Doubt Isn’t the Problem. Certainty Was.

Why so many lose their faith (and why it’s not their fault).

Apr 30, 2025

Faith didn’t fail. The system did. When the packaging collapses, what’s left might finally be real. This is for everyone who’s been told doubt means you’re done.

Rhett McLaughlin was one half of the clean-cut comedy duo Rhett & Link. He was also a missionary kid, a campus minister, and a true believer.

Then the questions started. Science. Scripture. History. And the system he’d been handed didn’t bend. It snapped.

Listen to his story in this interview with Alex O’Connor.

Bart Ehrman was a bright evangelical seminary student, confident in his faith and armed with all the right answers. But when he looked deeper into the Bible’s textual history, the answers got murky. He asked his professors hard questions. The answers didn’t hold. Eventually, neither did his belief.

Different stories. Same arc. They were handed a version of Christianity that promised certainty. Then real life happened.

And the certainty died.

Faith Built on Certainty Can’t Survive Impact

For decades, evangelical culture sold a faith with all the mystery vacuum-sealed out of it. A 1-800 hotline to God. Every doctrine laminated. Every question pre-answered. Genesis to Revelation, dinosaurs to DNA, death to taxes.

If you had doubts, that was a you problem.

If you struggled, it was a spiritual warning sign.

If you wrestled, you were “wandering.”

There was no room for open-ended questions.

It worked great until someone died. Until the suffering got personal. Until you read a book outside the church bookstore. Until the whole thing collapsed under the weight of its own overpromises.

It was spiritual insurance marketing. Sounds nice until you try cashing it in.

The Collapse Isn't the End

The system didn’t collapse because Rhett was rebellious or Bart Ehrman was arrogant. It collapsed because it couldn’t handle real pressure.

The faith they were sold was a house of brittle glass.

And when one pane cracked (a historical contradiction, a scientific discovery, a season of silence) the whole structure shattered.

Evangelicalism taught people that doubt was spiritual failure.

But the Bible tells a different story.

Jacob wrestles God and limps away blessed.

David rages at God for entire chapters.

Even Jesus cries out in abandonment on the cross.

If doubt was disqualifying, Scripture would be about three pages long.

The irony is brutal. The faith most hostile to doubt was built on a book that bleeds with it.

Get Bloody, Not Polished

Real faith doesn’t look like a perfect doctrinal statement.

It looks like praying through gritted teeth.

It looks like showing up to church after another week of silence.

It looks like dragging your questions to the altar instead of pretending you don’t have them.

It’s not always pretty. It’s rarely tweetable. But it’s the only kind that lasts.

Because the world doesn’t hand out clean answers. It hands out funerals. Job loss. Isolation. Unanswered prayers. Betrayal.

And when your faith is built on certainty, you can’t survive that.

But when it’s built on bruised and battered trust, it can.

Where the Fire Leads

If your version of Christianity can’t survive a geology textbook, a funeral, or a sleepless night, the problem isn’t your questions, it’s the foundation you were given.

Doubt isn’t a disease to be cured. It’s often the first sign that your faith is trying to grow.

If you’re standing in the rubble of a once-certain faith, you’re not lost.

You’re where the real journey begins.

And maybe like Rhett, like Bart, like millions of others, you weren’t the one who failed. Maybe you were just handed a version of faith that couldn’t survive contact with the real world.

Let it burn.

What’s true cannot be consumed by fire.