The young woman sat across from me in my office, visibly nervous. She was in her first year at Calvin College, and no one from her school, church, or community was here with her. She was alone and, for the first time, asking big questions about church, God, faith, and Scripture: How can we know that God is real? How do we believe the Bible? What if I don’t feel God? What if I’m not sure if I believe?

“Is it OK that I ask these things?” she wondered. “Will I get in trouble?”

I assured her that these were terrific questions and that she was in a long line of Christians who had asked the very same questions over the years. I pulled a few books off my shelves—The Case for Christ (by Lee Strobel), the Heidelberg Catechism, and Faith and Doubt (by John Ortberg)—and laid them on the table between us.

I held up the catechism: “This was written by two guys, not much older than you are, back in the 1600s. They wanted to help people know what to believe and why. The entire thing is questions and answers.” She picked it up and paged through it, eyes widening.

“This,” I held up The Case for Christ, “was written by a journalist in Chicago. His wife joined a church, and he was an atheist. He was trying to investigate whether Jesus really rose from the dead.” She read the back cover hungrily.

“And this,” I held up Faith and Doubt, “is written by a pastor who says that you can’t have faith without doubt.”

She looked at me in astonishment. This was entirely new information for her.

And she is not alone.

Welcoming Doubt

Calvin draws about 70 percent of its students from non-Christian Reformed Church backgrounds and about 50 percent from public schools. I am learning more and more about what various churches, youth groups, or parents teach young people. What is becoming a theme in my conversations is that students are taught to fear doubt.

The young woman who sat in my office had been taught very explicitly that you simply don’t doubt. You don’t question. It is a weakness or even the activity of Satan himself if you question what the church or the Bible is said to teach.

This explains her anxiety in my office: she was afraid. She had been taught to fear her questions. She had been taught that doubt was bad. She had been taught to simply believe.

Living apart from her community for the first time and hearing how faith was discussed at Calvin gave her the courage to come and see me. She knew we were speaking about this differently: we welcomed the questions. We welcomed the doubts.

And that’s something we try to communicate early on to our students: doubters are welcome! Developmental psychologists remind us that it is not unusual for young adults to go through a season in which they question the worldview that’s been handed to them. Part of differentiating from their parents includes looking skeptically at what they have been taught about everything from religion to money to politics.

So a first step in engaging students and their doubt is to welcome it—even “normalize” it. About every other year, I preach a series answering some of the hard questions that we grapple with: Why trust the Bible? Why join a church? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? What we hope to show is that these are legitimate questions that students are free to ask, and we want to demonstrate that those who ask these questions are not alone.

The young woman in my office wondered if she was the only one who had these questions. Seeing the books I laid out on the table assured her that she was not. I told her that she was part of a Christian community that had been asking these questions from the very beginning. I read her the passage from Matthew when Jesus is preparing to ascend into heaven. We are told that the disciples worshiped, “but some doubted” (Matt. 28:17). She had never noticed that passage before.

Our students need to know not only that their questions are welcomed but also that by asking them they are participating in a conversation that the church has been having for two thousand years. We can point them to ancient and contemporary apologists. We can point them to old books and to recent podcasts. We can assure them that they are not alone.

It is so important for them to know that they are not alone because while their doubts are occasionally intellectual, I find that the vast majority of questions about God arise from suffering and loss: a marriage ends, a child dies, someone is assaulted, a longed-for dream is denied. Where was God? Why this? Why me? Why now? How can I trust a God who lets this happen? As educators, we move toward their pain, validate it, and let them bring it before God. It is so important for them to express anger at God without being judged for it. Further, we can give them permission to express these feelings by showing them the psalms of lament and teaching them that these feelings are expressed in Scripture. Reading through Psalm 13 with students allows them to see that it’s OK to doubt, to question, to lament. It helps them to know that people have been wrestling with the problem of pain for centuries. It is also good to remember that the ripple effects that pain has on faith can last a long time. We may be in a hurry for a student to move on, but God never is. There are no quick answers to the deep question of why a good God allows people to suffer, which brings us to the next part of our engagement with students.

Sharing Testimonies

In addition to moving beyond their fear of asking questions, assuring them that they are not alone, and validating the pain that may be the source of their doubts, we also need to testify to our own faith. I cannot stress enough how the testimonies of teachers, coaches, and other nonparent adults help a doubting student to stay in the conversation.

At Calvin (as in your contexts) every death is a tragedy. Every death makes us ask the deepest, hardest questions about the sovereignty and love of God. When I am with students, I have to say out loud that the death of a college student in a car accident makes me question my faith. I have to include those laments in public prayers and in sermons. I have to show them that I struggle too.

And I need to point again and again to the resurrection. I need to remind them that if Jesus rose from the dead, then death does not have the final say. That this is not where our story ends. I have to say to them—and to me—that there is more to this life than this life, and while we are not falsely positive in the face of crushing grief, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. I have to point them again and again to the love of God revealed in the cross and the empty tomb. And I show them how Jesus himself wept when faced with death.

I have to show them that despite the pain and sorrow of this world, despite the questions that may rise within me, despite the doubts that I carry, I still believe. I love the Lord. I trust Jesus. This is one of the most precious gifts we can give to students who doubt: the honesty of our own testimonies. Perhaps your chapel series could involve testimonies from staff and faculty. Perhaps you could have an elective class or “winterim” on apologetics. Maybe you could start a club. Or, you could simply mention in class from time to time that good Christians can struggle with doubt. Open the door. Welcome the questions. Love the doubters. It’s exactly what Jesus does.

Mary S. Hulst serves as chaplain at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. You can follow her on Twitter (@PastorMary2U) and find her on Facebook as “Pastor Mary.”