When I turned 24, I left the Catholic Church. My dad saw me as a rebel and started doing everything possible to make me return to the fold.
At the age of 30 I started planning to get married. My dad insisted I needed to return to the Catholic Church to get married. I was adamant. He spoke to anyone who had ears to speak to me. As a piece cut from the same cloth, my stubbornness persisted. My dad stayed away from my wedding ceremonies and I didn’t care.
A year after I decided to visit one of the men he’d spoken to about me, Anthony John Valentine Obinna. He was the Archbishop of Owerri Archdiocese. I sat in his large waiting room, and it felt ethereal that a man of his stature wanted to talk to me. I was ready for arguments. Surprisingly, he shared with me the journey of his inquisition. Calmly, reassuringly. After about an hour of sharing, he said something I would never forget, “Emeka, I’m still searching. It’s a journey, but I’ve discovered that I’m finite in my knowledge, and I rest in the reassurance the peace of knowing brings.”
I have identified as a Christian till now that I am 45. I was baptized as a Catholic, raised in a religious household, and taught to believe in the God of the Bible without question. But as I’ve grown older, and become a husband, father, and mentor, I’ve started allowing myself to question the foundations of my
faith. The more I experience life, the more these questions arise.
Questions like, ‘Is God real?
Sometimes, after a Sunday service hot sermon, I get home and think about the things I heard, which makes me question God’s existence. “Is God really real?” or “Did humans create God to understand something bigger than ourselves?” Something that explains the unexplainable, perhaps a reason for existence. These thoughts aren’t new, but they’ve grown louder over the years, especially after witnessing the suffering of those I love.
I remember the day my friend’s niece passed away. She was only 12 years old, a bright and lively child who brought joy to everyone around her. When she fell ill, we prayed hard. Our church gathered together, voices raised in serious prayer,
believing in a miracle that God would intervene and save her. But she died.
After the funeral, Jacob and I sat in his living room, the silence between us heavy with unspoken questions. Finally, he looked at me with eyes welled with tears and asked, “Why would God let this happen? She was so young.” I had no answer. I mumbled something about God’s mysterious ways, but inside, I was as lost
as he was. It was a moment that made me remember those questions about the existence of God.
The Bible tells us to have faith and to trust in God’s plan even when we don’t understand it. But sometimes, it feels like we’re making excuses for things we can’t explain. Why do bad things happen to people? Why do innocent children suffer while some who do evil seem to prosper? These are questions I’ve asked for years, and yet, every Sunday, I still go to church, raise my hands, and sing songs of praise, even though I’m not always sure anyone is listening.
Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, once suggested that religion might be a way for us to shield ourselves from the experience of God, or the absence of God. He said that the idea of God could be something our minds have created to help us make sense of the chaos around us, and create order in the randomness of life, giving some meaning to our suffering.
As a Christian, this idea is both interesting and confusing. Could it be that God is not an external being but rather a construct of our minds? Kind of like a comforting story we tell ourselves to cope with the harsh realities of life.
When I reflect on my journey to faith, I realise that much of it was inherited. I believed in God because my parents did, and they believed because their parents did, and so on. It wasn’t a belief born of personal discovery but one passed down through generations. If I were born in a different place, like India or the Middle East, my beliefs might be entirely different. This helps me question my faith.
Is my belief in God based on truth, or is it based on my upbringing and culture?
As a father, I want to believe that there is a higher power watching over my children, keeping them safe. But is this belief based on reality, or is it just a way for me to manage my fears and anxieties about the unpredictability of life?
The Bible stories I loved as a child; Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Jesus walking on water, all painted a picture of a world where God was actively involved in the lives of His people.
As I have grown older, I have had to question these stories and what they represent in my mind and life. Life is much more complicated and uncertain than those stories. Life is full of mysteries we can’t understand, and sometimes, our questions don’t have answers.
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