1b3c8be7-3051-4868-b223-65e255d364e6.jpgWhich is worse: leaving someone you no longer want to love, or to continue pretending to love? Should you let go of what already seems a lost cause and save further heartbreak, or is it better to fight for that person despite not really wanting to love?

Now apply your answer to a relationship more important than any person — what if the relationship in jeopardy were between you and God?

While this may sound like a plot line from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Ryan Bell —former pastor, ex-adjunct professor of intercultural communication at APU and a previous adjunct in the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Seminary — battled this conundrum.

Bell used to be a pastor at Hollywood Adventist Church, but after he was fired last March, he ultimately chose what the Christian Post calls “flirting with unbelief” in choosing to live a year of atheism rather than settle for a faith he didn’t consider his own.

“So, I’m making it official and embarking on a new journey. I will ‘try on’ atheism for a year. For the next 12 months, I will live as if there is no God. I will not pray, read the Bible for inspiration, refer to God as the cause of things or hope that God might intervene and change my own or someone else’s circumstances,” Bell wrote in a blog post published on the Huffington Post Dec. 31.

(SEE: Former APU prof to try ‘Year Without God’)

I don’t believe Bell’s decision to live as an atheist for a year stemmed from some deep-seated hatred of Christianity or of God’s people. I believe it was a direct result of what is proving to be the biggest enemy of all Christians: apathy. Instead of confronting his doubts and making an effort to mend his relationship with God, he dismisses it all together.

While other religions can aggressively try to snuff out our lights, apathy lets them burn out leisurely, slowly adjusting our eyes until we become comfortable with darkness. This apathy led to Bell’s desire for something fresh, something else to believe. Just like passively dating someone with no intentions can make you jump at the opportunity to meet someone different and new, living passively in our faiths bores us; it leaves us uncommitted and uninterested.

I think too often Christians would rather settle for what Revelation calls a “lukewarm” Christianity. We don’t like to face the reality that our faith has been marooned on an island of stagnancy, left to rot without the nourishment it needs.

I believe we can become lax in our worship, engaging our bodies but refusing to budge our hearts and minds. We can become lax in our involvement with the body of believers, telling ourselves that chapel counts as church because the body is the body no matter where we go, right?

We can become lax in our genuineness, “going through the motions” as it were, with no intention of growing. The most terrifying discovery we can make as Christians is to realize that the actor we’ve been watching put on a convincing character is ourself. Scripture supports questioning and testing of our faith, commanding us not to just passively accept our beliefs without ever doubting. We are human and thus prone to skepticism and questions.

Second Corinthians 13:5 says to “examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified” (NKJV). Scripture encourages us to not settle in our beliefs. We are not called to live comfortably in our faith, but to be constantly challenged by it.

I support Bell in his decision to admit his shortcomings. I believe his recognition of his weakened faith is admirable, but his resulting plan of action is not. He lacks the boldness to fight for his Father, his faith, his future. When faith seems fragile, we can’t try to fix it by ourselves. We will only smash it. Give it to someone who can repair it. Give it to the Healer.