Christianity, at its best, is not a fortress of dogma but a pilgrimage of the spirit.
Its origin story is not one of certainty but of wonder: a young woman visited by an angel, a birth under stars followed by silence, teachings spoken in parables, and a death that did not end the story. The Christian tradition, rooted in mystery, paradox, and transformation, ought to inspire minds that are open, curious, seeking, and unafraid of complexity.
Yet too often, Christianity is associated with rigidity rather than receptivity—with an insistence on answers instead of a reverence for questions. This mischaracterisation betrays not only the intellectual richness of the tradition but also its moral and spiritual imperatives.
Faith does not require a closed mind.
In fact, faith thrives where curiosity lives and where epistemic humility—that is, the recognition of our limits in knowing—becomes a virtue rather than a threat.
Jesus of Nazareth did not model certainty as a posture. He asked more questions than he answered. The Gospels record over 300 questions Jesus posed.
“Who do you say that I am?”
“Why are you afraid?”
“Do you want to be healed?
All of these questions inviting listeners not into passive agreement but into transformative dialogue. His teachings, often cryptic and metaphorical, resist reduction. The Kingdom of God, he said, is like yeast, like a mustard seed, like a treasure hidden in a field. This is not the language of doctrinal rigidity; it is the language of poetic insight that draws people into deeper contemplation.
The early Christian communities, as depicted in Acts, wrestled openly with theological, ethical, and social questions. They argued, disagreed, and adapted. Paul’s own letters reflect a man willing to change his mind and nuance his views in light of lived experience and the evolving needs of the community. This kind of intellectual honesty is part of the DNA of the Christian movement.
In our time, however, the cultural perception of Christianity has too often been shaped by those who speak with unyielding certainty and who equate faith with inflexibility, or worse, mistake become extreme evangelical echo chambers of toxicity.
This posture not only alienates many outside the church but also stifles growth within it. A faith community that cannot question itself will eventually fossilise. And when belief becomes a shield against inquiry, it ceases to be faith and becomes ideology.
Christianity offers an alternative witness. It holds that belief and doubt are not enemies but companions on the journey. It affirms that theology, like science or philosophy, is an evolving human endeavour—always situated, always partial, always open to correction. Christians should not fear questions; they should welcome them as sacred opportunities for insight, refinement, and reorientation.
To embody curiosity is to imitate a Christ who never settled for surface answers, who disrupted certainty in order to awaken compassion, and who opened the eyes of the blind not only to physical sight but to moral vision. Curiosity, in the Christian context, is not frivolous. It is a form of love—an insistence that others and the world are worthy of our attention, that truth is always more than we currently grasp, and that God is not exhausted by our formulations.
Epistemic humility, likewise, is not weakness. It is the courage to admit we do not know everything, and that our perspective, no matter how deeply held, is provisional. This humility does not dilute conviction; it dignifies it. It allows us to speak with passion while listening with openness. It compels us to be learners before we are teachers, neighbors before we are evangelists, and human before we are right.
In a pluralistic and wounded world, the church’s credibility will rest not on its ability to win arguments but on its capacity to listen, to repent, to evolve, and to accompany others with empathy. Christians should be known not for shutting down conversation but for enriching it—not for defending their certainty but for embodying a deeper trust in a God who is bigger than our categories.
Such a posture requires spiritual discipline. It requires resisting the allure of easy answers and simplistic binaries. It means attending carefully to scripture while also engaging science, history, art, and lived experience as valid sources of insight. It calls for a willingness to be surprised by grace, to revise long-held assumptions, and to honor the dignity of those whose paths differ from our own.
When Christians lead with curiosity and humility, faith becomes a force for reconciliation rather than division. It becomes a space where doubts are not suppressed but explored, where diversity is not a threat but a gift, and where truth is pursued with both rigor and reverence.
The gospel does not need to be defended with closed fists. It needs to be lived with open hands, open minds, and open hearts. A faith rooted in love, as Paul reminded the Corinthians, “does not insist on its own way.”
Let this be the legacy of modern Christianity—not a tradition afraid of questions, but a people brave enough to ask them and humble enough to learn from the answers.
