From a very young age, I had questions about faith, the Bible, and religion. I guess I’ve always had trouble just believing things because someone in authority said I should. I certainly tried to do that, but it just led to a lot of cognitive dissonance, and always the questions would come back. In the beginning there were things like “Why if women have to wear something on their head because the Bible says to, then why do men also have to, when the Bible tells them not to?” The answers were unsatisfactory at best. Later on, my questions were more fundamental: “Why do evangelicals believe in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, yet follow a tradition which only in the last few hundred years has axed multiple books from it?”. So far, the answers to this question bear a lot of similarity to the former.

Pastor M contacted me because he saw a discussion I was in. He offered to meet me and talk to me about my questions, and he promised to not give me pat answers. This was really nice of him, as most people do not wish to do so. So we met at a coffeehouse, and talked amicably for a couple of hours. At this point, he gave me his reason for why I had the questions I had. In short, the answer is this: “You have some hidden sin in your life, and God is chastening you until you give up whatever it is, and if you just turn to the Lord, he will reveal it to you.” When I told him that this was indeed one of the top “pat answers” I receive, and that I had prayed for years to know what this secret sin might be, and that no one else had been able to tell me either, he became angry.

I had never before had a conversation with this man in my life, but he spent another two hours telling me what my sins were. Anger, pride, etc. I’m not sure why I stayed and listened to it, except that I was lonely and desperate to talk to someone about the things I was going through. I left in tears, and cried for a good while afterwards.

Pastor B offered to talk to me as well. He was a little more humble, but also promised that he might have non-traditional answers. But even if he didn’t have answers, he just wanted to be a friend. We met a couple of times before he told me I was going to hell. I asked him if that bothered him. “No”, he said, “you’re just a vessel of wrath created for destruction, and I rest in God’s sovereignty on that”. Now whenever I’m having a bad day, I just tell myself I’m a vessel of wrath created for destruction; it’s amazing how that will lift your spirits!

The next time I saw him, we were having what I thought was a good discussion. He said something, and I responded with something hypothetical like “well, if that’s true, then…” He exploded with anger. Yelled at me to leave his office. Calmed himself down by attacking my character and telling me how bad of a person I was. Later that night, I have to give him credit, he sent an email apologizing for what he said, although he did invoke sovereignty again. I guess God predestined him to yell at me.

When I was young, I memorized a verse: “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is within you, in meekness and fear”. (I still know it by heart). When I was a bit older, I was taught that this applied to apologetics, and answering questions of skeptics. Now that I’m older yet, I have had many years of questioning the beliefs I was taught. In all that time, I have talked to a lot of people, and I have only encountered two believers who didn’t respond with anger. Everyone else has responded exactly like the two pastors above.

So, why anger? Why is it so hard to hear questions? I’m sure that I’m “difficult”, “argumentative”, etc. I am sorry if that’s true. But underneath it all, I really wanted answers. I wanted to believe that everything I had lived my life for was true. I wanted to be understood, to be respected. It’s so lonely being the only one who is unable to not ask questions about everything I hear. If you have the truth, the answers to life, the universe, and everything, not to mention peace that passes understanding, why anger?