Another week, another high profile Christian renounces the faith in a lengthy Instagram post outlining classic reasons (the problem of evil, the reliability of scripture/translation, tensions in scripture's depiction of God, the way the Bible addresses women, etc.).

And, as usual, this heartfelt gushing of reasons for doubt displays little awareness of the fact that Christians have been aware of and wrestled with these issues for millennia, and that the Christian faith allows diversity on many such issues.

I'm not here to tell you that if the authors of such posts just read the right books or talked to the right scholars they'd be totally satisfied and their doubts would be dispelled. Well-informed people do give up the faith! Better read people than me have done so.

Still, I like to think that being aware of faithful Christians who have wrestled with these things much longer and more carefully would at least help, not least with the sense of loneliness these authors tend to express, and the feeling that doubts and questions are not allowed.

All that to say, it really drives home to me that the anti-intellectual bent of much popular Christianity is a serious problem. And it helps me remember the importance of teaching what I do with honesty and rigor and care.