The Sacredness of Doubt
It is unfortunate that the Johannine Thomas has come to be known by many Christians as “doubting Thomas.” Thomas, however, is no different than the rest of the disciples or for that matter, you or me. In the broader narrative where the encounter with Thomas occurs, Mary encounters Jesus alive and announces the good news to the disciples, but they did not believe her. When Jesus appears to them they are fearfully huddled in a locked room hiding from the religious establishment (John 20:19). We are all doubters just like all the disciples. It is simply not true that all doubt leads to cynicism or relativism. Doubt is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld in a book titled , In Praise of Doubt , write, “One can doubt big and important, or small and unimportant, things. One can harbor doubts about oneself, the world at large, or God. What these cases have in common is that they question whether something or someone is reliable, trustworthy, and meani...