Faith Beyond Doubt
Faith Beyond Doubt, Brian D. McLaren – A Book Review
In his latest book, Faith Beyond Doubt; Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About it, I see McLaren doing two things. First, he makes the case that doubt is an essential prerequisite for growth, and second, he offers a helpful schemata of four natural stages of faith: Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity and Harmony. All, except the first one, are entered through the common denominator of doubt. The passion that permeates the book is the fact that
“Sixty-five million adults alive in the United States today have already dropped out of active religious attendance, and that number is growing by 2.7 million every year” (xiv). McLaren’s thesis is that, had these people had a safe place to exercise their doubt in healthy ways, many would have grown in their faith instead of leaving it.