Yesterday, I walked down to the Yale Bookstore in New Haven, Connecticut, and spent about a half hour browsing. One of the books I bought was, Doubt: A History, by Jennifer Michael Hecht. It is interesting that this history of doubt was stacked with a row of books on atheism. Looking at the table of contents, it is clear that it is not about atheism but rather a history of doubt including "Christian doubt," as one chapter title has it. Somebody in the book store, however, assumed that a book about doubt belonged in a section of books on atheism, which included several books by aggressively evangelistic atheists like Richard Dawkins.We can't blame the store clerk. We've done this to ourselves. By equating doubt, which is an important element of faith, with unbelief, we've handed doubt over to the "unbelievers". And in doing so, we deny people who are chewing on faith an important path in the journey of faith. We need to reshelve the history of doubt, putting it with other books on faith and spirituality.
