Overview: Although doubt is a normal part of Christian life, it is not a visible discussion within most churches. This tension led Kat Wordsworth to experience acute shame and isolation when she was overwhelmed with doubt while working for a church.

Let’s Talk About Doubt offers an antidote to this silence by combining Kat’s story of doubtful faith with a wider look at the attitude towards doubt within contemporary Christian culture.

Verdict: From the off, you should know that Kat Wordsworth doesn’t pretend to present a cure or step-by-step guide to eliminating doubt. Instead, she recounts how she found a way to accept her doubt, reclaim her faith and engage with church. Brutally honest but ultimately hopeful, Let’s Talk About Doubt is essential for all those who experience doubt and all those who want to support them.

Sometimes we think that only Christians doubt, but that is not the case. If you abandoned your faith today and became an atheist, do you realize that you would still doubt? Occasionally, even the most devoted Christians, during seasons of pain or suffering, when God seems utterly silent, lie in bed at night and wonder, Does God really exist after all?

Recently the topic of doubt and deconstruction has become a central conversation in the Christian church, quite unlike it was ever before, in truth. These issues of doubt and deconstruction have become a part of the conversation largely due to massive cultural and political changes and the subsequent large drop off in church attendance and people identifying as Christian.

In addition to those issues, the Church has also seen many Christian leaders deconstructing or abandoning the faith over the past two years.

Here in Let’s Talk About Doubt: A Story of Doubt, Faith and Life in Between, author Kat Wordsworth (great last name, BTW) shows us that, and in so many ways, the struggle with doubt that Christians are experiencing in our contemporary context is not a uniquely Christian experience.

For we live in a world in which doubt is growing across all spectrum’s; not only is Christianity being questioned but everything is being questioned, and people do not know where to find their footing.

To doubt is human, but to believe is also human. To quote Mulder, We want to believe. But we cannot escape doubt. Abandoning your Christian faith will not eradicate doubt from your life. Just look at the epidemic of doubt and uncertainty sweeping across the secular world as we know it.

In the secular world there is very little mercy for those who doubt. The polarized nature of our secular societies means there is only denunciation and cancellation for differing views. But there is mercy for the Christian who doubts: Jude 1:22 says, Be merciful to those who doubt.

Our God is so great that our doubts do not offend Him. He does not denounce us or cancel us but pours out mercy on us. He meets us in our doubts and walks with us through them. Let us walk humbly in the tension of our unresolved faith and trust God to meet us in our gaps of understanding.

In the words of Dominic Done, If all we care about is certainty, we lose the beauty of mystery. If all we value is explanation, we lose the joy of exploration. Deep faith is about progress, not perfection.

In closing, and in admitting that absences of doubt with the public spaces of Christian culture has several consequences - first, and foremost, experiencing doubt can become desperately tangled with feelings of isolation, shame and fear, and secondly, the ability of friends and family to offer meaningful support can be severely damaged - her book was written solely to break the cycle of shame and isolation that we all, at some point, most assuredly feel.

And for that statement alone, I urge you to buy, and then quickly read this quite enthralling prose of enlightenment.

About the Author - After experiencing a prolonged period of doubt, Kat Wordsworth is passionate about making doubt more accepted and less feared in Christian culture. She shares her story of doubtful faith on Instagram (@about_doubt), where she is valued for her honesty and compassion. She lives in York, UK.

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