How’d they get here?
2014: This has been an incredibly difficult year. We have lost so many things. We grieve, but thankfully our church family has been right there with us.
2016: I feel so alone. We still carry the scars from loss. Less and less people seem to want to carry this burden with us. Yet we remain grounded in the truth of the gospel!
2017: Do people even believe this stuff? It feels so performative. Do I even believe this stuff? Yeah, I do. Lord, hold my heart. Lead us into truth.
2019: I’ve been rethinking some things. I once strongly held this belief, everyone in our church holds this belief, it seems to be what the Scripture teaches, but our new friends come from an entirely different perspective. They have some good points. I’m wrestling with what they said. Does Scripture teach what I’ve believed so strongly for so long? I wonder if there is a middle space between our two positions.
2020: Well, we talked with our church leaders. We asked them some of those questions that have been keeping us up at night. They responded with anger and threats about excommunication. We were just asking questions, but they warned us that even entertaining these thoughts was the road to abandoning the biblical gospel.
2021: I can’t get all these questions out of my head. My spouse says we should listen to our leaders, but I feel so hollow inside. I’m not sure what I believe anymore. I’m more convinced that the truth is somewhere in the middle.
2022: We’ve lost our church family. Why couldn’t I let those questions go? I’m still not sure what I believe—I just know what I don’t believe. Thankfully,we’ve been embraced by our new community of faith. We’re grateful for those friends God placed in our life three years ago.
2023: I can’t believe I once held those rigid views of the past. I’m all in! This community has embraced me. My old church thinks I’m a heretic, but I’ve never felt so free.
How Do You Assess The Story?
My choice of being vague on the particular belief held or discarded is intentional. This isn’t meant to be a discussion about which beliefs can be held and which abandoned. Rather this is a discussion about those middle spaces, and how we assess a story like this. What do you do with that diary entry from 2019?
Some will read this story and say that the question asking is exactly where things began going off the rails. The “middle space” wasn’t authentic, they’ll say. Those seeds of doubt and error were put into their heart, they entertained those thoughts and ended up where they were always going—into apostasy.
I’d like to explore a different story. What if that middle space is a very real place? What if situations, relationships, conversations, experiences, their own reading of Scripture (whether rightly or wrongly), and a host of other things leads someone into a place where they are authentically doubting a long held belief?
Why We Don’t Like “Middle Spaces”
We don’t like that middle space. We’re trained to run away from doubt and unruly emotions rather than engage them. I’ll admit that I have a level of empathy with those church leaders who shouted instead of listened. Yes, it comes from a desire to control. But that usually comes from a place of fear and concern. What Os Guinness has said is often true in these situations:
Instead of hearing what the other person is saying, we will hear only our own reaction to what the other person is saying, perhaps unaware of how much our own framework, our own point of view, has silences the other person’s meaning. (Guinness, In Two Minds, 194)
We grab pitchforks and torches when someone from within our tribe begins to ask questions. Questions are dangerous, it threatens the security of the tribe. Our brains are wired to reward conformity. So, we burn down those middle spaces because they make everyone uncomfortable.
But rarely do we see people run towards pitchforks and torches. Even if they outwardly conform, inwardly those questions are still raging. Doubt and unruly emotions must be engaged. If they aren’t engaged you’ll either see the person fall into a hollow acceptance or a passionate “escape” into the waiting arms of the “other side”.
Usually pitchforks and torches make someone leave loudly. This is, in some sense, the best case scenario for the tribe. When the other person embraces the “other side” we can pat ourselves on the back for having outed a closet heretic. We can congratulate ourselves on burning down that tragic middle space. And we’ll all get a little boost of oxytocin as we tighten our bonds and build a bigger wall.
Don’t misunderstand. Some people do leave. Some do abandon the faith and they do so because of wicked intentions. Such were Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Timothy 1:19-20). There are lines which must have been drawn. There is such a thing as being outside the faith.
Is This Biblical?
Yet, I have to wonder if our tendency to engage the middle space as if it’s already “outside the bounds” is the way in which we see the middle space engaged in the Scriptures. Do we see people grabbing torches and pitchforks when people begin to question?
Most of the letters in the New Testament are written because of that “middle space”. It could even be argued that the gospel of John is written out of a similar concern. In most instances the church receiving the letter has been entertaining false teaching, vacillating between belief and doubt.
Paul certainly isn’t afraid of using strong language. But it’s in the context of relationship and applying the balm of the gospel. Consider what he says to young Timothy:
24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
I would have you note that this is the strategy for those who “oppose you”. How much more those who aren’t in opposition but rather in that middle space? I’ve also written on this strategy as it relates to the father in the story of the prodigal son. There I noted that, the father “wanted his love to be the last thing the prodigal remembered as he walked out the door and into the far country.” (See here)
Conclusion
This is entirely anecdotal, but my experience is that when we take this “middle space” seriously and decide to love people while they are in that spot, give them time to process and work through beliefs, while providing a safe context for asking questions, often they’ll happily return. We can confidently entrust people to the work of the Spirit. Yes, sometimes people leave—but even when they do it’s different. And a door is open for the prodigal to return.
Belief is holistic. When we embrace that, we’ll engage those middle spaces differently.
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I realize that I’m using “middle space” a bit differently than it is typically used. For some, the middle space is actually the place of truth and where one must camp. I’m using it more as a place in between two poles, a temporary place of refuge before you either travel on to the other village—or go back home.
Photo source: here
