.

Once I got to the Seminary, those moments ceased. There was one time that I was fasting that I spent a good hour or two in the chapel between classes begging God to take away my doubts. Instead of feeling any leading, or even a sense of peace, I felt nothing. I left that chapel disappointed and hungry, both physically and spiritually.

The memory of those feelings of communing with God and the sense of calling I had felt so strongly and clearly were the only things sustaining my faith. At times this was not enough. As far as being a “good” Adventist or a “good Christian, I was still a virgin, I had never tasted a drop of alcohol, never had so much as a drag of a cigarette, and I had never experimented with drugs. I had lived a life that was in line with the ways of Adventism, and I didn’t want to risk falling sway to the ways of the world unless I was absolutely sure. Most importantly, this was something I could not take lightly since it was a mater of eternal significance. My eternal salvation was on the line.

From an outside prospective, my year in the Seminary should have been the best of my life. Within 20 minutes of showing up on campus the head dean had all but offered me a job as a student dean. As soon as I transfered to the Civil Air Patrol unit in the area I was appointed the Deputy Commander for Cadets. My social life was the best that really it’s ever been. I did great in my classes, heck, I even had a graduate seminar on Gnosticism where I had to explain things from the texts we were studying to doctoral candidates and the professor because I was the only one who would actually try to understand where the author was coming from. By the end of the second semester I was elected president of the Chaplains Club which also put me on the “Seminary Student Counsel” or something like that. Life sure seemed like it should have been good.

Unfortunately, the internal struggle I dealt with made it the worst year of my life. What I was going through is known as cognitive dissonance. A position where you hold two opposing view points. I had one set of views that I knew to be true but didn’t want to accept and an opposing set of views that I wanted to accept and live my life by. This dissonance had been growing for four years and it had reached the point where it was going to tear me apart.

As far as the sense of calling I had, it was starting to falter. I had a few slaps in the face from local conferences while I was finishing up my BA, after getting to the seminary I again sent out my resume to everybody. A few professors and the former college president even talked to conference presidents they were friends with about getting me sponsored. This did lead to a few more interviews, the one that at least had the courtesy to tell me why they didn’t want to hire me gave me a lengthy list of things to do to be worthy of reconsideration, a list that I looked at and couldn’t figure out how I could possibly do it while working 20 hours a week and going to school full time. I was sinking deeper into debt and it seemed like a big gamble to keep going, but it was a gamble I was be willing to take if only I could believe.

I had finally reached the point where I had to accept the possibility that it had all been a delusion. Something that pained me even consider.

Part 4 – The Summer of Clarity will be posted on Friday, July 16.