Leave Room for Curiosity

On a dreary day in March, I watched the steam swirl skyward from my insulated coffee mug as the acrid scent of vinegar filled my nose. While the smell impacted the taste of my coffee in a less-than-pleasant way, I smiled at the source. My youngest son sat on the stool at our kitchen island, pouring cupfuls of vinegar into a mason jar containing baking soda. He squealed with delight as the foam from the reaction bubbled over the jar’s edge and onto the baking sheet I’d had the forethought to place beneath the experiment site.

As we recreated the experiment several times over, my sons asked many questions. “Why do the bubbles get bigger at the end?” “Why do the bubbles stop?” “What happens if we add more baking soda to the jar?” I laughed and did my best to answer his questions, using my knowledge of science and several Google searches.  I love that I got to be a part of that moment with my son as he investigated the world around him.

We highly value curiosity in our home. No question is too awkward or weird. When questions arise, we do our best to investigate the answers through careful research and thoughtful conversation.

I strive to create a home environment where questions are welcome, even hard questions. My children have barely entered middle school, but we regularly discuss challenging topics like sex, addiction, mental illness, and racism. Having these conversations is hard work but worth the exhaustion it brings to give my children a framework and a safe place for asking the difficult questions about the world around them.

Curiosity has brought me so much. My life is richer and fuller for all the questions I’ve continued to investigate, but I eventually found that my questions weren’t always welcome in the church. As someone who came to faith as an adult, I didn’t have the same upbringing as my peers who grew up in the pews. I fumbled through the words of worship songs for the first few years after returning to church. I didn’t have the same scriptural knowledge of friends who’d participated in AWANA or sword drills, memorizing and reciting Bible verses verbatim as part of a competition.

Always a conscientious student, I worked hard to fill what I thought were the gaps in my spiritual education. I studied Scripture through inductive Bible studies, apologetics, and thematic study. I read my Bible cover-to-cover for two years straight. My nightstand book pile featured titles by Tim Keller, C. S. Lewis, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I joined women’s small groups, couples’ small groups, and even co-led a group with my husband for over five years. My quest for a deeper understanding of faith was primarily driven by the need to have the correct answers when it came to my theology.

In my search for answers, I found new questions. Why have we stopped following laws of head coverings for women (1 Cor. 11:5) and levitical dietary laws but maintain laws around sexuality? If women aren’t supposed to teach men, why do we find examples of female leaders and teachers in the Bible text (Rom. 16:1, Judg. 4:4)?  Why are churches spending so much time debating human sexuality when LGBTQ youth are nearly five times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers and eight times more likely if they come from a non-affirming household? How can we call ourselves pro-life if we support the death penalty? Why are so many people reporting abuse by church leaders only to be gaslit or not believed? Why wasn’t I taught the Southern Baptist Convention formed so its members could maintain slaveholding and only renounced that history in 1995? Why do we build opulent church buildings when 3.1 million children worldwide die from hunger each year? Jesus said he came to bring life to the full, but the fruit of the American church I saw was quite literally death.

On the rare occasions I did voice these questions, I was met with trite answers like “We live in a fallen world,” and “The church would never be perfect because it is made of people.” I never sought perfection from the church, but I did expect a thoughtful examination of where it failed and a drive to do better. Instead, I found certainty elevated to an idol’s status and maintenance of the status quo even when the environment was toxic.

Some of my favorite lines of Scripture include Jesus saying, “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you . . .” (Matt. 5:21-48). I think of what it would be like to be a religious leader, hearing those words come from him, ripping the certainty of my teachings to shreds. I think of Nicodemus, asking what Jesus means by being born again under cover of the night so as not to be seen by his peers. Curiosity can be costly.

Jesus was constantly turning what people knew to be true about their faith on its head. People don’t like their comfort questioned. Christians like me who are holding the church accountable for racism, xenophobia, sexism, science denial, nationalism, greed, and other sins are often called names, ostracized by faith communities, and have our faith called into question. The ironic thing is most of the Christians I know who are going through deconstruction took their faith the incredibly seriously. We walked away because of our faith, not in spite of it. Our price is small compared to that of Christ, who also called out injustice and toxic theology.

I’m no longer a member of a church and don’t know if I will be again. The word Christian holds so much baggage for me that I rarely use it to identify myself any longer. I don’t doubt the goodness of God, but I do question the integrity of the church in its current form. In the spirit of curiosity, I am committed to staying open-minded. I will continue to ask the hard questions of myself, my faith, and my work in order to do as the Spirit leads.

Whether you find yourself on the spiritual margins like me or deeply embedded in a faith community, I implore you to stay open. Reject the idols of certainty and comfort. Be available to the movement of the Spirit in your life. Call out injustice where you see it. Hold yourself and your leaders accountable. Learn church history—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Listen to the stories of people who are different from you and love them up close. Ask good questions and do your research. The future of the church depends on it.

Lindsay Hufford is a small-scale farmer, home educator, chicken chaser, kitchen dancer, and mediocre knitter. Her favorite things include spending time with her family, exploring the natural world, reading, eating spicy food, and singing loudly in the car (to the embarrassment of her children). Lindsay believes sharing our stories will change the world. She writes about farming, homeschooling, faith, mental health, sobriety, and living an unconventional life. You can follow her adventures at Kinship Flower Farm.

Photograph © Zach Lucero, used with permission