A. J. Swoboda - After Doubt: How to Question Your Faith Without Losing It

If you have ever experienced doubts about God (and who hasnt?), After Doubt will both comfort and challenge you. Speaking from two decades of experience ministering in the Pacific Northwest, Swoboda provides biblically sound direction for the doubting among us, filled with practical wisdom on how we can question our faith without losing it!

Matthew Sleeth, MD, executive director of Blessed Earth and author of Hope Always

Doubt often draws us into a spiral of isolation and mental exertion, which themselves can be our undoing. With pastoral insight, Swoboda brings doubt into the open, removing the shame and inviting us into practices that draw us back into our bodies, communities, and tradition. After Doubt builds our capacity and courage for the normal, lifelong process of being formed in the wrestling.

Mandy Smith, pastor and author of Unfettered: Imagining Childlike Faith beyond the Baggage of Western Culture and The Vulnerable Pastor

For many, deconstruction is viewed as a Christians unraveling, a dead end to what was once a living faith. A. J. Swoboda makes a beautiful and compelling case for how the journey through doubt can actually lead to a stronger faith in Jesus. Deconstruction does not have to result in deconversion. This exceptional work is required reading for anyone who has ever wondered if it is possible to ask hard questions of our faith and come to deeper and more satisfying conclusions.

Terry M. Crist, lead pastor, Hillsong Church

The church is facing a crisis of faith in our post-Christian world, and the options before us seem grim: to either demonize doubt or wear it as a badge of honor. A. J. Swoboda invites us to go deeper, to join him on the messy but ultimately healing journey to find God on the far side of our brokenness. Warm and confessional, bold and prophetic, heart-stirring and intellectually deep, After Doubt is a book for such a time as this.

Richard Beck, author of Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age

Many pastors, leaders, and parents wonder what to do as multitudes of younger Christians deconstruct their faith, often losing it in the process. A. J. Swoboda offers a blueprint for the spiritual journey of all those facing real doubt. He weaves faith and hard questions together in a delicate dance while sharing a profoundly personal account of his own journey. The result is an intimate and practical book thats sorely needed. If you care about the epidemic deconstruction of Christian faith among young people, I recommend you read this book.

Randy Remington, president, U.S. Foursquare Church

Not all those who wander are lostthat was written by Tolkien a couple of generations ago. Swoboda reframes this: Not all those who doubt are faithless. Our questions and doubts can lead to a deeper and richer walk with Jesus. Swoboda brings hope to the cynics, the disillusioned, and even the dones. So many disenchanted Christians have been yearning for a book to help point them back to Jesus. After Doubt is that book.

Nijay K. Gupta, Northern Seminary

A. J. has given a guide to one of the most necessary and scary processes Jesus asks his followers to walk through. Thoughtful and honest without pulling punches, A. J. leads you through this critical process like a good friend and a wise counselor. Every person who feels like they no longer fit comfortably inside their faith needs to read this book.

Rick McKinley, lead pastor, Imago Dei Community, Portland, Oregon

After Doubt is a timely bookan exploration of doubt and deconstruction, written winsomely by one within the faith and from the perspective of spiritual formation. As a campus pastor, a church planter, and now a professor, A. J. has helped people navigate the hardest issues of the faith. Yet what makes this book so valuable and unique is the attention it gives to how we are shaped by these experiences. After Doubt shows theres a way to reconstruct the faith and return to our first love that forms us into more faithful disciples of Jesus.

Keas Keasler, Friends University

Swoboda has quickly become one of the most thoughtful, interesting, and engaging Christian writers of our day. I really could have used this book fifteen years ago.

Preston Sprinkle, president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender

Swoboda claims that the community of faith has copious resources for the journey from doubt to faithbut far too few for the journey from faith to doubt and back to faith. I completely concur. Here Swoboda tells his twenty-year tale of walking with people along the paths of doubt and deconstruction and offers himself as a companion along the way.

Sandra Richter, Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies, Westmont College

In this elegant and profound book, A. J. Swoboda has taken on the monumental task of addressing the dark side of doubt and disillusionment. It addresses these problems not by solving them but by unmasking them. In the spirit and style of G. K. Chesterton, A. J. reveals how doubt is actually an act of faith, that doubt is based on a firm belief that there is something truer and better and more beautiful than what one has perceived Christianity, or the church, to be.

James Bryan Smith, author of The Good and Beautiful God