At my mom’s funeral I was talking to one of my relatives. She said that she was trying to find my address on the internet (I believe to send me a sympathy card) but couldn’t find it. She went on to say that there were many Mark Lefers and even one that had a blog called Christian Doubt.
In that brief moment some things rushed through my head:
1. There aren’t many Mark Lefers. I’ve found only one other on the planet. Lefers is a fairly uncommon last name.
2. I am at my mom funeral. My mom was a strong Christian, who raised me in a Christian home. Who sent me to Christian schools, who brought me to church each week, and who was a Christ like example in my life.
3. I am in the church that I grew up in and surrounded by Christians. Actually it was packed, so there was perhaps 5 other Christians in arms reach of me.
I was faced with hiding my unbelief, which I think would have been perfectly fine. But something inside of me burst out and I responded, “Yeah, that’s me”. As soon as I said it I wish I could have taken it back. This was not the time or place to discuss my unbelief. So I said, “We can talk about this later”. I think she was fine with avoiding what would have been an awkward conversation.
I think the reason why I blurted out “Yeah, that’s me”, was because I was tired of lying about my unbelief. I had spent the last several days lying (or at least not being upfront) about my unbelief. I was great a justifying my dishonesty.
“Bringing up my unbelief would be disrespectful to the memory of my mom.”
“This is not the time or place to get into this.”
“They don’t really need to know.”
“It is much easier to just go with the party line.”
“I want to believe, so going through the motions isn’t really wrong.”
But the lack of sleep and the emotional stress caused me to give up pretending for a moment.
This incident has caused me to re-think being open about who I am. There are a ton of reasons to hide behind a pseudonym. However, when I started this blog I decided to use my real name. Some of the reasons were:
1. It forces me to be honest in what I write, because I will be held accountable for what I write.
2. I wanted to keep my doubt a secrete, however when I was looking for other Christians who doubted on the internet I couldn’t find that many. I don’t know if that is because there aren’t many doubters (which I don’t believe), or because other doubters also want to keep it secret. So I thought by putting my real identity out there, other doubters would take courage and talk to others about their doubts.
3. It was an attempt to be real. To not live a lie (I still do on Sunday mornings). I sometimes wish I could wear a shirt that would clearly say, “I don’t believe in Christianity, but I want to”. I wish I could wear a hat that said, “I’m a doubter”. However, I’m not that bold. So putting up a blog on the internet with my real name was the next best thing.
I still think it is good to use my real identity, however, I may have to get used to when my worlds collide. When my Christian sphere (friends, family, church, etc.) collides with my sphere of unbelief.
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